Every Breath

A week at her parent’s Sunset Beach cottage for her friend’s wedding allows Hope Anderson plenty of time to reminisce about the past, ready the beach house for sale, and contemplate her stale long-term relationship with a man who ditched her and the wedding for a boys’ trip to Vegas.

Born and raised in Zimbabwe, safari guide Tru Walls travels to Sunset Beach to meet the dying birth father he never met.

When their paths cross, the connection is electrifying. A whirlwind romance leaves them questioning everything. Yet Hope chooses the safe option—marriage to the long-term boyfriend and the possibility of children—to a life with Tru.

Single again years later, Hope wonders if she can reconnect with the long-lost love of her life through the Sunset Beach mailbox Kindred Spirit.

As a reader, I was terribly upset to learn in the author’s note that this “true story” was entirely made up. The story was decent, though too much time was spent on the origins of Hope and Tru’s relationship. Their reconciliation 24 years later felt rushed in comparison and incomplete. This is not Sparks’s finest work.