*This is a book I reviewed for the February issue of Historical Novels Review.
BOOK REVIEW
Ireland, 1765. When young Mary Kearney is sent to work at Goward Hall, she joins her brother and sister in service and lightens the load of her impoverished father, who has too many mouths to feed. She begins to wait on the very married Lady Mitchelstown, who is involved in a scandalous romance with Lord and Lady Goward’s son James. James eventually arranges for Mary to learn to read and write, and as they become much closer, the outrage of both the upper and lower classes descends upon them. They enter into a secret marriage, but in the eyes of the world, Mary is a mistress, and only a few at the time know that she is James’ wife. And nearby, an evil man waits, determined to ruin Mary for good.
Late 18th to early 19th-century Ireland comes alive in this book, as the characters speak to us from the past in a dialect true to the time. There is a great deal of epistolary work, and it is woven in beautifully. Letters, articles, documents, and diary entries highlight the many voices, bringing each character to life with great effect. The novel begins with the dictated words of Mary’s father, who cannot read or write. The letters contain everything from love to gossip to threats, depending upon the writer. The class differences of the time are highlighted well, and the Catholic versus Protestant conflict is explored. The attempted uprising by the United Irishmen is well researched, and its consequences spill across the page. The captivating love story of James and Mary endures many hardships, including plotting and scheming from wicked people. Honest and intriguing, this gripping saga will transport and inspire you, and it just might break your heart. Highly recommended.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via The Historical Novel Society. My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Katherine Mezzacappa is Irish but currently lives in Carrara, between the Apuan Alps and the Tyrrhenian Sea. She is the author of The Maiden of Florence (Fairlight, 2024) and The Ballad of Mary Kearney (Histria Books, 2025). As Katie Hutton, she has published four historical novels with Bonnier Zaffre (2020-2023), The Gypsy Bride, The Gypsy’s Daughter, Annie of Ainsworth’s Mill and The Maid of Lindal Hall. Katherine’s short fiction has been published in a variety of journals worldwide.
Katherine has been the recipient of residencies from the Irish Writers Centre, the Danish Centre for Writers and Translators and (to come) the Latvian Writers House. She also works as a manuscript assessor and as a reader and judge for three fiction competitions. Katherine holds a first degree in History of Art from UEA, an M.Litt. in Eng. Lit. from Durham and a Masters in Creative Writing from Canterbury Christ Church.
Q&A WITH THE AUTHOR
Bonnie: Hi Katherine. Thanks so much for visiting with us! You mentioned to me that you started The Ballad of Mary Kearney in about 2016. Can you tell us the story of your initial inspiration for the book and your journey to get it published?
Katherine: That was my second full-length novel (the first can just stay in the drawer…). The inspiration came on a visit to the Gibside estate in northeast England, which had belonged to the Bowes-Lyon family, the Earls of Strathmore. I had done some research on the Bowes’ presence in County Durham while working for a museum in the area, some years previously. Thackeray had worked for John Bowes as his election agent; Bowes had indiscreetly told the novelist the story of his grandmother’s two marriages, which inspired The Luck of Barry Lyndon. I was interested in this woman’s son’s story, however. On the last day of his life, he was carried on a litter into the fashionable church of St George’s, Hanover Square in London, to marry the servant he had been living with for years and with whom he’d had a son (Thackeray’s erstwhile employer). In that parkland, in the front of the Bowes-Lyon chapel, inspired by Palladio’s Villa Rotonda, I ‘saw’ that story, but transposed to my native Ireland. What if an Ascendancy noble in 18c Ireland married his servant, but in secret? He’d be breaking the law, for a start, as he would be Protestant and she would likely be Catholic. And meanwhile, the stormclouds that broke as the United Irishmen rebellion of 1798 were gathering: a rebellion, it’s often forgotten, led by enlightened Protestants.
The book got quite a lot of interest, but no agent nor publisher. However, as it was doing the rounds I was already writing the next book, as I was terrified that if I paused I wouldn’t get back into writing again. That book, as Merripen (later The Gypsy Bride), was longlisted for the Historical Novel Society’s novel prize and was published in 2020. But, I didn’t lose faith in Mary Kearney. It went through a number of redrafts before I realized that the market I really ought to be aiming for was Irish America, so I started submitting in the US and found Histria Books.
Bonnie: I assume there was a great deal of research required for this book. How did you approach the research?
Katherine: I read everything relevant that I could get my hands on, starting with William Edward Hartpole Lecky’s magisterial, if biased, A History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century (five volumes; he earned his statue outside Trinity College Dublin). I absorbed a lot of novels of the period, which explains why some of my book is epistolary, in search of the right ‘voice.’ I also read journals such as: The Leadbeter Papers, written by the Quaker Mary Leadbeter in Co Kildare; the sometimes highly-coloured memoirs accounts of the Dublin lawyer Jonah Barrington; court proceedings for the trials of the United Irishmen and so on. The late Dr Brian Traynor, formerly the director of the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, was a great help and support.
Bonnie: The book is set in a time when women, especially poor women, had few rights and few choices. Some authors are tempted to insert modern circumstances and outcomes into their stories. Was it difficult to stay true to the period while still portraying a strong woman in Mary Kearney, and how important was it to you to do so?
Katherine: It was of crucial importance that I got the context right. Mary’s agency is indeed limited, whether as servant or fine lady (though she never quite feels that she is the latter), so her choices are indeed circumscribed. A book can’t claim to be a historical novel if all the author has done is put modern characters in historical costumes and make them refer to a reticule every third sentence. Shows like Bridgerton are great fun, but they are not history; I’m not referring to the color-blind casting, but to the fact that people of that class at that time would not for the most part behave as they do on screen, at least not prior to marriage. There was a particular challenge in writing the character of Mary Kearney because accounts of the lives of women like her are pretty thin on the ground. Some of the character of Mary Milner, the mistress of the Earl of Strathmore and my Mary’s prototype, came into play. While she was Strathmore’s mistress, she was reticent about meeting people from his social stratum, so while she lived with him as though she was the countess, she would disappear when his family members called. After his death, she was very dignified and truthful in giving evidence in their son’s failed attempt to be declared legitimate.
Bonnie: I’m a fan of great epistolary work in a novel, and there is a lot of it in this book, such as letters, records, diary entries, etc. It is a wonderful way to show the personalities of many of the characters. I haven’t read your other books yet. Is this the first time you have done this type of writing in a novel, and how would you describe the epistolary writing experience?
Katherine: Yes, it is the first time I have done it, partly because of the guide I had from the sources I was using and also because the epistolary form lent itself to what I was doing. People communicated through letters then; they had to. People kept diaries. I have also used it in other books though not to the same extent. In The Gypsy Bride, the hero is illiterate and starts to read and write only when he is in prison, where his attempts at correspondence have a deeper poignancy. The withholding or destruction of letters also has a greater impact than would be the case now; we know when a WhatsApp message has been read. We can also see if someone has written and then recalled their message. A great deal of our communication is fleeting in the way that pen on paper isn’t. In The Maiden of Florence, there is someone writing his ‘ricordanze’, a kind of daybook, a common practice amongst educated Renaissance Florentines, thanks to which we know a lot more about them than we otherwise would.
Bonnie: Are you working on a new book, and if so, can you tell us about it?
Katherine: I am working on a Renaissance crime novel. Crime is a new departure for me, obliging me to plan more than I usually would. My hero is a physician, the illegitimate son of a Florentine banker. The banker existed (his ancestor was the father of Dante’s Beatrice, and the hospital that ancestor founded in 1285 functions to this day) but the doctor is my invention. He trained at the School of Salerno and so was influenced by Arab medicine. Salerno also trained women, but I decided to make my lead character a male to give him greater agency and to enable him to move around the courts of various city states (I plan five books). So right now I am immersed in Renaissance medical treatises and accounts of the organization of hospitals of the period.
I have another novel out on submission currently. It’s the fictionalized story of the mistress of the novelist Samuel Butler and of his best friend and biographer (an arrangement set up and paid for by Butler; the lady’s reaction to this is not recorded), so it’s a tale from the hidden part of Victorian life.
Bonnie: Both of these books sound amazing! Let’s go beyond the bio. Tell us something about yourself that we might not know from reading your bio.
Katherine: I got married to the same man twice. We married civilly in 1995 and ten years later had a quiet religious ceremony with our two little boys present. I made my dress each time.
Bonnie: That’s awesome to have a later ceremony with your children! Thanks again, Katherine, for agreeing to this interview. I absolutely loved your book.
Katherine: I am so glad you did. The Ballad of Mary Kearney means a lot to me.
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