Clara and Benjamin meet and quickly become inseparable in college. After 2 years together, they are torn apart. 20 years later another tragedy strikes, Clara goes in search of the boy she’s never forgotten. But is it too late to make right what went wrong in their past?

•Dual POV
•Spanning Decades but not chronologically.

I’m not going to lie to you this one was a bit hard for me to get through. If I didn’t have the audio to pair with in, it would have taken me a really long time. I think one of my issues with it was Clara. She was totally unlikable through the whole book and is honestly pretty delulu most of the time. Benjamin wasn’t as bad but I also just didn’t see the chemistry between them.

This also is marketed as a second chance romance but it isn’t one. We are looking back at their past and figuring out what happened to tear them apart and then what happened after they were separated. I won’t give spoilers away about the ending but there isn’t time in the book dedicated to a second chance. Finally this book just had a lot going on. It needed a whole list of trigger warnings at the start because this was not the romantic read I expected and was actually pretty dark and sad (not in the fun way).

Anyways, it didn’t work for me but this might be up your alley and is available today!

Thank you @netgalley , @stmartinspress and @macmillan.audio for my advanced copies.

While this book may be someone else's cup of tea, it wasn't mine. The whole concept of the plot was great, but I just couldn't connect with the characters. It was a slow read and I wasn't a fan of the characters, so I ended up not finishing this one.

Charlotte Rixon's THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY is a poignant, moving story of two lovers, in their "together time" during university, the events that tore them apart, and the present day with stops along the way when they reached out to one another, the one that knew them better than anyone else in the world. While I appreciated the character of Benjamin, I never did warm up to Clara, hating her in the past and the present, laughing out loud when she is called out for being a self-absorbed idiot in a writing class. I muddled through simply because of Benjamin and his son, wanting to know how a terrorist bombing impacted their lives and what happens when Benjamin and Clara meet again all these long years apart. I would hope that anyone would safely tuck away that one that got away and allow the past to be the past if they have not changed with time, still want to be that single-note individual in their early 20s before real life began. What did ring true for me were elders (especially Benjamin's father George, the children, the friends such as Lauren around the principals. I received a copy of this book and these opinions are my own, unbiased thoughts.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect with this story. I was expecting your average second chance love story. This is not that...well, not exactly. I DO know that I was riveted and didn't put the book down unless I absolutely had to (work, sleep, and feed the hubby, lol). There was a lot going on in the story, and the timeline jumps back and forth, which is usually dizzying, but for some reason, it worked for this story. Neither main character is totally lovable IMO and I was frustrated with them more often than not, but the story was about more than just these two people. From the first few pages, you are left trying to figure out who was responsible, and when you do find out, all kinds of heartbreak ensued for me. Be aware that there are definitely some triggering events in the story, so proceed with caution.

What had the potential to be a great story about a long lost love rekindled very quickly morphed into a tragic tale of two people, Clara and Benjamin, who couldn’t seem to shake themselves out of their own internal tragedies. 

I tried. I tried so hard to like either of them. Instead I found myself almost frustrated with the two of them for separate reasons but also the same reason. They were infuriating. Yes it was young love but it truly felt like they barely liked each other, and now you expect me to believe that their love has stayed as strong as it (barely) was when they were in first year uni? I just wasn’t sold. 

On top of that I wasn’t entirely keen on the time frame. The whole time we were given little nuggets of what ended up separating them in their final days of school, but I truthfully was over it at that point and was shocked that they stayed so complacent the whole time until then. The best way to describe what I felt about their relationship was that they were together because it was easier than separating; both putting the other on an unnecessary pedestal.

On top of the jumps back and forth in the timeline, we get a whole separate story of a bombing that somehow becomes the catalyst to bring them back together in a completely unhinged move on Clara’s part.

Clearly this was not the book for me. I was hoping for what the story was named after … “the One that got away” … and instead I was just wanting them to give their head a shake and get out of the past. 

This was similar to Normal People, so if you liked that and you’re ok with reading about a bombing tragedy, accidental manslaughter, and SA, then maybe this will be the book for you! Unfortunately it was not the one for me. 

2 ⭐️

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martins Press for this e-ARC!

As soon as I read the synopsis for this novel, I immediately knew that I had to read it. It promised a bit of everything that I enjoy in a good story, but what I ended up getting was so much more than I had ever hoped for.

The One That Got Away takes the reader over the course of a couple of decades in Clara and Ben’s lives. We get to see how they met in university, how their relationship developed, and all of the highs, lows, intensity, and drama that comes with young love. We also get to witness how they have lived their lives since university and how they had each moved on. The one thing that didn’t change was their love for one another. Despite all that had transpired between them, the choices, poor decisions, the years that had passed by, the changes in their lives, they still felt the love.

There was nothing easy about Clara and Ben’s story. Nothing at all. This story hurt. But I am a reader who is always drawn to the stories that aren’t the easiest. I want the real feelings that come with relationships: the heartache, the complications, the intense feelings. Charlotte Rixon has written a book that makes a reader feel. This book put my emotions through the wringer.

As soon as I began reading The One That Got Away, I knew that I was in for an all-consuming reading experience. It grabbed me right from the first couple of pages and kept me glued to the pages, wanting to discover what exactly had happened and what was going to become of the characters.

If you’re expecting a swoony, mushy love story, you won’t find it here. If you’re looking for a messy, intense, somewhat dark story with some difficult subject matter that will make you feel a gamut of emotions, this is the book that you’ve been waiting for.

The One That Got Away will definitely be on my list of favorite books of 2023. I am looking forward to reading more books by Charlotte Rixon in the near future.

*5 Stars

What a stunning love story! Not your typical second chance romance at all. I went into this thinking this is what this was going to be about but I was wrong! There was so much more in depth to the why behind it all that it has you guessing how it'll all end. I loved the dual POVs and it brought me back to my own "one that got away"...read this!

3.5 rounded up!

Before I start my review, this is marketed as a romance and it is not a romance. I’ve noticed this more and more for books being marketed incorrectly, but it’s more contemporary fiction! Sure, there’s romance involved, but we all know what it means to be a romance.

OKAY! On to the book. This is very much THE LIGHT ME LOST mixed with bits of ADELAIDE. If you enjoyed those books, I bet you’ll like this one. I didn’t really like the books I mentioned, but I liked THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY a tad bit more.

The characters experience A LOT in this book. I’ll list the content warnings below, but please take care of yourself if you plan to read it. While there’s a lot of realities in this story, the amount the characters go through make it a tad far fetched. In a way, it was sort of trauma jambalaya.

From a writing perspective, we learn both Benjamin and Clara’s POV, jumping between present day and back when they were at university together. It felt a little choppy at times, but I think the format helped build to shape the characters to truly understand them.

The more I think about it, the more I tell myself I liked it.

This is available Tuesday, August 15! Big thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for this ARC.

Content warnings: death, terrorism, bombing, child abuse, sexual assault, infertility, infidelity

This was a very beautiful and very complex story! It was also very emotional. I honestly couldn’t put the book down. I was hooked right from the very first chapter. I stayed up all night to read this book. I 100% recommend reading it!!

3.5, rounded up. This was a complex and really emotional story about first love and connection, and about the choices we make. The story has a tension to it in both the past and present sections- something terrible once happened to tear the main characters apart but readers don't know the details until sometime late in the book, and there is a horrific tragedy right at the beginning that might be bringing them back into each other's orbit. It covers a lot of ground and therefore is a bit long, but it was a story overall well told.

4.5 stars for this brilliant debut! This book gutted me. It's a sweeping love story but I definitely would not call this a romance. Clara and Benjamin were together for 2 years before an irrevocable event tore them apart. They've been apart for 20 years but there has always been a niggling "what if" in the back of both their minds.
When a bombing is reported in the city where they met, Clara drops everything in search of Benjamin, hoping to change the ending to their story.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this beautiful e-arc.*

Ben and Clara met in college and dated for a few years. They have a deep connection but like a lot of relationships it didn't work out. 20 years later a bomb goes off in a stadium that she thinks Ben is at. Clara decides to go find him in the chaos of it all.
Told over two decades in dual point of view we see how their relationship unfolds and the years following it while they both try and get over their first love.
This book isn't a typical second chance romance. It is intense and emotional with lots of triggers (suggest to look them up before reading if you are sensitive). The book is thought provoking and leaves you to make your own conclusions. I'm glad I picked this one up.
Thank you to Charlotte Rixon, St Martin's Press and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This opens with a bombing at a stadium in 2022 and zooms back in time to when Clara and Benjamin met at university in 2002 to explain why she feels compelled to take a three hour train trip to find him after she hears about it. Told by the two of them in a variety of time lines, it's the story of their relationship and lives. The cover and the blurb suggest it's a second chance romance but it's not. These two parted for a reason (no spoilers) and built separate lives, going through a range of challenges. The one constant is that they keep each other in their heads. This is less emotional than I expected it to be and the characters, to be honest, less engaging. That said, Rixon kept me reading to find out whether Benjamin was ok and the identity of the bomber, Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A good read.

If you're going into this expecting a second chance romance, this is not what this is at all. Rather, it's about a young relationship that ends after a tragedy and how these two people deal with the fall-out in their lives for the next twenty years. It deals with a number of heavy topics, so I would recommend checking out content warnings beforehand, although most of it's just mentioned in passing and doesn't go into graphic detail or anything.

I wasn't really feeling Clara and Benjamin's relationship that much, and I don't buy that either of them would have been pining for twenty years. It felt like your average young relationship where things feel more intense than they actually are. I also found Clara to be a pretty annoying character overall.

Overall, didn't love this, but also didn't hate it. I think if you go into it without expectations of it being this great love story and more just about two people's lives, it's a lot more enjoyable.

Read if you like:
🇬🇧 UK Settings
🥈 Second Chance Romances
💣 Catalysts for getting back together

This one was such a deeply emotional read and the book started out with a bang, literally.

I loved how the flashbacks worked with the current pov as Clara wants to go find Ben in the midst of a terrorist attack. This definitely created high stakes, tension, and gut wrenching vibes as you are hoping for the best but prepared for the worst.

This story has a lot of dark themes and you are guaranteed to cry by the end so be warned but also enjoy!

Thank you to the publisher for my ARC in exchange for my review!

Not for me, didn't enjoy the style of writing. I got a few chapters in and it just was not holding my attention as I hoped.

Romance? Chick-lit? IMO, this book is marketed all wrong. I was thinking like Carley Fortune’s Every Summer After or TJR’s Maybe In Another Life, but this book was pretty traumatizing. TW for cheating, alcoholism, sexual assault, child sexual abuse, loss of a parent!
This is not romance- this is a toxic college relationship with time jumps from 20yrs ago to present day in the wake of a terrifying b*mbing. The college chapters were kind of reminiscent of Carola Loverling’s Tell Me Lies, a book I really like because I can totally relate to the toxicity & miscommunications of a young romance and I don’t mind reading it, because the accuracy is real when you’re young, irrational, and “in love.” But, again, this book is marketed as much more lighthearted than it actually is and I was not prepared for the dark depth. I felt so sad and heavy for basically all of this and didn’t want to keep reading, but I hate to DNF an advanced copy to review.
All that said, I’d recommend this to fans of general fiction focusing of tough topics, heartbreaking & ugly second chance stories, books set in England, dual timelines with a collegiate focus. It’s well-written, honestly, even when privileged Clara is infuriating and Benjamin is so innocently sweet, and it is a very REAL book, but definitely go into it with eyes wide open.

I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it. It just kind of … was.

I think a lot of it was very relatable when you look back at your first love and all of the embarrassing, cringey ways you probably acted. But I struggled with the connection between the two main characters, I understood it, I just didn’t feel it. It just seemed doomed from day one.

But then again, what first relationship of our youth doesn’t seem doomed from day one?! The story kept me interested enough, I’m just not as in love with it as I thought I might have been.

Have you ever wondered "what if" a breakup in your early years hadn't occurred? Or what happened to so-and-so from your past?

Well, in this book, Charolette Rixon does an absolutely fantastic job of weaving together the story of Benjamin and Clara who met in college in 2000 and date for a couple years and then break up. And 20 years later an event brings their worlds and relationship to the crosshairs again.

The book does deal with heavy topics (cancer, IVF, alcoholism, etc) and not only Ben and Clara's relationship dynamics. However, these topics were interwoven in the book in a very well written, well researched and respectful manner. Reminded me a bit of Jodi Picoult's writing on heavy topics with finesse and grace, yet gets a reader to think about topics they may not have thought about previously.

Would definitely recommend this book, since it takes a different spin on the typical romance trope. And put a unique spin on the second chance romance trope also!

I don’t think Ben and Clara were a good match. Their personalities were far too different and Clara had overriding anxiety that nothing seemed to abate.
I was surprised to identify with Clara in certain things she thought about her marriage and her husband.
I was surprised at the big reveal that had severed their relationship.
This novel proves that no matter how much one tries to force something, if it won’t work, it just will not work.