"A suspenseful, explosive story of intense first love gone wrong, and twenty years spent wondering “what if things had been different?” "
The urgency and inexperience of first love, the unplanned paths lives take, the ache of “what if…?” wondering, and the smoulder of second chances, Charlotte Rixon’s The One That Got Away is a gripping, smartly plotted page-turner. At times dark, and always bristling with suspense, it’s rooted in relatable emotional experiences, with explosive events and decisions inviting “what would you have done?” questions.
Worlds apart in their backgrounds, Clara and Ben fall for each other in Newcastle as young adults, before being ripped apart by an earth-shattering event that sends them careering down different paths.
Twenty years on, as Clara is having doubts about her life choices (“I just feel sometimes like my life has gone off-track somewhere. That I’m living the wrong life. The wrong version of my life”), a bombing in Newcastle sends Clara back to the city to make sure Ben is safe. After two decades of occasional, tentative contact, and deep-rooted feelings of regret, the stage is set for a tense reunion, with the events of the past cleverly revealed through an edgy dual-character, dual-timeframe narrative.
| Primary Genre | Modern and Contemporary Fiction |
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