Vilma's Reviews > The Truest Thing

With THE TRUEST THING, Samantha Young caps an incredible series with a sweeping finale that left me breathless.

This fourth and final installment in the Hart’s Boardwalk series is utterly perfect—a love story nine years in the making. We finally learn the truth behind Hartwell’s two-timing villain and how he fell hard and fast for a quiet bookstore owner. Their story is anything but straightforward, rather, it’s a twisted journey punctuated by deception and heartbreak, scarred by secrets which fester just beneath the surface.

Jack Devlin fell for Emery Saunders the first moment he saw her across Cooper’s Bar, and she too was smitten with him from the start. But the spark between them blew out almost as soon as it caught flame. Jack became Hartwell’s pariah not long after. He was the man who betrayed his best friend. The man who worked for an unscrupulous father everyone detested. But Jack had a secret which hijacked the life he intended and isolated him from those who once loved him.

Through the years, Emery saw a side to Jack no one knew about, but Jack, ever protecting those he loved most, hurt her time and time again. Once his big secret is revealed, however, Jack is finally free from his father’s machinations. Now, he must summon the courage to repair the relationships he may have irrevocably damaged, starting with the woman he’s loved for nearly a decade.

Set against the small, seaside town of Hartwell, these stories have roused to life so vividly. Stories about love, forgiveness and friendship. I’ve connected deeply with these characters, each who have longed for a second chance at love, a second chance at life. Jack and Emery’s romance was particularly moving—the push and pull between them, spanning years, intensified each moment to an unbearable fever pitch, making their happily ever after all the sweeter.

Young has penned something really special with this series. And this latest, well, it’s a wonderful, sweeping love story I couldn’t have loved more.