When Clara and Ben met during their first year at university, they both became quickly enamored with each other, convinced that they were each other's person. The problem is, they both had a lot of growing up to do, especially Clara, who let her fears and insecurities put unreasonable demands on Ben's time and attention.

Perhaps if they had met five or ten years later, things would have gone better for them. But as it is, Clara's need to control everything and to be the center of Ben's world leads to a tragic situation that tears them apart.

Twenty years later, another tragic situation leads them to cross paths with each other again. The question is, can they overcome all the pain of their past or will they say goodbye to each other forever?

I found it hard to put this book down! I kept coming back to it at random times of the day, just to get a few more pages in. I did find it a bit challenging at times to keep up with all the jumping around in time, but overall, the story was very effective, and despite Clara's need to grow up, I found myself rooting for them as a couple, hoping for a happily ever after for them. Who among us doesn't have regrets about the past? The things we did when we were still too young to really know any better? A story like this gives hope for second chances.

Thank you to Charlotte Rixon, Aria and Aries, and NetGalley for an advance review copy.

This was a beautifully written story about a second chance at connection and the impacts of missed opportunities, Do we ever truly move on from the one that got away?

Trigger warnings include concepts such as acts of terrorism, sexual abuse and infertility.

All the characters were quite relatable, making it easy to understand their POVs and feel for them through out the many highs and lows they each faced through out the story. I do feel there were certain parts which could have been elaborated on a little further to add even more depth and dimension to an otherwise engaging and heartwarming tale of a what might have been romance.

I will also add that this story is more of a drama and I found it could have done with little more intrigue and suspense in parts, I did however also throughly enjoy the jumps between timelines and how it all came together in the end in a way reflective of real life!

Overall it was a sweet story which I rated a 3.5 stars , rounded up to 4 as it was well written enough with likeable characters and me engaged until the end,

Thanks NetGalley & Bloomsbury Publishing for an ARC in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

A poignant read.

This story follows the love story of Clara and Benjamin who after many tragedies find each other again. Clara and Benjamin are complete opposites and come from completely opposite backgrounds however this does nothing to stop them coming back together.

This was a very long book which I ordinary would have given up on but just couldn’t put down. The characters feel real and are relatable. The story lines are ones that course through all of our lives.

A worthwhile wonderful read.

Please make sure to read trigger warnings before reading this.
I usually pick books from covers and if I had this one I would have just assumed was a romance.
It is so much more than that. It talks about real issues and hard issues.
This is a second chance romance, told in a dual POV through multiple time lines.
It is so wonderfully written that I couldn't put it down. It broke my heart, it made me happy, it made me sad and it made me utterly disturbed.
Clara and Benjamin have the most toxic relationship but I feel is not unrealistic for some in young love.
Although this was more of a depressing book, I appreciated the honesty in it and the way Rixon addressed issues and I actually enjoyed it quite a lot.
Thank you to NetGalley and Aria & Aries for the ARC eBook in exchange for my honest review.

Clara and Benjamin have a chance meeting at a night club during their college years. What feels like a “meant to be” relationship takes a tragic turn and forces them apart. As their love story unfolds, and the years since they’ve been together tick away, a tragedy brings up old feelings and they find themselves reflecting on what could have been. Following several time jumps, and back and forth, the story unwinds and secrets come out as Clara and Benjamin’s love story goes back and forth through college and adulthood.

Honestly, I am trying to decide what to say about this novel besides it is one of the most depressing books I have ever read. The main characters, Clara and Benjamin, have too many problems to enumerate. This young love is fraught with persona; problems and there just does not seem to be any depth to it. The best part of the book is the ending.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This book has moving timelines and jumps back and forth. This added to the suspense and made me want to keep reading as I needed to know what happened. I really enjoyed this book.

In the present day, Clara, a journalist hears about a bombing at a Newcastle football stadium, this takes her back to 20 years ago when she met Benjamin at university in the city. The novel moves backwards and forwards between the two time periods and the intervening years and we discover how they met and ultimately what separated them 20 years ago.
The One That Got Away is beautifully written, it's an emotional and compelling read which covers serious issues which I felt the author approached with sensitivity, and it never felt that these issues were being forced into the plot.
The author has a real skill of empathically showing how we come to relationships in our teens and 20s with many of our own issues, traumas, hopes and fears. I felt that I could relate to the anxieties of both the younger Clara and Benjamin, and this helped me to have compassion for my younger self.
This is not a traditional rom com, it's an emotional read but ultimately hopeful and uplifting.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this digital ARC.
4.5 stars.

This was a really good book. My thoughts are included in the attached link to my goodreads. Dual timelines can be hit or miss, and this was a hit. it worked so well

This ARC was provided to me via Kindle, from Aria & Aries and #NetGalley. Thank you for the opportunity to preview and review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

Twenty years after you lose the love of your life and you still lol for them.

I never found myself rooting for Clara and Benjamin to get together. Their romance felt forced, and the chemistry between them was lacking.

As well as this, there's quite a lot happening in the book. It almost feels like an Issues Book.

It just wasn't for me.

The characters that the author describe can be your friend, a family member or even yourself. You can identify with her or with him.
Sometimes I felt that I was going too fast because of how things went by, but maybe the writer wanted us to feel how quickly time passes

What a beautiful book! The story was so well written and the characters seem so real! It was so exciting and I was desperate to read more at the end of every page. I really enjoyed the different POVs and timelines and how they added so well to this amazing book! I was so intrigued for the plot twist and it was absolutely incredible! Can’t recommend this book enough! I loved every second of it!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me a copy of this book to review. My opinions are my own.

Trigger warnings include: suicide bombing, child abuse, anxiety, infertility, manslaughter, death of a elderly parent and a parent walking out on their young son.

I thought this book was going to be a straight forward second chance romance but it was very heavy. Clara and Benjamin weren't very likeable and I felt that their relationship was a disaster and they should have moved on from it years ago. It took too long to reveal why they originally split up and by then I did not care about any of the characters.

Clara and Benjamin come from very different worlds,yet find themselves enmeshed in a tragic love story. We follow them through college in this dual timeline which also sees them 20 years on in their very different but similarly unhappy lives. Thought-provoking and with heavy topics weaved throughout, I found this an intense but enjoyable read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Aria & Aries for providing an arc. The One That Got Away is available on February 2, 2023.

This book was everything I wanted it to be. It had me turned pages without even realizing. It was so good!

I'm going to start this review off by saying that I had to force myself to finish this book. If it wasn't an ARC I would've stopped at around 20%.

Going into this, this is what I understood of the plot:
- a guy and a girl meet in uni, fall in love
- something happens, and they don't talk for years
- fast forward, they rekindle and happy ending for them

There are heavy topics thrown in (solely for impact imo). TW: alcoholism, assault, self-harm, terminal illness, child sexual abuse, sexual assault, death of a parent, infertility and cheating. As I said before, it sounded like a light-hearted story, but boy was I surprised when she out of nowhere describe in detail how she'd self-harm. Also, the ending is random and I hate open endings.

The story spans 20 odd years of the main characters' lives, but they meet when they are 18/19. Everything Benjamin did, Clara overthought to the extreme. All the problems the two had were because of her. Any one of them, you can trace back to her.

Benjamin, although sometimes badly, tried his best to communicate. She always assumer the worst. Benjamin deserves better. She's selfish, rude, dumb, whiney, irrational, and impulsive... I could go on. And even in her 40s, she has not matured.

For a book advertised as a romance, there was literally none to be found. The main characters had no chemistry, they kept saying they were soulmates, but they just felt like dumb naive teenagers in their first relationship.

Overall, not for me, at all. If you enjoy books spanning a large portion of the characters lives and an open ending, this might be for you.

I loved this book, I often think that writing in two different timelines in the same book must be difficult but this book does it fantastically well, it is so well written and I didn't want to stop reading because I wanted to know what happened! A book I will definitely be recommending, it is brilliant.

The One That Got Away is a bit of a miss for me. I liked the dual timeline, but I guess I didn’t read the trigger warnings well enough. I was expecting a light, fun romance based off the description and the cover, and this book was much darker. It just wasn’t for me!

What a compelling book!

I loved the dual timeline and also the dual narrative. It really played into those misunderstandings and miscommunications of first love. The needy feelings and anxious worry of wondering if the other person feels the same way. Embarrassingly hard relate to that!

A rich, dark exploration into first and enduring love and the consequences of the choices we make.
A cracking page turner too!

Thank you to NetGalley, Aria and to Charlotte Rixon for the opportunity to read this advanced copy.