Angela Denny is one of the girls whom Mairin meets at the Home of the Good Shepherd and serves as the point-of-view character of occasional chapters. Angela is the granddaughter of a devout but illiterate woman, Gran, who believes in the teaching of the Catholic Church that same-sex desire is a sin. Gran is responsible for Angela since Angela’s mother abandoned her when Angela was a baby, and she never knew her father. Angela realized early in life that she was attracted to girls, but only when she was given a set of books to read by a kind librarian, Rachel Adler, did she realize this could be normal.

Angela was upset when Gran found her with a girlfriend, Tanya, and sent her to the Good Shepherd Home in hopes that the nuns would “fix” her behavior. Angela, taught to be obedient, hates the “corrective” sessions with Dr. Gilroy, in which he claims to attempt to instill heterosexual desire by raping her. Angela’s terror when this results in a pregnancy shows her fear of authority, but with Mairin’s help, Angela learns to express herself. She feels close to her child as she reads about her pregnancy and discovers a desire to keep and nurture the baby. She is drugged during childbirth and has her parental rights signed away by Gran, and is then told her daughter is stillborn. This experience of abuse leaves her with difficulties trusting others, which she feels inhibits her romantic relationships until she meets Jean.

After her escape from the Home, Angela lives with Miss Adler and eventually enjoys a long and successful career as a librarian. Angela’s discovery of Everly’s birth certificate, her reunion with Everly, and her winning her court case against the Home of the Good Shepherd provide the dramatic arc for Book 2 and offer healing and reconciliation for Angela. After thinking she had no family, she finds she has a daughter and grandchildren. As with Mairin, Angela’s character arc suggests that wounds of the past can be mended.

Helen is another one of the girls from the Home of the Good Shepherd who escapes with Angela and Mairin and who later offers her support to Angela’s court case. Helen is the daughter of Chinese American parents who think she will be safe at the Good Shepherd while they travel to China. During the time they are apart, Helen keeps a journal of events, recording her thoughts in Chinese characters that the nuns cannot decipher. Later, this journal provides evidence and support for Angela’s court case.

Helen’s method of coping with life under the nuns is to steal the white, square tabs from the priest collars they launder and use them to make tiles for the game of mahjong. Playing secret games of mahjong in the library is a way the girls spend time together in an enjoyable pursuit, one of the few pleasures they have. When she is captured by the police after their escape and taken to jail, Helen is brave enough to simply walk out of the police station and seek her father’s secretary at the university where he works. This mental toughness and resilience later make Helen successful in her studies at West Point and in her career as a translator and intelligence officer in the military. She marries a handsome actor and can say she has led an enjoyable life. Her emotional support is important to Mairin and Angela during their stay at the Good Shepherd and in the court case Angela brings later.

Odessa Bailey is another girl at the Good Shepherd who becomes part of their secret group. Odessa is Black and was arrested by the police during a protest in the city. When Odessa tried to interfere with an act of police brutality, the officer was injured and accused Odessa of attacking him. The courts ruled her a juvenile delinquent and said she had to stay at the Home of the Good Shepherd until she was 18. Odessa copes through her love of Gospel music, especially the song “Oh Happy Day,” which she teaches the other girls to sing.

Odessa’s help and support are invaluable to the others as they plot their escape, but Odessa chooses to remain behind. She has only six weeks remaining on her sentence and doesn’t wish to take any risk that that sentence might be lengthened. While Odessa is punished after the other girls leave, her parents are there to meet her on her 18th birthday. 

Odessa follows her dream of going to California and meeting up with a cousin in the music industry. Later in life, the successful publication of her nonfiction book on the gospel roots of rock music provides the plot device that lets Mairin and Angela reunite with her. Odessa, like Helen, provides emotional support and healing as both Angela, and Mairin come to terms with what happened to them. She is another example of resilience, survival, and strength.

Sister Bernadette is briefly a point-of-view character in Books 1 and 2. She is a nun who works as a bookkeeper in the Home of the Good Shepherd. Sister Bernadette’s birth name was Genesee, and she had a childhood filled with food insecurity and emotional insecurity due to her mother’s use of alcohol and employment as a sex worker. When the Catholic Charities offered to take Genesee and her mother signed over her parental rights, Bernadette was grateful for the stability of a home and shelter at the Good Shepherd. She initially questioned the strict rules but later found comfort in obedience and submission. Though it makes her uncomfortable to see the girls at the Home abused, Bernadette tells herself they can learn obedience and submission, too, and this will help redeem them from sin.

Bernadette is also aware that the Mother Superior’s habit of hiding cash in the reliquary dedicated to Saint Apollonia is not regular accounting, but she decides not to risk the Mother Superior’s anger by challenging her. Bernadette shows her compassion for the girls by letting Mairin out of the closet when she is supposed to be imprisoned, and by not destroying the birth certificate for Angela’s child. Bernadette plays a role in the recovery of Everly’s pre-adoption birth certificate, and she also provides a differing perspective on the harsh discipline of the nuns that straddles a middle ground between their self-righteousness and the girls’ rebellion.

Fiona Gallagher is a supporting character who is Mairin’s best friend growing up and who provides a parallel to Mairin. Both of the girls are raised in Irish Catholic families, but Fiona’s family has nine children while Mairin’s only has two. Fiona has sex at 15 with the boy she is dating, Casey, and this results in a pregnancy that she bears alone when Casey refuses to have anything more to do with her. At the time, it was common to deal with the pregnancy of an unwed mother by hiding the pregnancy and then giving the baby up for adoption. Fiona is sent to live with her Aunt Cookie to bear the child, which she names Ruby, and whom she always regrets giving up. Fiona’s experience is echoed by Angela in the sense of being a mother left bereft by forced adoption.

Later, in Book 2, Fiona has her own reconciliation when her daughter locates her and they establish contact. Fiona remains friends with Mairin and provides another example of a girl who endured trauma but went on to heal and live a fruitful life.

Deirdre is a supporting character and Mairin’s mother. There is one section of the novel that is told from her point of view, and which continues the motif of mothers who are left bereft by forced adoption. 

Deirdre was born to an Irish Catholic family in Ireland. When she fell in love with a Protestant boy and became pregnant, her parents sent her to the Magdalene Hospital in Limerick to bear the child. When she learned her child was adopted by a couple who lived in Buffalo, New York, Deirdre traveled to the United States to attempt to locate him. Her inability to do so led her to suicidal ideation and despair. At Niagara Falls, Deirdre met Patrick O’Hara and fell in love with him, but she also felt taken care of by him and relied upon him throughout their marriage. The loss of her child continues to haunt her throughout her life, and she keeps his baby booty as a reminder.

After Patrick was killed during a rescue operation at work, Deirdre feared how she would support her two children. She married Colm Davis hoping he would provide financial and emotional stability. Neither of these proved to be the case. However, Deirdre has been taught to comply with the teachings of the Church, and so divorce is not possible for her. After Colm tries to sexually assault Mairin, she feels it is her best option to enroll Mairin at the Home of the Good Shepherd, where she will be out of Colm’s reach.

Deirdre’s adherence to the rules provide a stark contrast to Mairin’s ability to decide for herself, and this makes Mairin reluctant, after she escapes the Home, to confront her mother. Eventually, Deirdre has both her children returned to her when she reconciles with Mairin and Liam returns from fighting in Vietnam. Her children discover paperwork documenting the settlement that specifies Deirdre is owed money for Patrick’s death, and Deirdre finds the strength to annul her marriage with Colm. Later, her story of being forced to give up her child, and always regretting it, provide a warning to Mairin and Mairin’s children about the cost of following cultural restrictions.