Moira's Crossing — Christina Shea

An exquisitely wrought debut novel about sisterhood through three generations in Ireland and America.

It is 1921 in Ireland. When their mother dies in childbirth, Moira and Julia O'Leary are left to rear their infant sister, Ann, while their father, a sheep farmer, despairs. After Ann dies, Moira and Julia depart Cork for Boston, but the painful secret behind Ann's death haunts their new lives and presages the confusion that will come to trouble the next generation.

Moira and Julia have always been strikingly different, but theirs is a mercilessly dependable relationship-Moira's boldness is fortified by Julia's quiet inner purpose, while Julia lives vicariously through her sister's impulsive actions. Moira's Crossing charts their shared journey through marriage, children, and lobstering off the coast of Maine. At once an examination of the troubled intimacy of sisterhood and an inquiry into the meaning of faith, Moira's Crossing is also a story of what we leave behind and who we become because of it.