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Release Date: August 25, 2026
Size: 5.5×8.5, 338 pages
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-57869-226-2
eBook ISBN: 978-0-692-87615-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2026912269
Booksellers and Libraries: Wholesale Ordering Info Here / Order with Ingram
SYNOPSIS
In Ireland in 1846, Tessa O’Melia is sixteen and the eldest of six children. Her mother’s soup is little more than water and her childhood best friend has died of starvation. Tessa vows to never leave her home and family, but when her father is jailed, leaving the family even more desperate, Tessa is loaded on a famine ship to America for a marriage of convenience. Her journey is isolating and tumultuous, but her temper and youthful curiosity carry her through.
In Tessa’s Landing we see the sorrow and triumph of the Irish immigrant experience, and how one girl’s self-determination leads to survival in a new world.
Praise
“A visceral, celebratory depiction of a young woman’s trials and triumphs in the 1840s after she leaves her family in famine-stricken Ireland to build a new life in New York City. In the present moment, when immigrants are routinely vilified if not abused by US officials, Brady’s novel is a welcome reminder of the persistence, ingenuity, and humanity of newcomers to America.”
–Alice Templeton, author of The Infinite Field and Archaeology, winner of the 2008 New Women’s Voices Prize in Poetry from Finishing Line Press
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“With a perilous sea voyage at its heart—on one of the notorious ‘coffin ships’ that did not guarantee safe passage—Tessa’s Landing reminds us that courage is not so much to be found in facing our challenges, but in how we do so. Set across the points of transition from one land to the next, one world to another, this is a tale of hard-won transformation. In this tale, a marvelously imagined vision of the Irish-American emigrant experience, the heroine is a true survivor: a woman of her time, speaking directly to our own.”
–Patrick Chapman, author of The Following Year
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“Tessa’s Landing immerses us in the journey to America of a young Irish girl in the mid-nineteenth century. We follow both her challenges and her reactions to them in exquisite detail as she interacts with the well-developed characters around her. One can’t help rooting for this timeless exemplar of the American immigrant brought to us by Brady’s fine novel.”
–Bob Bachner, author of Last Clear Chance, Baby Grand, and Killing Jack Armstrong
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“A heartwarming story I didn’t want to put down. It gave me a compelling insight into a period of place and time previously unknown to me and a newfound appreciation for what I have. A satisfying ending that left me hoping for a follow-up book.”
–Suzanne Harrington, History Quill
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“A rite of passage story in more ways than one. Tessa came through the storm literally and figuratively, and her landing was in the security of a new life, setting foot on American soil after a tumultuous journey.”
–Carol Mealing, History Quill
Meet the Author
Maureen Brady has published the novels Getaway; Ginger’s Fire; Folly; and Give Me Your Good Ear; a collection of short stories, The Question She Put to Herself; and the nonfiction Daybreak: Meditations for Women Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse; Midlife: Meditations for Women; and Beyond Survival. She lives and teaches between Woodstock, New York, and New York City.
