Of Irish blood

Again, Kelly mines her own family's history in this engaging sequel to Galway Bay (2011). When Nora Kelly undertakes a career in fashion in turn-of-the century Chicago, she follows in the footsteps of a long line of spirited Kelly women. Falling under the spell of the charming but abusive Tim McShane, she risks her dreams, ambitions, and independence until Tim's threats and violent outbursts cause her to flee to Paris and the world of haute couture. Hobnobbing with a host of literary, artistic, and political luminaries on the eve of WWI, she is drawn into the struggle for Irish independence. Setting this tale of romance, intrigue, and derring-do between 1903 and 1922, Kelly packs a lot of drama into a relatively short period. Featuring plenty of action and a large cast of fictional and real-life characters, the ongoing saga of the Kelly clan will appeal to historical and Irish-American fiction fans.--Flanagan, Margaret Copyright 2015 Booklist

Starred Review. In 1903, Nora Kelly, escaping an abusive lover, leaves her home in Chicago's Irish enclave for Paris. Her talents as a designer get her a job in a fashion house, sketching dresses and giving tours of the city to the house's wealthy clients. Soon she's hobnobbing with a Left Bank salon society of poets, intellectuals, and political activists. As the Great War looms and the battle for Irish independence intensifies, Nora's friends urge her to fight for her heritage. She becomes a spy for a time, launders French francs through her American bank account, and falls in love with a student researcher who's trying to preserve historic Irish manuscripts. He's also likely a spy. Nora is rapidly sucked into the maelstrom of the Irish rebellion and bears witness to its bloodshed and political turmoil. VERDICT Inspired by the life of the author's (Galway Bay) great-aunt, Nora's story is a broad sweeping historical saga; what sets it apart from other novels about the Irish War of Independence is its feisty character development, feminist viewpoint, and excellent writing. It will have wide appeal to readers of both Irish history and historical novels, as well as those wishing to sink their teeth into a really good story.-Susan Clifford Braun, Bainbridge Island, WA (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

An Irish-American from Chicago, fleeing an abusive relationship, moves to Paris on the eve of World War I.This sequel to Kelly's Galway Bay (2009) is exhaustively researched, but much of that research is shoehorned onto the page; too often, otherwise-engaging characters become docents spouting informational tracts about all things Irish. In 1903, after battling her way from the switchboard to a career as a fashion designer for Montgomery Ward, narrator Nora Kelly (based on the author's great-aunt) falls prey to the blandishments of Tim McShane, a charismatic gambler years her senior who initiates her sexually and relegates her to the role of occasional mistress while he squires vaudeville star Dolly McKee publicly. Eight years later, Nora, weary of the arrangement, tries to get free. But McShane, an affable but harmless blowhard in the opening chapters (how else could the independent-minded Nora have fallen for him?), appears to have undergone a not entirely convincing Jekyll and Hyde transformation: He tries to strangle Nora. Aided by Dolly, whom McShane also abuses, Nora escapes to Paris, where she earns a living copying designs for a couturier who serves the near-wealthy and leading tours of Paris for ladies who come to shop. Along the way, she encounters Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein, Henri Matisse, Helen Keller, Coco Chanel and countless other icons. She also falls in love with Peter, a shy, austere professor at the Irish college of Paris, which also is an outpost of the Irish independence movement. Although Nora demonstrates the requisite degree of pluckat one point she launders funds for the Irish rebellionshe never seems to mature nor gain much insight into the political, amorous and cultural tumult swirling around her. Even as she witnesses the onset of the Great War, serves as a nurse and is privy to an astounding quarrel between Yeats and his muse, Maud Gonne, over his famous poem "Easter, 1916," Nora remains a cipher.In a novel so awed by the great and near-great, ordinary human characters are outgunned. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.