Asylum Harbor

Isla
Grey
Genre: 
Suspense-Thriller

Devon Brown decides to make a clean break with her past.  What better place to go than a small town on an island off the east coast named Asylum Harbour?  Bartending is what she knows best and so she accepts a job working at the Salty Dog.  It seems like the perfect place to be anonymous until she meets Kerr the Harbour Master.  Kerr is a fine looking specimen of a man with a major chip on his shoulder, but there is an instant heat between them that Devon can’t deny.

This is a well-written novel with good pacing and a hint of mystery that adds to the excitement of the story.  However, Kerr is verbally abusive to Devon on a number of occasions and indeed, none of the women in this story seem to have a high opinion of their own self-worth except in how they relate to men.  The town’s acceptance of the verbal and physical abuse of women in general borders on the criminal.  The conflict in this tale does not revolve on the women resisting this treatment, but rather on how they can reconcile themselves to accepting it. Whether or not this constitutes romance is up to the individual reader to decide.

“Asylum Harbor” challenges the rules of Contemporary Romance and leaves the reader with more to think about than a typical happy ending. 

Gwenellen Tarbet