Safe Harbor [Mass Market Paperback]

Luanne Rice (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2003

After every storm there is a place to return to—if you have the courage to follow your heart…

New York Times bestselling author Luanne Rice has touched the hearts and lives of readers everywhere with powerful tales of love and loss...and love regained. In an unforgettable novel set on her beloved Connecticut seaside, she weaves a timeless story…

Artist Dana Underhill has always been a free spirit, traveling the world, filling her canvases with the mysterious colors of the seas she and her sister have sailed since childhood. Then on a calm, moonlit night an inexplicable “accident” occurs and Dana is called home to Hubbard’s Point to become a mother to her two young nieces, a challenge unlike any she’s ever known.

As Dana and the girls struggle to begin a new life—and to find the truth about what happened to Dana’s sister and brother-in-law—help comes in the person of an old childhood friend. Sam Trevor is now a tall, striking marine biologist, and he’s been in love with Dana for years. Although she can’t begin to contemplate opening her heart again, together Dana and Sam will discover that Hubbard’s Point is the center of endless mysteries—and endless possibilities. And as Dana rediscovers her passion as an artist and a woman, she will find more than a lifetime’s share of answers, magic, and love in the only safe harbor there is.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The sacred bond of sisterhood is explored in painstaking detail in Rice's newest offering (after Summer Light), a warm and weepy drama set in the picaresque seaside town of Black Hall, Conn. The novel sets sail slowly when a grief-stricken Dana Underhill returns home to care for her two nieces, Quinn and Allie, following the death of her sister, Lily, and Lily's husband, Mike, in a sailing accident. Dana, a professional painter, had intended to whisk her nieces back to France with her, but her plans are put on hold when she realizes that change may not be what's best for Quinn and Allie. Indeed, Quinn, a cigarette-smoking 12-year-old with a chip on her shoulder, is dead set against leaving, particularly since she's determined to uncover the circumstances surrounding her parents' deaths. The mystery of Mike and Lily's drowning and the state of their marriage before the accident weighs down the second half of the book, but the pace picks up when Dana's childhood acquaintance, oceanographer and Yale professor Sam Trevor, arrives to provide Dana with a shoulder to lean on and to help Quinn find the answers she seeks. While Quinn and Sam make plans to recover her parents' sailboat, Dana struggles to overcome her sister's death and to paint again. The affection between Dana and Sam is heartwarming and convincing, but the novel's finale involving the rescue of Quinn and Allie during a fierce storm with the aid of a little divine intervention is anticlimactic. Less a romance than a somber meditation on the importance of family ties, this saccharine read is buoyed by Rice's evocative prose and her ability to craft intelligent, three-dimensional characters.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Dana was close enough to sister Lily to take on Lily's children when she dies. But there's no "safe harbor" here: both she and Quinn, her 12-year-old niece, have questions about Lily's death.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Bantam; Regular Print/Single Titl edition (January 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553583956
• ISBN-13: 978-0553583953
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 3.8 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,538,735 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

LUANNE RICE is the New York Times bestselling author of twenty-nine novels, most recently The Silver Boat. Her books, including Cloud Nine and Dream Country, often center on love, family, nature and the sea, and have been translated into twenty-four languages. A number of Rice's novels have been adapted for television, including Crazy in Love for TNT, Blue Moon for CBS, the Hallmark Hall of Fame presentations of Follow the Stars Home and Silver Bells, and Beach Girls as a summer drama series for Lifetime Television. She has contributed a theatrical piece to the new off Broadway play Motherhood Out Loud. Rice loves nature and frequently writes about it. Born in New Britain, Connecticut, Rice divides her time between New York City and Old Lyme, Connecticut, in the house where she spent all her childhood summers.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good Enough Reading, but not her best (still I'm a Rice fan), April 2, 2002

By 

mzglorybe (Southern CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Safe Harbor (Hardcover)

This story is of two generations of sisters, Dana and Lily, and Lily's daughters, Quinn and Allie. Dana Underhill, the main character, is a well-known artist, known for her ability to capture on canvas, her most passionate love, the sea. Living and painting in France when a tragedy takes the life of her beloved sister, Dana comes home to Hubbards Point, Connecticut, where she and her sister, Lily first learned to sail and fell in love with the sea. Now her life is about to change entirely as she is thrust with the responsibility of raising her two nieces who are struggling to accept the death of their parents, in what may or may not be an accident on a sailboat. A former student, Sam Trevor who fell in love with Dana when she taught him to sail at the age of 8, has never forgotten her, re-enters her life as an adult only to find his feelings for her are strong and he wants to be at her side to help her through this awful time in her life. The relationship between them is interesting enough, but not the heart-stopping emotional kind that brings tears to your eyes. As usual Ms. Rice does a great job of portraying the young people in this story, their frustrations, anxieties and all the emotions involved in losing their parents, and acceptance in what life hands them. I think this book lacks some of the passion that her other novels have had. It was one I found I could set down for a day or two and get back to it, as opposed to not being able to put it down and reading far into the night. I am a Luanne Rice fan. I especially liked Cloud Nine and Follow the Stars Home.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A big fan, March 17, 2003

By 

Theresa W (mi, usa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Safe Harbor (Mass Market Paperback)

I'm a big fan of Ms. Rice. I think she's officially my new favorite author (I needed an update from Danielle Steel...)Anyway, it did take me a little while to get "into" this story. Where as some of her books I'll be immediately enthralled. But once the story really got going, I enjoyed it. I don't think it was boring. Maybe yes, not her best book, but I'd definitley recommend reading it. I thought there were a lot of great scenes. Very sad story and the suspense kept the pages turning to see what would unfold.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An okay read, January 28, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Safe Harbor (Hardcover)

This was my first Luanne Rice book. It was definitely not a "kleenex" book but it wasn't dull either. The book paralleled two generations of sisters and conveyed well the dynamics between the relationships. Although Lily was the "dead sister", she had a strong, well-defined presence and I felt like I knew her by the end of the book.

Overall, though, I found it hard to warm up to the characters. I couldn't relate to Dana's free-spirited, artsy nature. Sam reminded me of an over-ardent puppy gamboling after its master. The romance between him and Dana didn't seem believable and I hard time getting past the difference in their ages. Allie was dependent and rather brainless (still sucking her thumb at age ten and carrying around a stuffed animal!), while Quinn was obnoxious and foul-mouthed. She didn't ring true as a twelve year old, especially the mature writing in her diary. I was taken aback by the foul way she spoke in front of adults, and no one made a move to correct her. The scandal involving Mark and Lily turned out to be tame and relatively meaningless.

Despite those drawbacks, the plot moved along nicely and it was a pleasant read, although nothing that moved me intensely or stayed with me after I closed the book. Since everyone is raving about Cloud Nine, I'll give Luanne Rice one more try before I write her off.