NORAH
The Making of an Irish-American Woman in 19th-Century New York
by Cynthia Neale

Feathered Quill says: "This is not a tame, peaceful read. Although there are certainly beautiful scenes of corseted females in their finery traversing the streets of New York City, those same streets are also filled with vicious, violent people desperately trying to feed their families. Norah's life is upsetting in many ways and the twists and turns that happen to her do, indeed, include angry people who are truly out for themselves. However, this story is filled with so much intrigue, mystery, and beauty, that you'll cling to every word while watching Norah grow into a strong, courageous, and brilliant woman, who ends up truly proud of her Irish blood." Read full review at this link.



A corset of pink Jaquard silk trimmed with pink plush encircles Norah McCabe's small waist as she strides delicately through the squalor of Five Points, New York. A rotting horse carcass, odors emanating from a heap of animal entrails outside a butcher shop, a clam seller's raucous cries, and a rag picker's greedy hands clutching for a piece of her yellow silk dress embossed with elaborate brown velvet, does not deter Norah. She is on her way...on her way to success. Norah McCabe defies the roles and limitations of her race and gender, throwing off the washer woman domestic's apron to become someone as worthy as any Yankee Protestant woman. She tenaciously spins her sorrows into gold while the threads of her life shred, break, and become lost in the fabric of the complex, mysterious creature of pre-Civil War New York City.

Scant historical attention has narrowly defined the Irish immigrant woman. And yet the rate of economic and social progress of Irish women far exceeded other immigrant women ethnicities. Norah McCabe heartbreakingly and quixotically stumbles and falls into her real self in this coming-of-age, adventurous, romantic, historical novel. When she strives to strip herself of her impoverished past through such manifold schemes as buying her own used clothing store, 'A Bee in Your Bonnet' and promenading in Paris finery, she experiences corruption, exploitation, and enchantment in a city that is forever mythic and magical. Norah McCabe joins a rebel Irish organization to free Ireland from British rule, writes for an Irish newspaper, undergoes love's transformation, and suffers a ship wreck. She seeks to understand the feminist movement, but ultimately is unable to cross the chasm between herself as an Irish immigrant woman and Protestant feminist ideology. The terrors and questions of life strike her down with mental incapacity and loss. Her solitary freedom is the colorful warp and weft in the fabric of who she has become -- an Irish-American woman.

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ISBN: 978-0-9846317-0-4            Hardcover with Jacket           328pgs    Retail: $28.00  USD        

ISBN: 978-0-9846317-1-1             Softcover           328pgs    Retail: $18.95  USD        
Categories: FICTION / Historical   

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: In addition to Norah, Cynthia Neale is also the author of two YA historical fiction novels, The Irish Dresser, A Story of Hope during The Great Hunger (An Gorta Mor, 1845-1850) and Hope in New York City, The Continuing Story of The Irish Dresser. She also write plays, short stories, and essays and is a native of the Finger Lakes area in New York. She lives with her husband and daughter in New Hampshire. Norah is her first published novel for adult readers.

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Visit Cynthia Neale's website: cynthianeale.com.

Visit the author's blog, "Tell It Slant."