Review: Black Tangled Heart (Play On #3) by Samantha Young

I received this book for free from the author in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Synopsis:

To my siblings, Jane was a friend. A pseudo-sister, the girl we grew up with.
To me? She was everything.
Our passion consumed us.

When our world fell apart, I thought our love would be the thing that held us together.
She was the love of my life. But she abandoned me when I needed her most.
And I’ll never forgive her.

For years I’ve been planning my revenge against the people who took everything from me.
Jane won’t be an exception. I’m coming for her.
She knows it.

She says she wants to help me serve my version of justice on the people who hurt me.
I’ll let her.
She probably thinks it will save her from me.

It won’t.

*This is a complete standalone. The Play On series are books connected by the theme of the arts industry, not by characters.

My Review:

This series has been a hit and miss for me. I loved the first one, the second and 2.5 books were only three stars for me. But this one was a huge win, and reminded me of why I fell in love with the author’s writing in the first place. The characters from the very beginning grabbed me and made want to know them, and made me feel with them. The love story was sweet, but not without its bumps in the road. But just when things were going so well, there was a huge mountain of a bump in the road.

Something that separated our two main characters, Jane and Jamie. As much as they’d both gone through up to that point, it was so hard for me to see that there would be anything to come between them. But it did. And I knew the reason behind it, and when we found that out at the end, I felt vindicated, even as I was so upset, like Jane and Jamie, that they’d missed out on those years with each other. Their time apart changed them, but most changed would have to be Jamie. Not to say his changes weren’t well-earned. That he hadn’t dealt with what life had dumped on him and rightly deserved to feel that way. But oh my gosh, the tears, just running down my face as I read after the big reconnection. In fact, as I write this review, I can’t help the tears leaking from my eyes as I think of what Jane and Jamie were dealing with.

There was even another kind of betrayal at the end, one that wasn’t exactly what it was hinted at, speaking once again to the brilliant writing by this author. This book was so good. So many emotions, both happy and sad, and then back to our happy at the end. Even though this is part of a series, you could jump in to start with this book and not be lost at all. But you’d fall in love with the story, characters, and this author, if you haven’t already.

Now when I started reading, the only cover available on Goodreads is the one you see at the beginning of this post. However this cover right above this paragraph is what I had seen on the author’s page I thought. Which do you like better? While this one reminds me more of the others in the series, the one on Goodreads is kind of good for the story as well.