2 books by Maureen Lee I enjoyed

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The September Girls--Publisher's Summary
In Liverpool, on a stormy September night in 1920, two women from very different backgrounds give birth to daughters in the same house. Enemies at first, they later become friends when separate troubles unite them. But friendship between their daughters, Cara and Sybil, is a different matter.

Nineteen years later, at the beginning of the Second World War, Cara and Sybil find themselves thrown together when they enlist and are both stationed in Malta. It is a time of live-changing repercussions for them both while, back home in Liverpool, the bombs rain down on a defiant city.

The September Girls is a compelling story of two families, their loves, secrets, and betrayals, and a powerful evocation of war-time Liverpool.

AND

The Leaving of Liverpool

Publisher's Summary
It is a cold February night in 1925 when two teenage sisters - Mollie and Annemarie - escape from their home in a tiny Irish village.

Their beloved mother has died, and the girls have suffered shocking abuse at the hands of their father. With sensitive, creative Annemarie so traumatised she can barely remember her name, Mollie decides they should make a new life for themselves. She takes her younger sister to Liverpool, where they will board a ship to New York. There, she thinks, they will be safe.

But the smallest, cruellest twist of fate conspires to separate the girls just as the boat is about to sail, leaving Mollie stranded in Liverpool and Annemarie at the mercy of strangers in America.

The subsequent paths of their lives could not be more different. Annemarie discovers her future and her fortune, while Mollie, devastated by guilt and grief at the loss of her sister, eventually carves out a new life in Liverpool. Then the Second World War looms - with surprising consequences for the two sisters.

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