I was looking forward to reading my second Luanne Rice book. Although it was a bit of a downer, I enjoyed her earlier Cloud Nine and cared about its characters. I can’t say the same for Safe Harbor, a decent enough read, but one in which that connection to character was lacking.

Dana Underhill has come home to New England in order to take over the care of her nieces since their parents’ death. Dana’s sister Lily was the girl’s mother and she and Dana were as close as any two sisters could be. When Lily and her husband

died, Dana came home for the funeral but immediately went back to France, leaving the children in her mother’s hands. With the deaths of Lily and her husband Mark, the family has gone into hardcore despair and none of them seem to be able to move on with their grief. Dana feels she can’t stay in New England – there are too many memories of Lily. So she decides to take Quinn and Allie back to France with her. Things don’t work out exactly as planned, and Dana realizes that she is going to have to stay in New England, at least for the time being.

Sam Trevor has been in love with Dana since he was 8 years old and she was eighteen. The sisters had a love of sailing and in order to make money, they taught it a couple of summers in Newport, Rhode Island. Sam, a poor kid, was taken in and taught to sail along with the more well-off kids. He credits Dana and Lily for giving him his life-long love affair with the sea, which influenced his decision to become a marine biologist. Through the years, Sam has tried to move on and forget Dana but her appearance at home begins to stir old memories and he sees this as his chance to let her know how he feels. But Sam’s motives aren’t purely selfish; he wants to help Quinn, and Quinn wants his help as well. Quinn is twelve years old, wears her hair in several braids all around her head, smokes and curses a blue streak. She’s a bit of a loner but beneath that tough exterior, she’s a girl grieving for her parents. She believes that the death of her parents on their boat might not have been an accident and wants to hire Sam to check it out. She doesn’t suspect foul play, however; she thinks family problems caused them to take their own lives. This mixed up reasoning almost makes sense from a child’s point of view – she is in denial with her grief and anger. Deep down she’s a pretty smart kid who basically knew her parents loved her and each other. I liked Quinn and while she was the most interesting character (and certainly better developed than her sister Allie) in the book, subtle isn’t a word I’d use for her characterization. Sensitive and complicated, yes, but also – unfortunately – over the top.

More troublesome, though, was Dana. A child acting oddly after the death of her parents seems reasonable, but for an adult charged with caring for her nieces to instead bail and not return for a year was unacceptable to me. Though Dana left the girls in the competent care of her mother, her actions seemed selfish; I would have liked to have seen a discussion between Dana and her mother about what happened. I understand grief and can see how losing a sister would tear a person up, but it wasn’t enough that the children’s grandmother was there. Lily wanted Dana to take care of those kids, and Dana should have stayed and done so. Those girls needed her, desperately. And when she did return and insisted on taking the girls away from their home, I pretty much gave up on her. Yes, deep down she knew it was the wrong thing to do, but she seemed to put herself first more often than not, which when added to her whiny behavior was a turn off. A proactive character she was not, deciding she couldn’t be involved with a younger man because her last boyfriend had been younger and had slept with her assistant. I wanted to tell her to get over it. The scene where she “confronts” said ex-boyfriend was something out of a made-for-TV movie. It just didn’t seem believable because the ex was so clueless.

I haven’t mentioned the actual romance as of yet because it wasn’t a huge part of the story. Sam and Dana mostly dance around each other. Sam pines for Dana and lets her know how strongly he feels for her while Dana tries to deny she feels anything for Sam. Sam is awfully patient. He’s been waiting twenty odd years for Dana, and that deserves a round of applause. Still, I never really felt a connection between these two, or maybe I never really felt it on Dana’s end. Their love scene seemed kind of desultory to me, which just added to the lackluster feeling of the book in general.

I liked Sam though. He was a good guy and he truly wanted to help Quinn and Dana. He understood Quinn and never once made her feel like a stupid kid. He was never patronizing or condescending to her, which won him major points with me.

The strongest part of the book is really the vivid New England setting. As a resident of New England, I really enjoyed it. Visually, Ms. Rice captured it perfectly. But even that wasn’t quite enough to save the book, as many parts of the story fell flat for me. Still, I enjoy Ms Rice’s writing and will give her next book a chance.