REVIEW: RONI LOREN ✮ THE ONES WHO GOT AWAY

THE ONES WHO GOT AWAY

The Ones Who Got Away #1

RONI LOREN

✮✮✮ 4 STARS ✮✮✮

Liv's words cut off as Finn got closer. The man approaching was nothing like the boy she'd known. The bulky football muscles had streamlined into a harder, leaner package and the look in his deep green eyes held no trace of boyish innocence.

It's been twelve years since tragedy struck the senior class of Long Acre High School. Only a few students survived that fateful night—a group the media dubbed The Ones Who Got Away.

Liv Arias thought she'd never return to Long Acre—until a documentary brings her and the other survivors back home. Suddenly her old flame, Finn Dorsey, is closer than ever, and their attraction is still white-hot. When a searing kiss reignites their passion, Liv realizes this rough-around-the-edges cop might be exactly what she needs...

Doesn't this blurb sound like a super angsty story? Yeah? Wanna know if it was? Read on!

I'll tell you right away, this is my first Roni Loren book, another one of those authors I have been meaning to read but never gotten around until The Who Got Away. It was the blurb that I found so intriguing that I wanted to jump in and give this author a chance. Not regretting it. Nope. So let me tell you a little bit about it.

Olivia is one of the survivors of a vicious attack against high school kids on their prom. Not all of the teenagers, who lived to tell the story, processed what happened completely and moved on. Both Liv and Finn live with hangups from that night that cripples their quality of life in some way, both of them fear something.

It’s like it’s all just sitting there, waiting to remind me how we can never really escape it. How the ones who got away never really get away.

Finn left a deep scar when his actions endangered Olivia, his then-girlfriend and dirty secret. When they meet again twelve years after the tragedy that changed all of their lives there is a little bit of resentment on Liv's behalf left.They work pretty fast through that which I appreciated.

Liv is a woman who forgot, who she used to be. With the help of her friends and Finn she ventures on a journey of re-discovering her own self under the armor she built around herself. She does so with courage and resilience, is genuine, funny and gives it to you straight. When she faced her fears, moved past them I felt pride for her. After all she'd been through she still had spunk left in her and it came out exactly at the right time. In the end Liv honored the victims of the tragedy and it was respectful, sweet and touching.

Finn...ah...what a wonderful man. He is sweet, sensual, through and through decent and so, so guilt-ridden. He left his hometown as a hero, having saved one of his friends during the shooting but he never felt like one. Now he is on a mission to rid the world of everything that's evil and of course he does at the expense of his own happiness and that of Liv. I thought he was a little bit I think he got a little too stuck in his guilt and towards the end I was a leeeettle peeved at him. Good thing he made it up to Olivia.

For the first time, it hit her that Finn was going through this, too.

The rekindling of their relationship is beautiful. They both think they don't have the capacity for more than a casual relationship but their connection is strong, intense and undeniable, the feelings they have for one another so obvious. A connection like that doesn't just break, no matter how much time passes, and Finn and Olivia never got over each other.

She’d been pretty in high school. Quirky cool. But now she was just flat-out beautiful. And successful. And hella smart. And off-fucking-limits.

Both of them have a playful side and lots of humor which contributed to this story being a lot less angsty than I thought it would be. As heart-breaking some parts are it's generally an uplifting story about friendship and healing.

Liv's friends, a group of women who formed a bond after the tragedy, are phenomenal. Especially Kincaid is best-friend-material. I hope Roni Loren writes a book about her. I was so on the fence about Rebecca in the beginning, I expected drama and ugly scenes but she turned out to be amazing, a wonderful friend to both Finn and Liv.

I see at least three more books in the future of this series. The Ones Who Got Away was a well-written, captivating introduction to this series and for me to Roni Loren's stories. I enjoyed it immensely, it had passion, romance, an intriguing story line and characters you cheer on and want to be friends with. I realized that Rebecca's story will be next and guess who's going to read that one? Yeah. That would be me!