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.