Title: The One For You 

(The Ones Who Got Away #4)

Author: Roni Loren

Date of publication: 31 Dec 2019

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Author's links:

Website / Twitter / Facebook / Goodreads

My rating: 3 Stars

Blurb 

She got a second chance at life.

Will she take a second chance at love?

Kincaid Breslin wasn't supposed to survive that fateful night at Long Acre when so many died, including her boyfriend—but survive she did. She doesn't know why she got that chance, but now she takes life by the horns and doesn't let anybody stand in her way

Ashton Isaacs was her best friend when disaster struck all those years ago, but he chose to run as far away as he could. Now fate has brought him back to town, and Ash doesn't know how to cope with his feelings for Kincaid and his grief over their lost friendship. For Ash has been carrying secrets, and he knows that once Kincaid learns the truth, he'll lose any chance he might have had with the only woman he's ever loved.

Review

I have enjoyed the previous books in the series a lot and this was one of my most anticipated releases of 2019. Maybe because of the high standards set by the previous books and my own very high expectations, this story didn’t work quite well for me. I’m happy Kincaid got her HEA but little details here and there in the story bothered me and in the end made it just an Okay read for me.

Kincaid was awesome in the previous books and we see a lot  of that up-beat, no-regrets attitude of hers here. At the same time we see her vulnerability, the trauma she survived on top of a difficult childhood has left deep marks on her.

I liked Ash, I liked him as a teenager and as an adult. I understood why he left, I could relate to his insecurity and his pining for Kincaid. But and this is a big BUT, as the story developed I found his behaviour in the past more and more not-OK. He helped his friend but he essentially lied to Kincaid and it didn’t sit well with me. He kept too many secrets from her and this is not how one acts with their best friend / crush. 

One of the big issues for me in the story was the way Graham was made to be the bad guy. I found it disingenuous and unnecessary. He is not here to defend / explain his behaviour, the whole change from a loving, supporting relationship (it has been like that in the memories of Kincaid  for years) into a potentially abuse, controlling one came of the blue and I didn't buy it. Don't get me into the whole aspect of keeping it all a secret from his parents, even all those years later. I don't know what the right approach is for such a complicated situation but the one taken by the author bothered me and made me sad and unhappy. 

This story has a direct retelling of the shooting which was difficult for me to read and I feel it should been explicitly mentioned in the CWs of this book. 

On the plus side, I liked how Kincaid went after her dreams, even though she was scared and convinced she was making a mistake. I liked how Ash helped her and supported her. I didn’t like that she lost her job the way she did and it bothered me the message it sends how fragile one’s reputation is, how women get very real consequences of mis-judging men.

While I loved seeing the orther couples and catching up on their HEAs, the ending was a bit over the top for me. It gave closure to the whole series but all there was to much drama and one too many grand gestures. It's a dream-like, fantasy ending which is all nice and heart-warming but still I prefer the realness and sense of down-to-earth I got from the previous books. 

CW: school shooting, child abuse, domestic violence, panic attack