Review: “Safely Home” – Offers a Safe Harbor that’s Well Guarded by Self-doubt.  Five Stars!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 24, 2014
“Safely Home” is a deeply psychological story about overcoming the results of not being able to trust your own judgment. This is a condition exacerbated by an unwillingness to ask others for help. If you can’t trust your own judgment in loving others, then what makes you think you can trust your choice in whom to safely share your confidences?The heroine, Crescent, (who I always imagined as a wrench),  is one of the most irritating wenches since Kate in the “Taming of Shrew”. As happened to Kate, I would not have been too surprised to see this wench’s backside warmed. (But then this hero is not Richard Burton.)Cress is hostile to almost the point of being hateful – and this fire is aimed most directly at the hero -- who weirdly finds her attractive. Maybe, as in the shrew, the hero feels the challenge of taming her.  Or maybe, Alex the hero, (I always visualized him as Alexander the Great) is like the moth who is drawn to the flame – not because he wants to be consumed by the passion of the fire -- but rather, because, for millions of years, the ‘flame’ has imitated the sun with its life affirming warmth and the promise to end night’s darkness.The hero also knows that the heroine’s acid tongue is well dipped in her ignorance of the true situation. For this the noble hero grants the heroine a leniency that a reader might find impossible to otherwise countenance.When Cress is forced into a fancy dinner with the hero paying, she runs up the bill by ordering the most expensive items on the menu. And this action gives her greater joy than the culinary excellence of the food itself. This is a Kate to make even a Shakespeare tremble.Oddly enough, this ‘wrench of a wench’ is also a cop and the hero has good reason to hate cops.  Yes, there is conflict enough in “Safely Home” to fuel a genuine tragedy.  All that is needed is for the impasse to love to go unresolved.Will it be a romance or a tragedy? That is the question. For this is an Indie book – it is free to go either way. Therein lies the rub. What will it be?The heroine is shot then faces even greater dangers. Her worse fears seem to become the most justified while her worse opinion of herself seems to be the most logical.“Safely Home” has it all:  danger, love, suspense, forgiveness, violence, adorable kids, cute dogs, a rescue horse, real cops, small town cops, the FBI and even road cops. The food is wonderful – you can almost smell and taste it. In fact, you actually can smell and taste it -- if you are as highly suggestible as I am.Again, “Safely Home,” has everything and everything is well written. Each word provides the reader with enjoyable 5-star pleasure. However, not every 5-star passage may have been essential. There is a heartwarming subplot that is nice but that might have better found a home in a different neighborhood. There are also many occasions where the heroine comes to realize that she should not go crazy again by letting a man so near to her heart. Sometimes I believe that “Indie” means never having to cut anything that’s really, really good.  I say this in love -- not because I love her story less, but because I love her more. (Oy vey!  Didn’t Brutus say that?)Anyway – Five Star Wonderful – And Then Some!Highest Recommendation With Lagniappe!