A Passionate Girl [Mass Market Paperback]

Thomas Fleming (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 30, 2008

Beautiful, rebellious Bess Fitzmaurice is mesmerized by Dan McCaffrey, an American of Irish descent who has come to Ireland to aid the Fenian revolt against British tyranny. He appears in her home on May Eve 1865, fleeing British forces. To Bess, Dan is the mythical Donal Ogue, the hero of a famous Irish poem, returned to rescue Ireland--but right now, he is an American Civil War veteran on the run. Bess and her brother, Michael, get Dan to a ship, and they flee to America.

In 1865, America is a nation ravaged by four years of Civil War. Bess discovers that among the Irish-American Fenians money and power and patriotism are entangled in bewildering and demoralizing ways, while Dan McCaffrey surrenders to the corruption of New York City politics. The Fenians' invasion of Canada and their goal of holding the English colony hostage for a free Ireland become a hot issue in a power struggle between Democrats and Republicans. When the American federal government double-crosses the Fenians, forcing thousands of Irish Civil War veterans to abandon the Canadian invasion after winning the first battle, acrimony engulfs the movement, leading to feuds, name-calling--and murder.

In despair, Bess quits the Fenians and finds love in the arms of former Union General Jonathan Stapleton. Their idyll, however, is soon interrupted by Dan McCaffrey, who forces her to choose between him and her new lover.

A Passionate Girl is a riveting novel that takes the reader into a forgotten chapter in Irish-American history and provides an eye-opening look at the devastating impact of America's Civil War.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Bess Fitzmaurice, the idealistic heroine of Fleming's historical melodrama, suffers no reticence in recounting her many sexual liaisons ("He took my hand and put his swelling manhood in it"). More seriously, through Bess's gushing first-person narrative, Fleming (When This Cruel War Is Over) portrays the Irish in post–Civil War America without the usual romantic claptrap. In 1865, Bess flees Ireland for the New World with her brother and her Irish-American lover, Dan McCaffrey, an unscrupulous rogue somewhat in the Rhett Butler mold. Bess discovers that the cynical Irish she meets in New York City, the lying congressmen in Washington, D.C., and the murderous KKK in the defeated South are all interested only in money. Fleming excels at depicting the underside of New York. The festering downtown slums, packed with poor Irish immigrants, horrify Bess, as do the gambling parlors and brothels uptown, all feeding incestuously on crooked Irish politicians and their cronies. Bess eventually allies herself with the Fenian Brotherhood, helping to raise money for an invasion of Civil War Irish veterans into Canada that ends in a predictable fiasco. Bess is as resourceful as Scarlett O'Hara, but the Southern portion of this windy tale is unlikely to win over many fans of Margaret Mitchell's classic.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Best-selling author Fleming distinguishes himself again with a stirring portrait of an innocent Irish rebel let loose on the shores of post-Civil War America. Fleeing Ireland along with her brother and Dan McCaffrey, an American insurgent in search of a revolution, Bess Fitzmaurice gambles with her future when she joins the fledgling Fenian movement in the U.S. Eventually realizing that Dan is more interested in promoting himself than in either her or the cause of Irish freedom, she has difficulty extricating herself from their relationship and from her ill-fated association with the radical Fenians. After surviving the doomed Fenian invasion of Canada, she goes underground, seeking a respite from turmoil. She finds love in the arms of an embittered ex-Union general, but her newfound happiness is threatened by the reappearance of McCaffrey. Fleming does an adept job of interweaving fact and fiction in this explosive drama centered on a neglected episode in Irish American history. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 560 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; Reprint edition (December 30, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765345609
• ISBN-13: 978-0765345608
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 4.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,547,154 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

"How do you write a book?" 24 year old Thomas Fleming asked bestselling writer Fulton Oursler in 1951. "Write four pages a day," Oursler said. "Every day except Sunday. Whether you feel like it or not. Inspiration consists of putting the seat of your pants on the chair at your desk." Fleming has followed this advice to good effect. His latest effort, "The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers," is his 50th published book. Twenty three of them have been novels. He is the only writer in the history of the Book of the Month Club to have main selections in fiction and in nonfiction. Many have won prizes. Recently he received the Burack Prize from Boston University for lifetime achievement. In nonfiction he has specialized in the American Revolution. He sees Intimate Lives as a perfect combination of his double talent as a novelist and historian. "Novelists focus on the imtimate side of life. This is the first time anyone has looked at the intimate side of the lives of these famous Americans, with an historian's eyes." Fleming was born in Jersey City, the son of a powerful local politician. He has had a lifetime interest in American politics. He also wrote a history of West Point which the New York Times called "the best...ever written." Military history is another strong interest. He lives in New York with his wife, Alice Fleming, who is a gifted writer of books for young readers.