ROCKLAND — A year after closing its store in downtown Camden, Sherman’s Maine Coast Book Shops announced it is opening three new bookstores this summer, including one in Rockland on Maverick Street between McDonald’s and Hannaford.

The other new stores will be in the Topsham Fair Mall between Reny’s and Lamey Wellehan, in the Windham Mall beside Reny’s.

“A year ago when all our stores had to close because of the pandemic, we thought the world as we knew it was ending,” said Jeff Curtis, CEO and co-owner of Sherman’s, in a press release. “But when the Governor and Dr. Shah said it was safe to reopen, our team did a great job of creating a healthy shopping environment for our customers and themselves, and our customers really appreciated being able to come in and browse. The resulting surge in business left us looking for growth opportunities.”

Sherman’s permanently closed its Camden store at the beginning of the pandemic. Read: Sherman’s Camden bookshop is casualty of industry slowdown

“We went looking for an opportunity to open a new store and found three opportunities instead,” Curtis said, in the release. “We couldn’t decide between them, so we decided to open all three.”

Sherman’s is now hiring for various positions at the new locations as well as at all five existing locations in Bar Harbor, Boothbay Harbor, Damariscotta, Freeport, and Portland.

Sherman’s was founded in Bar Harbor 135 years ago in 1886 and in addition to being Maine’s oldest bookstore is one of the 10 oldest bookstores in the United States, the release said.