dale hulbert

Harbor Delights, a novel about obsession, jealousy and deceit, features 19-year-old Max Miller, who is involved with two women, treacherous Nancy Miller(no relation to Max) and distressed Sharon Rose, a brown-eyed beauty. Max has moved to Grays Harbor for the summer of 1959, the year the whores were banished from Aberdeen. He works at Western Lumber, where alcoholic Gordon Miller, Nancy's dad, is mill foreman.
Max rekindles a relationship with Sharon, who has recently broken up with abusive Eddie Farwell. Her dad, Abe Rose, has abandoned the family for a mistress,and her mom attempts suicide. Eddie exacts revenge by breaking into the Rose mansion, stealing Max's 1953 Ford, and stalking Max and Sharon when they travel to the North Beach. Eddie's friend, "Tiger" Timmy, nearly bleeds to death during one of the malicious escapades. Max and Sharon help save his life. Earlier that week, Max had participated in saving Sharon's mom.
Sharon has a profound impact on Max, but it is demure Nancy with her mesmerizing blue eyes and darting tongue who teases and torments him. They read The Odyssey and sonnets, and she removes slivers from his palm. God, how he wants her! But Nancy wants to flee from the Harbor and her dysfunctional family with Daniel Shepherd, her former English teacher. After Max moves in with her family, she uses him to trigger Daniel's jealousy. Daniel also mentors the Teens for Christ youth group; he wants Max off the Harbor after she and Max attend a Teens meeting at First Baptist. Max realizes that Nancy and Daniel are a couple, so he hastens to the North Beach with manic Sharon, Nancy's bull-of-a-brother Seth, and June.
They stay with Gabrielle, June's former instructor at Grays Harbor College. Max and Sharon try to make love, but her guilt and depression torment her. Max soon discovers that Eddie has stolen his car and is loose on the North Beach spit with his buddy, crazed Marty Luger, who believes that he must destroy the "evil worlds"(fish floats) in order to regain his angel's wings. Marty and Eddie trap Seth and leave him to die on the beach. With Seth out of the way, Eddie believes they can "steal" Sharon from Max. Eddie and Daniel threaten and attack Max, but it is inexorable, self-absorbed Nancy who intends to give Max something to remember before she heads to Seattle with Daniel.