Newport of the West - Scrivenings Press LLC

The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 destroyed the businesses and homes of many of the wealthy Chicago businessmen who already knew of a beautiful lake surrounded by pristine forests just over the state line in Wisconsin. The Newport of the West series follows the generations of the fictional Hartwell family as they move north after the fire. Each book spotlights the next generation of the family. The books can be read as standalones, but the full impact of how the family adjusts to change over the decades is only felt by reading the books in order.

The following books are included in this series:

Safe Refuge – Newport of the West Book 1 (Set in 1872 featuring Anna Hartwell Quinn)

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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Shelter Bay – Newport of the West Book 2 (Set in 1893 featuring Maureen Quinn Murphy)

Adventure girl, Maureen Quinn, isn’t yet sure of her life’s direction, but she knows she isn’t cut out to be a bookkeeper for the town’s undertaker. Wearing her stylish new bloomers, she suffers a bicycle accident in the middle of downtown and her long-time crush and fellow childhood mischief maker, Preston Stevens, comes to her rescue. He’s back in the area and he couldn’t have shown up at a better time. It isn’t long before they become inseparable and she’s sure he’s the man God has for her.

Unlike his older brothers who are shackled to desk jobs at their father’s financial services company, Preston yearns to see the world. What better person to do that with than Maureen? But after being expelled from Yale, because of a prank that brought embarrassment to the family, his dad has issued an ultimatum: Enlist in the military or join his brothers in the family business. He signs up with the U.S. Life Saving Service, a division of the Coast Guard, reasoning the time spent on the shores of Lake Michigan, keeping people safe, is far better than being stuck in a landlocked encampment. After his two-year stint, he intends to live out his dream of world travel before settling in Lake Geneva. But it isn’t long before life-altering events occur affecting both his and Maureen’s lives forever.

Returning to historic Lake Geneva for Book Two in the Newport of the West series, the Hartwell family saga continues through the life of Maureen Quinn, the daughter of Rory and Anna Quinn from Safe Refuge. Set mainly in beautiful Lake Geneva, Shelter Bay also carries the reader to the northern shore of Michigan and to the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, also known as the Columbian Exposition.

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Tranquility Point – Newport of the West Book 3 (Set in 1918 featuring Hannah Murphy Bauer)

Hannah Murphy is determined to make the summer of 1916, the best it can be before she heads off to law school in the fall. Like her mother and grandmother before her, she is inclined to “break the mold” when it comes to societal expectations of a young woman of means. Her mother was the first woman in town to wear bloomers, and Hannah becomes the first to ditch swim dresses in favor of a practical swimsuit that allows freedom to move through the water.

At the first gathering of the summer, she reacquaints with tall, handsome Ted Bauer, also an aspiring attorney. Ted, who is of German descent, had a huge crush on Hannah when he was in eighth grade, and she was in sixth. He’s no longer the gangly boy she remembers and is quite appealing. With Geneva Lake as their backdrop, their summer romance escalates, until the dark cloud of the Great War can no longer be ignored. Although the U.S. has not yet joined the fray, people of German descent are seen with mistrust, and Ted enlists with the British Army to take the heat of discrimination off his family. With the future on hold, Hannah bids her fiancé farewell as he goes to war. Only God knows if she will ever see him again or if they will ever be able to recapture what they had those few short summer months.

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Rose Harbor – Newport of the West Book 4 (1943 featuring Grace Bauer McAlister)

All Grace Bauer has wanted to do since she was a child was to fly airplanes. When the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) organizes for female pilots to ferry new bomber aircraft to stateside military bases, Grace applies. She never tires of flying B-17s and other aircraft, and dreams of being one of the first females to pilot a commercial airliner after the war.

A life-threatening illness clips her wings, and she finds herself back home in Wisconsin, thinking that God is punishing her for a past sin. Bored, she joins a ladies bowling league and meets Mac McAlister, a widowed school teacher who helps out at the bowling alley on league nights. He offers to help her restore the old family lakeshore estate, Safe Refuge—now called Rose Harbor and lost during the Crash of 1929—back to the family. She’s happy to have a good friend like Mac to help. But despite her efforts to keep their relationship platonic, Grace’s feelings for him grow. Before the relationship can move to the next level, she must tell him her secret, and when he hears it, he’ll want nothing more to do with her. She should end the relationship, but can’t imagine life without him. It is only with God’s blessing that she’ll be free to love Mac. But after what she’s done, she doubts God is willing to forgive her.

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Links to the series description pages on Amazon: