Review: The One You Can't Forget by Roni Loren

The One You Can't Forget by Roni Loren

Genres: Contemporary Romance

Release Date: June 5, 2018

Format: eARC

Source: Sourcebooks and Edelweiss

Find it here: GoodReads

Most days Rebecca Lindt feels like an imposter...

The world admires her as a survivor. But that impression would crumble if people knew her secret. She didn't deserve to be the one who got away. But nothing can change the past, so she's thrown herself into her work. She can't dwell if she never slows down.

Wes Garrett is trying to get back on his feet after losing his dream restaurant, his money, and half his damn mind in a vicious divorce. But when he intervenes in a mugging and saves Rebecca―the attorney who helped his ex ruin him―his simple life gets complicated.

Their attraction is inconvenient and neither wants more than a fling. But when Rebecca's secret is put at risk, both discover they could lose everything, including what they never realized they needed: each other.

Rebecca works hard – both at her job and at putting up a façade. She appears to be a woman who has it all together and is in total control. In reality, Rebecca is still gripped by horror of a school shooting twelve years ago.

At work, she was the aggressive, confident lawyer. To her father’s friends, she was the studious, obedient daughter. To her friends, she was the practical, unemotional one. She was all those things and none of them, but those masks gave her a comfortable place to settle, a role she knew how to play.

Wes is a man who hit the bottom and is on the road to redemption. A talented chef who lost his restaurant in a bitter divorce, he’s now teaching an after-school cooking class for at-risk teens. Now sober, Wes is concentrating on starting over and rebuilding his life. A life that does not include the divorce attorney who helped strip him of all that he’d worked for.

Outwardly, Rebecca and Wes had nothing in common. But from a chance meeting, to a no-strings-attached affair, to a relationship that neither of them was looking for, I loved seeing these two characters come together. I appreciated how they slowly began to count on one another, become ingrained in each other’s lives, and provide the support and acceptance that they both needed so badly.

She hadn’t expected all the other sides to him. The mentor who had endless patience for troubled kids. The friend who held her after a panic attack and didn’t interrogate her about it. And the man who hadn’t been scared to tell her how he was feeling about what was going on between them.

In addition to Wes and Rebecca’s stories, there is a sub-plot concerning one of Wes’s students that took me by surprise and added such an emotional punch.

This second book in Loren’s latest series can be read as a stand-alone, but I highly recommend also reading The Ones Who Got Away. You don’t want to miss any part of this outstanding series. 

4/5 STARS

Note: I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. This is no way changes my opinion of the book or the content of this review.