Winner 2023 Newfoundland Reads

Longlisted for the 2023 Dublin Literary Award

Longlisted for the 2023 Leacock Medal Award

Finalist for the 2023 Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction

Finalist for the 2023 Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award

An unforgettable, life-affirming novel about a woman living on her own terms at last and reclaiming the friendship of a lifetime, for readers of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Frye and Me Before You

Frances Delaney is staring down the last days of her life. Looking back over her fifty-eight years with wit and no small amount of regret, she sees not the life she wanted but the one that happened. An idyllic childhood in the small Newfoundland fishing town of Safe Harbour was darkened by the loss of her father at sea, an unwanted pregnancy and a betrayal by her closest friend, Annie Malone. Frances and Annie were inseparable, and this rupture rocked Frances to the core. In the aftermath, she fled to St. John’s and a solitary life nothing like what she and Annie had dreamed of as their grand escape. Now, with the help of her young, optimistic friend Edie, Frances begins a journey toward resolution and back to Annie and Safe Harbour. With these good women in her corner, Frances can at last chart her course to living on her own terms, right to the very end.

A powerfully touching celebration of friendship and forgiveness, The Good Women of Safe Harbour is about a woman who finally gives herself a chance to love and be loved. It’s a story that is impossible to read with dry eyes.