Summary | Discuss | Reviews | More Information | Read-Alikes
From bestselling author Kristina McMorris comes an ambitious and heartrending story of immigrants, deception, and second chances.
On a cold night in October 1937, searchlights cut through the darkness around Alcatraz. A prison guard's only daughter—one of the youngest civilians who lives on the island—has gone missing. Tending the warden's greenhouse, convicted bank robber Tommy Capello waits anxiously. Only he knows the truth about the little girl's whereabouts, and that both of their lives depend on the search's outcome.
Almost two decades earlier and thousands of miles away, a young boy named Shanley Keagan ekes out a living in Dublin pubs. Talented and shrewd, Shan dreams of shedding his dingy existence and finding his real father in America. The chance finally comes to cross the Atlantic, but when tragedy strikes, Shan must summon all his ingenuity to forge a new life in a volatile and foreign world.
Skillfully weaving these two stories, Kristina McMorris delivers a compelling novel that moves from Ireland to New York to San Francisco Bay. As her finely crafted characters discover the true nature of loyalty, sacrifice, and betrayal, they are forced to confront the lies we tell—and believe—in order to survive.
To what audience would you recommend The Girls of Good Fortune? Is there another book or author you feel has a similar theme or style?
The Girls of Good Fortune is another must-read volume for fans of historical fiction by the very talented Kristina McMorris, whose other books include The Ways We Hide , Sold on a Monday , The Edge of Lost, Bridge of Scarlet Leaves , and Letters from Home . I also recommend historical fiction by ...
-Janie-Hickok-Siess
"Kristina McMorris evokes such a strong sense of place that to open her books feels less like reading and more like traveling. Her absorbing new novel..[is an] epic, deeply felt tale of struggle and second chances… a transporting piece of historical fiction." —BookPage
"Will grab your heart on page one and won't let go until the end. I absolutely love this book, and so will you." —Sara Gruen, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Water for Elephants
"An absorbing, addictive read." —Beatriz Williams, New York Times bestselling author
This information about The Edge of Lost was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Kristina McMorris is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. Her background includes ten years of directing public relations for an international conglomerate as well as extensive television experience. Inspired by true personal and historical accounts, her novels have garnered twenty national literary awards and include Letters from Home, Bridge of Scarlet Leaves, The Pieces We Keep, The Edge of Lost, and Sold on a Monday, in addition to novellas in the anthologies A Winter Wonderland and Grand Central. A frequent guest speaker and workshop presenter, she holds a BS in international marketing from Pepperdine. She lives with her husband and two sons in Oregon. For more, visit KristinaMcmorris.com.

If you liked The Edge of Lost, try these:
by Guadalupe Nettel
Published 2025
From the International Booker Shortlisted author of Still Born, a powerful collection of stories about characters coping with estrangement, isolation, and the unknown.
by Joan Silber
Published 2018
One of our most gifted writers of fiction returns with a bold and piercing novel about a young single mother living in New York, her eccentric aunt, and the decisions they make that have unexpected implications for the world around them.
by Jennifer Finney Boylan
Published 2018
For fans of The Secret History and The Poison Tree, a novel about a woman whose family and identity are threatened by the secrets of her past, from the New York Times bestselling author of She's Not There.
Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics...
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.