The Truest Thing

Emery Saunders arrived in Hartwell nine years ago to start over as a bookstore owner. She trusts people slowly, and for years that kept her on the edge of the small community. Things shifted only when Jessica Lawson moved to town and became her friend.

Jack Devlin had tried to reach her long before that. He fell for Emery the day she appeared in Hartwell, but his father blackmailed him into hiding a dark family tragedy. To protect the people he cared about, Jack cut his ties with them, Emery included.

Keeping his distance never worked fully. Jack's mixed signals kept hurting her, and at last Emery shut him out of her heart for good.

Then the Devlin family secret comes out, and his father loses his hold over him. Jack wants to repair his relationships, beginning with Emery. She is not ready to forgive, and he is not ready to give up.

A fresh town scandal ties the two together, and Jack means to use that new situation to show Emery that their love belongs beside the legend of Hart's Boardwalk. The book returns to that setting as an emotional second-chance romance, and the question is whether she will let him prove it.