my favorite of the series | Inner Harbor (The Chesapeake Bay Saga, Book 3)

Inner Harbor | Inner Harbor (The Chesapeake Bay Saga, Book 3) | Nora Roberts

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	• Inner Harbor (The Chesapeake Bay Saga, Book 3) Nora Roberts Jove, 1999 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 108 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Inner Harbor

Phillip Quinn has made something of himself. He is an educated accountant and has a high profile job that he loves. He struggles daily to keep a balance between the life he built for himself and the promise to his family to be there for Seth.

Sybil Griffin shows up claiming to be doing research for a new book, but then it comes out that she is in fact Seth's biological aunt. That puts the family on notice. The brothers know that she could claim Seth and destroy the family that they have lovingly put together.

Phillip is used to women falling at his feet, but when he meets Sybil he is hooked. When he finds our about her deception, he tries to resolve his feelings for her and still be loyal to the family. It has taken the four brothers a long time to build their lives and to become a family, and as Sybil begins to see this, she sides with them.

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my favorite of the series

I always thought that Sea Swept was my favorite book in this trilogy, but on this re-read, it seems to be Inner Harbor instead.

This is Phillip and Sybill's story. There's also the end of the trilogy arc--we find out Seth's history and resolve things with his guardianship. Phillip is the advertising executive brother--the detail-oriented urbanite. Sybill is a PhD psychologist and author, and Seth's aunt, though she hides that fact at first.

Seth's mother Gloria has contacted her sister Sybill with a sob story about how the Quinns have stolen her son and how she needs money to pay a lawyer to get him back. Sybill wants to help, but she doesn't trust Gloria and wants to check out the situation for herself. Phillip is attracted to her, and when he finds out her identity... You might expect the usual romance-novel cliches here: self-righteous accusations and the complaint "why didn't you trust me?" It's much more real and emotionally intense than that.

I was struck by how impressive Nora's characterization was in this whole trilogy. All 3 brothers' personalities were definitely formed in their various childhoods. Even though they all had horrible childhoods, there were slight differences, and differences as well in how they dealt with them, and that's reflected in their adult personalities.

That prologue.... I normally hate prologues--I don't think they're necessary, and they tend to distract from the story. But this one. Damn, it was well-written, and yeah, I think it was necessary. She could have fit in Phillip's past in bits & pieces with the present-day story, but it wouldn't have had the same impact. Everything he says and does and feels in the book relates back to what we learned in that prologue.

Sybill's character is likewise very well-written. I never had trouble warming up to Sybill--I liked her right off the bat. It's a minority opinion, though, I think, from comments I've heard in the past. She's intelligent, but that's the only place where she has any confidence--and that's also well-supported by her past. She lives too much in her own head, and tends to view life from a distance--a consequence of focusing her life on her academic career. She cares, and deeply, but has trained herself to discount emotions because that's not something she can quantify, and because she's "learned" that they're irrelevant.

One thing that really pushed Inner Harbor over the top for me is that the heroine in particular is not perfect. Perfection is something that a lot of romance heroines have in common, and that's why I like Sybill more than her new sisters-in-law, Anna and Grace. Sybill screws up really badly. And she's still redeemable. She's still deserving of an HEA. I love this.

I always like intensely emotional stories, as long as there's a positive payoff at the end. I hate crying, and if an author's going to make me cry without making it up to me later, I'm going to feel angry and betrayed. Inner Harbor had tears literally rolling down my face for several chapters. Part of that is likely because Sybill's character does hit pretty close to home for me. Which also explains why I like and understand her so well.

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Inner Harbor

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As a stand-alone book, it was lacking, but it was good because it finished unresolved issues from the first two books.

THE SERIES:
The Chesapeake Bay series includes four books which tell a continuing story about a family. Ray and Stella Quinn adopt three troubled boys who came from abusive homes. In the first three books the boys are about 30 years old. They left home, have good jobs and are single. Stella died several years earlier. In the beginning of the first book Ray took in another boy, 10-year-old Seth, who was abused by his mother Gloria. Gloria offered to give legal guardianship to Ray in return for a large sum of money. Before anything was official, Ray died in a car accident. Shortly before he died, he asked his three sons to move back home to take care of Seth. All three men promised they would. They decide to start a boat building business. In the first three books each of the three men meets and falls in love with a woman. The fourth book tells the story of Seth, who is grown, returns home and falls in love. The best parts of the first three books are watching the developing relationships among Seth and the three men and seeing Seth blossom. Each book has a minor amount of fantasy due to some conversations with a ghost. The four books, main characters, and my ratings are:
Sea Swept (Cameron and Anna) 4 stars
Rising Tides (Ethan and Grace) 3 stars
Inner Harbor (Phillip and Sybill) 3 stars
Chesapeake Blue (Seth and Dru) 2.5 stars

STORY BRIEF (Inner Harbor, Book 3):
Phillip's mother was a stripper and prostitute. Phillip survived by stealing, using drugs and sometimes selling himself. At age 13, he was shot in gang crossfire and nearly died. Ray and Stella discovered him in the hospital and took him home. Due to their love and environment, he changed and thrived. He is now a successful advertising executive in Baltimore. He dresses well, drinks fine wines and eats healthy. During his three-day weekends, he handles administrative details, legal issues and paperwork for the brothers' boat building business, as well as some of the sweaty carpentry work.

Dr. Sybill Griffin has made a career out of the study of urban life and has published two books. She has degrees in anthropology, sociology and psychology. She comes to Chesapeake Bay to observe and study small town life for her next book. However, the reader soon learns that she chose Chesapeake Bay because of Seth. She purposely meets the brothers and finds that Phillip is attracted to her. She begins a relationship with him in order to be closer to and learn about Seth. Gloria (Seth's mother) returns to the area. Gloria has a bigger role in this book than in the previous two books.

REVIEWER'S OPINION:
This was ok, but I couldn't get into the characters. They were good as supporting characters in the Seth story and for the series, but the story about their relationship wasn't as good as I'd hoped. They each were wounded in the past in different ways. Now they are smooth and polished. I didn't see how they grew to love each other. They were sort of thrown together, and then they have sex because they are physically attracted to each other. The value of this book is learning about Gloria and seeing some of her actions. It finishes some of the unresolved issues from the first two books. So it's worthwhile in that way.

DATA:
Story length: 238 pages. Swearing language: strong. Sexual language: none. Number of sex scenes: 3. Total number of sex scene pages: 7. Setting: current day Chesapeake Bay area and Baltimore, Maryland. Copyright: 1999. Genre: contemporary romance with fantasy.

OTHER BOOKS:
For a list of my reviews of other Nora Roberts and J.D. Robb books, see my 4.5 star review of "Angels Fall" posted on 6-30-08.

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Inner Harbor

This was book #3 of a 4 part series by Nora Roberts'
Easy reading and I would recommend the series.

Third in the sweeping Chesapeake quartet.

A stranger's cool reserve intrigues Phillip Quinn, but her secret could tear the family apart forever.