Safe Refuge

Newport of the West – Book One

Safe Refuge chronicles a fictional wealthy family as they come north to the lake and have to start anew.

In two days, wealthy Chicagoan, Anna Hartwell, will wed a man she loathes. She would refuse this arranged marriage to Lyman Millard, but the Bible clearly says she is to honor her parents, and Anna would do most anything to please her father–even leaving her teaching job at a mission school and marrying a man she doesn’t love.

The Great Chicago Fire erupts, and Anna and her family escape with only the clothes on their backs and the wedding postponed. Father moves the family to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where Anna reconnects with Rory Quinn, a handsome immigrant who worked at the mission school. Realizing she is in love with Rory, Anna prepares to break the marriage arrangement with Lyman until she learns a dark family secret that changes her life forever.

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Author’s note: I’m very excited to announce the release of my new historical romance, Safe Refuge. The book is Book 1 of the Newport of the West series. Book 2, Shelter Bay is scheduled to publish in May of 2019, and Book Three, Tranquility Point, in early 2020.

I’m calling the series The Newport of the West. My hometown of Lake Geneva, Wis., carried that nickname for most of the beginning of the 20th Century because of the large number of beautiful mansions on the shores of Geneva Lake. In 1871, after the Great Chicago Fire destroyed many of the homes belonging to the wealthy bankers and industrialists of Chicago, the families of these movers and shakers of the 19th moved their families north to the lake and built large beautiful homes for them to live in while the city was being rebuilt. Other well-to-do families came later and built equally beautiful homes as a nice respite from the summer heat in the city.

Safe Refuge book trailer: