The Safe Harbor


Fiction - Horror
287 Pages
Reviewed on 01/20/2014
Buy on Amazon

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Author Biography

Renna Olsen is one of the pennames for the Litzophreniacs3, a trio of authors and family members collaboratively writing science fiction, horror and paranormal thrillers. Their literary offerings are also available on Amazon Kindle Publishing under the pen name H. R. Olsen.

    Book Review

Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite

The Safe Harbor is a horror novel written by Renna Olsen. Annie and Lee are burnt-out bartenders in rural Texas, whose friendship is about all they have good going for them. Everything abruptly changes when Annie gets a phone call from a lawyer who informs her that she's been left property by a distant relative. The property includes the Safe Harbor, a historic hotel in Riverside, Oregon. Annie and Lee decide to ditch their jobs, go up to Oregon, and become innkeepers. What they're not bargaining for is the presence of some rather malign presences in the deserted, yet splendid establishment, which was about to be reopened fifty years before by Annie's distant cousin and her husband, who both disappeared the day before the grand opening.

I love nothing more than settling in with a good, old-fashioned haunted house story. The Safe Harbor, by Renna Olsen, is a perfect specimen of the horror genre. Annie and Lee are credible, strong, and resourceful women who throw caution to the wind in setting up house in a very spooky hotel with a decidedly nasty history. The hotel is fabulously large, ornate, and very scary. Olsen makes the reader feel as though they are exploring the basement, tunnels, and attic rooms along with Annie and Lee. This is not the place you want to stay in, or even be alone in, for any amount of time, and there's more than a few reasons why that's true. The Safe Harbor Hotel has a history which is fascinating and deadly, and inhabitants who are evil and menacing, but the reader, unlike Annie and Lee, can enjoy the thrills and chills from a safe distance. Renna Olsen's The Safe Harbor is great fun and very highly recommended.