Ellie Ames thought little of her future in July 1939. As the daughter of a lobsterman, why should she? But everything changed the moment a mysterious German couple came off the ferry with their nineteen-year-old son.
From the moment Ellie meets Karl Brink, the two become inseparable and not everyone approves. Locals are suspicious of outsiders. Always were. Should be even more so, these days.
Ellie ignores their scorn. And the secret she learns about Karl's family makes her even more determined to be with him.
The magical summer ends when the Brinks suddenly have to go home. Karl promises to return in the fall for her. But by then Europe is at war.
Two years pass and Ellie has all but given up hope when she gets a letter in the mail that will change her life forever...
The Storm Beyond The Tides is the story of the unlikely romance between a small-town girl and a German on the eve of the Second World War and explores a frightening time in America's past-when U-Boats prowled the East Coast and put small, coastal communities on the frontline of a global conflict.
Fans of The Nightingale, Orphan Train, and Sarah's Key will love this timeless novel about love and loss at the onset of World War Two.
"...Cullen delivers a novel that's fast-moving, fresh, and imbued with the best of old-fashioned storytelling, too. Let him take you back in time to that moment when the future of the world and every life in it hung in precarious balance."
― William Martin, New York Times bestselling author of Cape Cod and Bound for Gold
"Well-written and touching saga of life in Maine during WW2."
― Eoin Dempsey, Amazon bestselling author of Finding Rebecca and White Rose Black Forest