Star and the Shamrock

Berlin, 1944 Ariella Bannon is being hunted. Someone is determined to betray her as a Jew, but she has survived against incredible odds, and the end is in sight. She will be reunited with her precious children, no matter what it takes. Meanwhile, Liesl and Erich have found a home in Ireland away from the chaos of war-ravaged Europe. As the dark news of what has happened to the Jews filters through, they are torn-love for their mother and their home on one hand, and the profound sense of peace and belonging they have in Ballycreggan on the other. Like all of the other children who escaped Nazi territory on the Kindertransport, they must wait to hear the fate of their loved ones. For their foster parents, Elizabeth and Daniel, their dearest wish, that Ariella would survive the war, is also their deepest fear. Would her return mean the loss of the children they have come to think of as their own? As the Third Reich crumbles under relentless Allied bombs, Ariella is careful, but Berlin is a very dangerous place to be, and somebody knows she survived. Can she take one last enormous risk to be reunited with Liesl and Erich or will her betrayer see her finally captured?

Dublin 1950 Liesl Bannon has never felt like she was truly at home anywhere, not since her mother placed her and her brother Erich on the last Kindertransport out of Berlin in 1939. She'd been so much more fortunate than most Jews, saved from the horrors of the Nazi regime. Being adopted by Elizabeth and Daniel Lieber meant she and Erich spent the war in Northern Ireland, safe and loved, but Liesl always knew something was missing. When an opportunity to return to Berlin to represent her university presents itself, she is so torn. Should she go back to the city that rejected her and her family, would it be too harrowing, or would it feel like home? In Berlin, a chance encounter with an old family friend sparked emotions for Liesl that she'd suppressed since she was a child. She finds herself desperately wanting to go back to those carefree days before Hitler, when life made sense, but why was her family so set against her return? Was it because they were worried about her as they claimed, or was there a darker, more sinister reason? The Hard Way Home is the heart wrenching third book in the best-selling “Star and the Shamrock” series.

Ballycreggan, Northern Ireland, 1955 Erich Bannon is happy in the small Irish village he has thought of as home since he arrived as a terrified, traumatised seven-year-old, one of the last Jewish children to escape Berlin in 1939. Now at twenty-three, it feels like all of his friends are drawn to The Promised Land, and he can understand why, but Israel is not for him. One by one, they leave, and Erich is bereft. He feels lost but a chance encounter with an Irish Catholic girl gives him hope. All he and Róisín want is to be allowed to love each other but the traditions and rules of their backgrounds forbid it. By the time he learns that Róisín wasn't honest with him about her family and what kind of people they really are, it is too late and he finds himself unwittingly embroiled in a dangerous world from which there seems to be no escape. When Róisín disappears, events take a sinister turn and Erich wonders if their relationship really was all he thought it was.. Reluctant to place his family in danger, he has to solve his problems alone, something he's never had to do before.