The Truest Thing
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Hart’s Boardwalk #4
Author: Samantha Young
Release Date: August 18, 2020
Nine years ago, Emery Saunders moved to Hartwell to start her life over as a bookstore owner. Her inability to trust people made it hard for her to find a place in the small community until Jessica Lawson moved to town and befriended the shy beauty.
But there was one person in Hartwell who tried to befriend Emery long before Jessica arrived…Jack Devlin has his secrets. One of them is that he fell hard for Emery the moment she appeared in Hartwell. Another is that his father blackmailed him into covering up a dark family tragedy. It forced Jack to sever his relationships to protect the people he cared about. Yet, staying away from Emery has not been easy throughout the years and he hasn’t always succeeded. When Jack’s mixed signals hurt Emery once again, she puts him out of her heart for good.
Until the Devlin family secret is finally revealed, freeing Jack from his father’s machinations. What Jack wants more than anything is to repair his relationships, starting with Emery.However, Emery isn’t ready to forgive and Jack’s not ready to give up.
And when the town’s latest scandal ties Jack and Emery together, Jack is not above using their new reality to prove to Emery once and for all that their love is worthy of the legend of Hart’s Boardwalk.
She was pure temptation. He couldn’t have her. But, fuck, did he want her.
I adore all things Samantha Young and I’ve absolutely adored her Hart’s Boardwalk series. But while I did ultimately enjoy this one, it certainly wasn’t my favorite in the series.
Jack and Emery’s story is not an easy one. It spans years and is riddled with dark secrets, betrayal, and pain. Emery was a character I wasn’t sure that I’d love at first. She’s painfully shy, timid, and blushes with a stiff wind. But there’s just something about her that you can’t help but click with. She’s a very complex character with so many layers that get peeled back with each new chapter.
The second she sets foot in the small town and locks eyes with Jack, they have an indescribable connection. She’s a young girl with plenty of secrets who struggles to make connections but with more years that she spends in the charming small town, the more that changes. She makes friends. She forms strong connection with the town and the people. But her connection with Jack only gets more and more complicated.
Jack is a tortured characters with some dark secrets in his past and some debilitating demons in his present. And while I liked him at first, that connection began to wane as the story progressed. While I understood (somewhat) the reasons for some of the decisions he made, I also hated them. I hated them so much that I had a hard time moving past them and struggled with how Emery could. Even though Emery does make him work for it in the end, some of these betrayals were almost too much for me. Their constant back and forth, I want her but I can’t have her also became too much. It wore me out. There’s just so much drama on top of drama happening here, that the relationship issues with these two became too much for me.
I feel conflicted because while I did have issues, I also enjoyed it. I loved Emery, and even though Jack wasn’t perfect, he did have his incredible moments too. His feelings for Emery were so deep and there was so much emotion packed into this. I just could have done without some of the decisions with women he made. Le sigh.
While it wasn’t my favorite in the series, it was still an enjoyable read. I do adore this series and look forward to more.
