Fortunate Harbor

Like all of Emilie Richards' books, a joy to read from start to finish. Will be sorry to see these KEY stories end....but this was an extra terrific way to pull together all the women's stories in every way. Love this author. Highly recommend.

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'

Richards has done it again! Wonderful way of weaving current events, applied to believable charachters. Love how she stitches together the bonds of friendship, loyalty, support into a believable story line. I always love books in a series, and always like reading about how when we work together, we can accomplish great things. Tracy was a spoiled princess, and now runs the community center. She has become a valued member of the community, and is falling for Marsh, until his ex wife walks back into the picture. Wanda has worked hard at the restaurant, until the new owners decide to turn the seafood shack into one of those restaurants with pretentions and little else. Wonderful how she turns getting fired because of her age into a business opportunity. I also like how she explains that to be a successfull business, you have to work hard, and what she does to make her business into a success is very motivating, yet realistic at the same time. Jayna is adjusting to her new life here, and participating in making her new country a better place for all. Her struggles in a new marriage also realistic. Dana has obvious secrets, but gets support from her new friends. It is lovely how the group surrounds her and her child. Throw in ex husbands, ex wives, new boyfriends, and old friends, this one is beautifully written. The author puts you right there with the group again, and I hope there is another installment! Great read as a sequel, or on its own.

Originally posted at:[...] Fear, heartache, worry, suspense, and mystery prowl the twenty-five acre spit of land called Happiness Key on the Gulf Coast of Florida. The five ramshackle cottages on this land house an intriguing assortment of women who form a bond that proves to be a support system strong and faithful regardless of the circumstance. Dana and Lizzie Turner, mysterious and secretive vagabonds, move into the only vacant cottage on Happiness Key. Tracy Deloche, the owner of the property, and her renters Janya, Wanda, and Alice weave their web of caring around the fearful Dana and her eleven-year-old daughter. As the lives of these five women entwine, the reader is lured in with intrigues, amateur sleuthing, emotional clutter, financial woes, and troubled love that cries out to be nurtured. The men and children do keep things in a muddle much of the time. Some of the secondary characters add delightful humor while other do cruel, hurtful, and conniving things that keep the reader turning pages. Tracy's coping with C. J., her recently out-of-prison ex-husband is a roller coaster ride from suspicion to guilt, from moments of an old attraction bubbling up to angry revulsion. His charismatic, wheeler-dealer ways keeps everyone uneasy wondering what he is really doing under the guise of saying he is helping Tracy because he wants to makeup for his past wrong doings. The mystery of Janya and her husband Rishi's problems crops up in the story like a shadow of an ominous presence. Conversely, the irrepressible Wanda, even with her worries, brings a unique humor to even the managing of serious problems. Her encounter with her competitor on the evening of July 4th is not to be missed. Fortunate Harbor is chocked full of twists and turns, sparkling humor, heart-wrenching happenings, resilient characters that seem so real, and the unquenchable determination to survive and thrive. Emilie Richards' writing style with its smooth flow and vibrant characters make Fortunate Harbor sparkle and throb with life, and its can-do attitude is wonderful.

Emilie Richards is becoming one of my most favorite authors, I just received this book two days ago and already I'm getting aggravated with interruptions of daily life. I love hanging out with the "girls". Keep this great series coming!! I also love that I don't have to stumble over any offending words. Thank God for authors who can write a great book and express without foul language. I was beginning to believe it was a lost art. Another mystery lover.