The One For You is here!

Hey y’all, good news! The final book of the new editions of The Ones Who Got Away series is out today! Kincaid and Ash are ready to break your heart and then put it back together again. 😊

About The One For You

Twelve years ago, tragedy struck a sleepy Texas town. Only a small number of those impacted survived―a group the media dubbed The Ones Who Got Away. This is their story.

HER SECOND CHANCE AT LIFE: After spending years struggling to move on, Kincaid Breslin has put all of her energy into making life full and interesting. She may have lost her soulmate, but she doesn't have to let that young tragedy shape who she is now...or continue to complicate her relationship with former best friend turned near-stranger, Ash.

HIS CHANCE TO MAKE THINGS RIGHT: Ashton Isaacs has spent his life running―from his past, from the best friend he's always secretly loved, and from the truth of how he failed her when she needed him most. Now, over a decade later, it's time to stop running and finally face the girl his heart never forgot.

But Kincaid doesn't know about everything that happened that night. She doesn't know what he did, or why Ash is so certain she'll never be able to forgive him. All she knows is that she's missed having him in her life, and she's willing to fight―for them, for the kids they used to be, and for this one final chance to let the past go forever. With Ash, her heart may finally be ready to heal…or shatter completely once and for all.

By turns heart-wrenching and deeply romantic, this award-winning spicy contemporary romance will challenge the way you see life, love, and happily ever after.

Buy the book: Bookshop.org | Amazon | B&N | iBooks | Google Play

Audiobook: Libro.fm | Audible

READ CHAPTER ONE HERE

I love that all four of these have gotten such gorgeous new covers and are now available in trade paperback size. (I also loved the old covers even though they were very different, but I know lots of you don’t love the smaller mass-market-sized books.)

And if you’re new to these stories, welcome!

If you collect all four, they do make a very pretty complete picture. :) But you don’t have to start at the beginning if you don’t want to. Each book is about a different couple and can stand alone.

Also, if you’ve already read these, I’d love help spreading the word! Please share with your readerly friends and you’ll get my undying appreciation.

Happy reading!

Roni

The new edition of The One You Fight For is here! (+ shameless dog pics)

Leonard has a mission for you today. He would like you to buy the beautiful new edition of The One You Fight For to add to your shelves so that Mom will stop taking weird photos of him with something he can’t eat.

This is the third book in the series but can be read as a standalone, so feel free to jump in wherever!

About the book

Twelve years ago, tragedy struck a sleepy Texas town. Only a small number of those impacted survived―a group the media dubbed The Ones Who Got Away. This is their story.

NEVER ADMIT THE TRUTH: Taryn Landry was there that awful night Long Acre changed from the name of a town to the title of a national tragedy. Everyone knows she lost her younger sister. No one knows it was all her fault―or the guilt she carries with her every day.

NEVER LOOK BACK: As the older brother of the troubled shooter, Shaw Miller has spent more than a decade dealing with the fallout. After losing everything―his chance at Olympic gold, his family, almost his sanity―he's changed his name, his look, and he's finally starting a new life free from the shadow of the horrible thing his brother did.

Shaw and Taryn weren't meant to meet each other. They weren't meant to fall in love. Now they're left grappling with undeniable feelings, both of them wondering: When the world defines you by a tragedy, how do you defy the odds to build your own happy ending?

By turns heart-wrenching and deeply romantic, this award-winning spicy contemporary romance will challenge the way you see life, love, and happily ever after.

Readers are raving about this white-hot, deeply emotional survival romance:

"Phenomenal. Gets my highest recommendation!"―LORELEI JAMES, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author

"Unforgettable… Roni Loren at her best!"―KRISTEN CALLIHAN, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author

"Unique, swoony, and lively. The Ones Who Got Away is the best kind of second-chance romance!"―SARINA BOWEN, USA Today bestselling author

"The Ones Who Got Away is EXACTLY what I love in romance; angsty, hot, conflicted, funny! Roni Loren delivers on all of it! Don't let this book get away!"―M. O'KEEFE, USA Today bestselling author

Can I eatz this?

A few things to know about this edition…

• All four books are (or will be) reissued and the four book covers together form one complete (super pretty!) design. You can see all of them here!

• I’m donating a portion of my earnings from this version to Sandy Hook Promise, an organization that does a number of in-school programs like Start With Hello and Say Something that I think are really fantastic.

• This is the first time this book has been available in the larger, trade paperback size, so make sure if you purchase, you choose that size and not the smaller mass market size (because mass market will have the older cover—unless you want the older cover because it’s great too!) Ebook covers should be the new one.

Buy the book:  Bookshop.org | Amazon | B&N | iBooks | Kobo | Indiebound | Books-A-Million | Google Play

Also available in audiobook: Libro.fm | Recorded Books | Audible

Cannot eatz. Zero stars on Yelp.

If you’ve already read this story, thank you! I’d love it if you could help me spread the word on social media or by leaving a review! I appreciate you so much!

Thanks, everyone! I hope you enjoy Taryn’s and Shaw’s story!

Look what was in my mailbox!

The new covers are even more gorgeous in person! And I LOVE how they are all going to connect to make one complete picture.

The Ones Who Got Away is already available and The One You Can’t Forget will be here this August and is available for pre-order! (just make sure you select the paperback size not the “mass market” paperback)

About The Ones Who Got Away:

"Absolutely unputdownable! Roni Loren is a new favorite."―COLLEEN HOOVER for The One You Can't Forget

Twelve years ago, tragedy struck a sleepy Texas town. Only a small number of those impacted survived―a group the media dubbed The Ones Who Got Away. This is their story.

THAT NIGHT: He was the star athlete. She was the sharp-tongued Goth girl who never failed to get under his skin. They were never meant to be together, and one terrible night was enough to tear them apart.

NOW: Liv Arias is ready to put the past behind her and move on from the trauma that shaped her young life. But when she runs into her former flame, Finn Dorsey, closure seems harder than ever. Finn almost got Liv killed all those years ago, and their relationship ended in a bitter rift. But when their attempt to say a final goodbye turns into a passionate kiss, Liv and Finn realize that the spark between them still burns as hot as ever.

Theirs was never supposed to be more than a fling, but as Liv and Finn sort through the pain of broken trust and slowly mending hearts, they may come to realize there's something buried deep that's worth fighting for.

By turns heart-wrenching and deeply romantic, this award-winning spicy contemporary romance will challenge the way you see life, love, and happily ever after.

---

About The One You Can’t Forget:

Twelve years ago, tragedy struck a sleepy Texas town. Only a small number of those impacted survived―a group the media dubbed The Ones Who Got Away. This is their story.

HER SECRET SHAME: The world knows Rebecca Lindt as a survivor, but that impression would crumble if people discovered her secret…and realized 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.

HIS UNCERTAIN FUTURE: 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 a hell of a lot more 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 the one thing they never realized they needed: each other.

The Fun of Finding New-to-You Music

Music has always been a big part of my life. I don’t play an instrument like my husband or kiddo, but I’ve always been a big fan. This love was planted early by my mom. She taught aerobics in the 80s as her second job, and I can remember sitting with her and her stack of 45s (records), trying to find just the right songs for her routines.

As I developed my own taste, I shifted into listening to my favorite radio stations, painstakingly waiting for my favorite songs to come on so I could hit Record, and making mixtapes for my Walkman. (Yes, kids, this is how we had to do it, lol.) Eventually, technology advanced and I moved to filling up fat CD binders that I could organize and lovingly flip through. I still have two of those binders even though I have no CD player. I can’t seem to part with them.

Of course, now we have streaming and almost every song we could want at our fingertips, but I find that having the ability to make endless personalized playlists means I’m not exposed as much to music I don’t already know. And I don’t necessarily mean “new” songs but “new to me” songs. I end up making playlists of my favorite songs and listening on repeat (and my master playlist is 80 hours long, so I don’t even have to repeat every often.)

But the fun of discovery and hearing a new song on the radio is lost. This is a bummer in general but also, it’s been shown that listening to music, particularly new-to-us music, is really good for our brains. In addition, I find music really inspiring for my writing. There are some songs that the first time I hear them, I think “I could write a story from that.” Music hits me in a different place than other types of inspiration.

So, I’ve started to make an effort to find new-to-me music. How? Here are some fun ways I’ve found:

1. Watching music competition shows like The Voice and American Idol

   I’ve always loved these types of shows, so that’s nothing new. However, I’ve realized that these shows have been a solid source of new music discoveries for me too. The first time I heard one of my (now) very favorite songs, Sara Bareilles’ “She Used to Be Mine”, was on one of these shows.

2. Books About Music

   There’s a book for everything, right? A few years ago I bought 1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die and 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die for the kidlet (who loves music and plays guitar and drums.) Even though he’s 16 now, we still read an entry from one of these together each night. Digging into why a song or album is important makes you want to go and listen to them. And from that article I linked to above, I discovered someone actually created a Random Album Generator based on the book, so you can play with that even if you don’t have the book!

3. Best of Lists

   This is similar to the books but easier to get your hands on. Right now I’m working my way through Rolling Stones’ 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list. I’m working backward and am at number 489 (listening to that as I type this in fact!). But this has been such a fun exercise so far. I listen to each album from start to finish, not on shuffle, listening to it as it was intended since songs were put in a certain order for a reason. (I’ve blogged before about The Joy of Listening to an Album All the Way Through.)

   And because I’m sticking to the order of the list, I get quite a variety, going from Shakira to Boys II Men to The Ronettes. My brain is definitely getting some exercise! (Although, let’s be honest, I knew every song on that Boys II Men album by heart, lol. Not all of these are new-to-me.)

There are of course other ways to find new music. Going to concerts and getting there in time for the opening bands, asking friends for recs, listening to a radio station, letting the Spotify algorithms guide you, etc. But the ones above have been the most convenient and enjoyable for me.

It doesn’t really matter how you get there, but if you want to change things up from the same old same old of your tried-and-true playlists, maybe give some of these options a shot.

I’d love to hear if you ever search out new music or how you find new things to listen to. Give me your own tips. Or share the best new-to-you song you’ve discovered lately!

My Nerdy Post About My Reading Stats for Last Year

It’s that time of year. Tax time. Ugh. It’s definitely not my favorite thing to do, but one of the only interesting parts of the process for me is looking at my bookish stats.

As an author, I get to claim the books I buy as a business expense because part of the job of being an author is reading what is being published and knowing the market. So each year, I put together a spreadsheet with every book I’ve purchased. Then, just for my own curiosity, I divide them by format (print, ebook, audiobook, subscription book club, etc.) and highlight the ones I’ve read.

This gives me some valuable (and often enlightening) information. The first bit of information is consistent year to year—holy crap, how did I buy so many books?

What can I say? I don’t have a lot of vices, but acquiring books is definitely one of them. I’m not murdering people or selling drugs, so I guess as far as vices go, it’s okay.

But the other thing gathering this information gives me is insight into my reading habits and how they change (or don’t.) Over the years, I can see genre shifts for sure. And now format shifts are what’s sticking out. I’ve shifted much more into print reading and audiobook listening than e-reading in the last few years.

When I looked at the stats of what I bought in 2023 and which ones I actually read, here’s how it broke down. (I’m leaving audiobooks out because most of my audiobooks were library listens or Libro.fm early copies and so I didn’t purchase a lot of them. But 31% of my overall reading in 2023 was on audiobook.)

Purchased in 2023:

37% ebooks

62% print books

But here’s the more telling stat…

I read 25% of the print books purchased but only 8% of the ebooks. Ouch.

So, I’m still buying a good number of ebooks (mostly on sales/daily deals) but I’m not actually reading many of them. (At least not the ones I purchased. I’m still reading ebooks from the library if that’s the only format available.)

This probably means I need to stop getting lured in by the sales. I’m stocking up my Kindle, but then those books get lost and languish on my TBR. Ebooks are so much more out-of-sight-out-of-mind than things on my physical shelves. Even though I keep everything in Goodreads, when I’m searching for what to read next, I go to my physical shelves first.

I also think I just enjoy the act of reading a physical book more these days. This might be because we’re on screens all day now and my Kindle feels like more of the same. When I read, I want it to feel like a different activity from everything else. Plus, I like seeing the progress of making my way through a book—moving my bookmark, getting a view of how much is left, etc.

So based on this info, I’m setting a goal to be more discerning about which ebooks I snap up. I also want to put more focus on reading the books I already own (in all formats) because there are A LOT, y’all. My TBR is ludicrously long.

I’ve set this goal before without much success, but I haven’t given up hope! :) I have a few new things I’m going to try. We shall see.

So how about you?

Have you found that your reading has changed over the last few years? Do you have a preferred format? Has anything shifted in your reading tastes? I’d love to know!