Westerly by Susan Donovan Bernhard PB

Some stories reach across oceans. This one begins in the rubble of postwar Europe and washes ashore, decades later, in a bustling Maine farmhouse just steps from where we sit.

An unforgettable saga of survival, motherhood, sisterhood, and the secrets that haunt us — where one desperate decision creates a fault line that spans generations and threatens to break a family wide open.

In 1946, two German sisters arrive in Ireland as child refugees, part of a little-known program called Operation Shamrock. Nearly fifty years later, an Irish newspaper clipping surfaces and threatens to unravel Faye Sullivan’s carefully constructed life with her husband William and daughters Maeve and Molly — a life already teetering on the brink.

When tragedy strikes, the Sullivans must reckon with a cascade of buried secrets. Faye is forced back to a single, fateful summer in West Cork: a season of adventure, heartbreak, and a choice that changed everything. And though their bonds may not be quite what they seemed, those bonds might be the one thing strong enough to carry them forward.

From Germany to Ireland to our own coastal Maine, this is a tender, sweeping exploration of identity, reconciliation, and the true meaning of home.

Fans of family sagas and richly rooted historical fiction will find plenty here to linger over. And since it’s a Maine story through and through, it feels especially at home on our shelves.

Perfect for a rainy afternoon by the window, salt air drifting in. Curl up. Turn the pages. Let this one settle into you.

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