FORTUNATE HARBOR: REVIEW AND GIVEAWAY

GIVEAWAY ENDED
FORTUNATE HARBOR
BY EMILIE RICHARDS

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Join five women connected only by friendship and the road that runs like a lifeline through a run-down development called Happiness Key.

Southern California socialite Tracy Deloche finally gets a chance to swap business for a romantic evening with down home environmentalist Marsh Egan, but dinner goes cold when she spots her ex-husband prowling outside her cottage. Janya Kapur, finally settling into an arranged marriage, envies every pregnant woman she sees, but Rishi, her husband, is suddenly reluctant to talk about children. Waitress Wanda Gray loses her job after new owners turn the Dancing Shrimp into a tapas bar. At the suggestion of wise neighbor, Alice Brooks, Wanda starts her own business, until Wanda starts Pie War I with the local bakery.

When the empty cottage at Happiness Key is rented by single mother Dana Turner, all the neighbors believe this spit of Florida Gulf Coast land will be a fortunate harbor for a mother and daughter who have moved far too often. Until they discover Dana's shocking secret.

As the women of Happiness key struggle to discover the whole truth in time to help their new neighbor, their only weapon is friendship. But will friendship be enough?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Emilie Richards began her writing career with a baby on her lap. Emilie, who has a master's degree in family development, finds family interaction fascinating and through the years, in many different ways, her four children have shown up in her books.

Emilie's daughter, who was adopted from India, emerged from a plane at age six, and was an instant addition to the family. Since then, Emilie has written several books about the trials and tribulations of adoption, as well as its myriad rewards. Wayward teenage boys have walked through Emilie's books, just the way they seem to walk through her life. The boys always turn out well and luckily her own have, too.

A long love affair with Emilie's minister husband convinced her that ministers can be heroes, too. Dragonslayer, a Silhouette Intimate Moments and RITA Award winner resulted from that realization. Endless Chain, the second book in her Shenandoah Album series for MIRA Books, did, as well.

Through the years — and through the writing of more than 50 books — the family has moved from state to state and traveled extensively. And each place deserved and got at least one story. Emilie's most recent move to Northern Virginia (and her love of quilting) provided the fodder most recently for the Shenandoah Album series, beginning with Wedding Ring in 2004 and continuing in Endless Chain, which debuts in 2005. Emilie believes there are stories everywhere. Frustrations abound for a novelist, just like in any other profession, but at the end of the day, when a story is finally beginning to unfold, she still thinks she's one of the luckiest people in the world.

MY REVIEW:

FORTUNATE HARBOR by Emilie Richards is the second book in the Happiness Key Trilogy and is filled with the interwoven lives, loves, losses, and friendships of five women who are the main characters in this series. The story is set on a twenty-five acre spit of land called Happiness Key on the Gulf Coast of Florida and so well researched and described by Richards that you will feel at home at once.

Emilie Richards centers FORTUNATE HARBOR around Tracy Deloche as she did in the first book, HAPPINESS KEY. Tracy owns the cottages that her friends live in. They are Wanda Gray, Alice Brooks and her granddaughter Olivia, and JanyaKapur. These residents welcome newcomer, Dana Turner, a single mother and her daughter Lizzie, and they help to calm her fears as they take her under their collective wings.

Tracy’s has to deal with C. J., her husband who was recently released from prison. Theirs is a relationship with all the ups and downs of a roller coaster. C. J. can be charming, while also making everyone anxious as they wonder what he is really up to. He says everything he does is to help make up to Tracy for his past mistakes but is that true? Before C. J. returned, Tracy had been dating Marsh Egan and just as Tracy was planning their first quiet time together, C. J. had popped back into her life and of course, wanted her back, thus scrapping her plans for Marsh.

Dana, and daughter Lizzie, seem to have their own mysterious past that they were running from prior to settling in the one vacant cottage on Happiness Key. Things now seem perfect for the pair until something from Dana’s past comes back that may cost her all that she treasures.

Janya Kapur very much wants to have a child, however, her husband, Rishi does not and so things are tense between them. After all poor Janya went through in HAPPINESS KEY with this relationship, will this be the last straw for her?

Meanwhile, there is the madcap Wanda who brings humor and good spirits to even the toughest of problems. She has worked at the Dancing Shrimp for a long time but now the owners are going to be turning the Dancing Shrimp into a fancy bar and letting go of some of their help. Unfortunately, one of those fired is Wanda. She is distraught until Alice gets involved. With Alice’s help, Wanda realizes she can try opening her own business. Her pies are delicious and famous already and so she opens Wanda’s Wonderful Pies.

Emilie Richards, Author of such books as A LIE FOR A LIE, SISTER'S CHOICE, and HAPPINESS KEY, gives readers stories rich with diverse characters as well as settings that often are as important as any character. And so it is no different when Emilie repeats this successful pattern in this latest novel, FORTUNATE HARBOR. One of the first authors who personally answered my plea for a review copy and interview was Emilie Richards. She has never let me down in any of her books and once again, Ms. Richards does not disappoint. With this second book of the Happiness Key Trilogy, Emilie’s smooth writing style makes for a quick read as she once again has woven together the lives of her characters to give readers a rich story filled with intrigues, emotional confusion, financial despair, and even a possibility of new love. Thank you once again, Emilie!

GIVEAWAY

THANKS TO EMILIE RICHARDS, I
HAVE ONE COPY OF THIS SECOND
BOOK IN THE HAPPINESS KEY TRILOGY
TO GIVE AWAY. I ALSO AM GOING TO ADD
ONE COPY OF EMILIE'S FIRST BOOK IN THE
TRILOGY, "HAPPINESS KEY", TO THAT
LUCKY WINNER. HERE IS WHAT YOU
NEED TO DO TO WIN BOTH BOOKS!



--U.S. RESIDENTS ONLY
--NO P. O. BOXES
---INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS
IN CASE YOU WIN!
--ALL COMMENTS MUST BE SEPARATE TO
COUNT AS MORE THAN ONE!

HOW TO ENTER:

+1 ENTRY: COMMENT ON WHAT YOU THOUGHT ABOUT THE DESCRIPTION AND REVIEW OF "FORTUNATE HARBOR" AND WHY YOU WANT TO WIN THESE TWO BOOKS

+1 MORE ENTRY: "LIKE" EMILIE RICHARDS ON HER FACEBOOK PAGE HERE AND LEAVE A COMMENT THERE THAT YOU HAVE SEEN MY REVIEW OF HER BOOK ON BOOKIN' WITH BINGO

+1 MORE ENTRY: BLOG ABOUT THIS GIVEAWAY AND COME BACK HERE AND LEAVE ME YOUR LINK

+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON ONE OTHER BOOK BY EMILIE RICHARDS, BESIDES THESE TWO, THAT YOU HAVE READ OR WOULD LIKE TO READ BY SEARCHING HER WEBSITE HERE

GIVEAWAY ENDS AT
6 PM, EST, AUGUST 22!