My review:
Safe Harbor is a captivating book to read, once you have read the first pages, you are intrigued and want to know what is going to happen. This book is not only a mystery, but it touched so many other important topics like betrayal, protecting your family, human trafficking, international crime - it affects you on many different levels. Safe Harbor is well written, has an interesting plot and very enjoyable characters.
Regarding the plot:
Safe Harbor introduces you to a financial advisor Pat Tierney, who has a safe life: she has well-paid job, comfortable home and nice and quiet family life. It is all being changed when one day in the office she meets Jude. Jude is a young woman who reveals to Pat, that the little seven-year old boy is the son of Pat's recently died husband. It seems that Jude is concerned about the safety of her and her son's life and leaves Tommy at Pat's office promising to come back for her son after the threat is gone.
After that meeting everything changes for Pat, her life is turned upside down. Firstly, she is shocked and heart broken by the fact that her husband cheated on her and now needs to gather the pieces of a very hurtful knowledge. Besides that, Jude is found murdered and Pat also needs to take care of her husband's son whom she had no idea even existed.
Pat needs to make lot of quick and difficult decisions and since the threat for her own family and for Tommy is coming closer, she starts investigating why and who killed Jude and who are the persons behind wanting to kill Tommy. With persistent approach she is coming step by step closer to the killers and to the truth and it all points towards the refugee home Safe Harbor.
I really enjoyed the story! It had unexpected twists and turns and what enjoyed most of all, it was believable and real. The story was nicely supported by the characters of the book which were also brilliantly created!
I loved the title of the book! Safe Harbor mirrors many things in the plot: Pat's choices to live her life too safely, not allowing herself to love again after her husband's death; it mirrors the safe place for refugees to feel safe, it mirrors Tommy's journey to finally finding a family. It was incredibly good choice for the title of the book!
Regarding the characters:
Rosemary McCracken did a very good work with the plot and she managed to create the story of Safe Harbor around very strong characters! The characters were thoroughly developed and that made them real, believable and human.
Pat Tierney is a woman which every reader would love and could relate to. What I loved about Pat was the fact that she was middle-aged. There are not many good mystery books where the main character is a middle-aged woman who is already well-established, has had a lot of life experience and who is not a perfect person. Her kids are already grown: one daughter is in the university and the other is in high school. She has loved deeply and has felt the loss of her husband. She is smart, has strong personality and last, but not least, she has a kind heart and yet is vulnerable. She has second thoughts of letting go of her dead husband and giving herself a second chance to love.
I truly enjoyed reading about Pat!
Tommy was another favorite character in the book. Rosemary did an excellent job with describing a seven-year old boy who misses his mom, who is sincere, who is accepting things as they are seen from kid's point of view. He was adorable and I felt the pain when his father's family did not want anything to do with him because he was born out of marriage bounds.
Another character whom I adored was Sister Celia who worked at the refugee center. I had my doubts about her in the beginning, but she was such a nice woman conflicted between doing the right thing and getting the finances to support the refugee center.
Detective Sergeant Neil Hardy was also one of the characters I liked. He was the detective in charge to investigate the murder of Jude. He was one weird police officer: from one side he seemed cold and not the wisest piece of work and the same time he was supporting and at least trying to help protecting pat and Tommy.
Farah was also an interesting character. Farah was Pat's housekeeper and a refugee who tried to create a new life. She was so naïve, so inexperienced in the way people lived in her new country. She just did not know better and wanted so badly to live as Canadians and break out of her religion and traditions from her old country.
There were so many lovable persons in Safe Harbor: Pat's new love interest Devon, Pat's daughters, the Greek neighbor of Jude - Sophie, the gay colleague Stéphane who worked with Pat, Devon's son Ryan, Tommy's grandmother - the list would be very long! They all played an important role in the story and gave so many extra points to the book from reader's perspective.
Rosemary balanced it out with bunch of people who were despicable and it was another strong side of the book.
Let's start with Arlene who is Pat's sister in law and Tommy's aunt. She was nasty, bitchy, greedy woman who made the reader to want to slap her. The reader also met Oskar who was working at Safe Harbor and who gave you shivers down in your spine! Another funny and interesting character was Pat's new colleague Arnie who was a son of one of the wealthiest clients who Pat had.
There were so many intriguing characters in the book and all of them had a story to tell to the reader. I loved the richness and colorfulness of the characters in Safe Harbor!
Generally:
Safe Harbor by Rosemary McCracken is a book which you want to re-read after you finished it. It stays with you for much longer than just during the reading time. It is filled with fast paced action, intriguing mystery, drama and absolutely captivating characters! I highly recommend it to read - it is such a good and interesting and entertaining book!
5 stars.
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Top reviews from other countries
Brenda Peddigrew
Recommended without Reservation!
Reviewed in Canada on May 20, 2016catwoman
gripping and extremely enjoyable
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 9, 2012Redders
Not a blockbuster but certainly a page-turner
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 9, 2013