Title: The One Real Thing
Author: Samantha Young
Series: Hart's Boardwalk #1
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Published: September 1st, 2016
Source: Digital audiobook downloaded from public library
My rating: 5 stars
Once again I am blown away by this author's characters and stories. I've been so sad about the end of the On Dublin Street series, so having this new series start, and having it be this good really helped out. I finished listening to this audiobook in New Orleans right before I got to meet the author for the first time. She was the very first author I had to seek out and meet, having to make sure to show her my Nate Sawyer shirt that I'd made. And of course I have to share that picture!
If you haven't read any of Samantha Young's books before, you could totally start with this one. We have two main characters, Jessica and Cooper. And unlike the On Dublin Street series, we get this book told from both viewpoints. It's not exactly every other chapter, but there are chapters from each of them. Jessica is a doctor at a prison, and she finds some letters in a book, and after reading them, really feels a connection to the person who wrote them. She looks up the prisoner's information, and finds out that she died in prison. Now Jessica feels that she needs to take the letters to the town, Hartwell, and find the man they were meant for. Maybe to give him some closure. Once she gets there though, things aren't exactly as seemed.
Cooper is a bar owner on the boardwalk, and a very eligible bachelor. His and Jessica's first meeting definitely has some sexual tension, but Jessica isn't interested in that, and Cooper doesn't want to take no for an answer, so he vows to woo her. But when Jessica shows him the letters, his mother knew the woman who wrote them, he blows them off. It is the way he acts here that makes Jessica think she couldn't be with him, because she has something in her past that she figures he would not be able to forgive.
Of course they both have secrets, and keeping them from each other will drive space between them. Reading this story made me want to move to a small town and open a bookstore. I also wished that as I was on my own vacation at the time, that maybe I'd meet my own Cooper. Alas, it wasn't to be, for me. In the end, it is a romance, things will work out. And then we will be left wondering about the other characters and who will get the next story or a future story. I'm so ready to read book two, the author is giving away ARCs on Facebook right now. I hope I win!