Blog Tour and Book Excerpt for "The Ballad of Mary Kearney"
- DK Marley
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
Book Title: The Ballad of Mary Kearney
Series: n/a
Author: Katherine Mezzacappa
Publication Date: 14th January 2025
Publisher: Histria
Pages: 288
Genre: Historical Fiction
Any Triggers:
Some scenes of violence, including judicial killing; rape.
The Ballad of Mary Kearney
by Katherine Mezzacappa
Blurb:
‘I am dead, my Mary; the man who loved you body and soul lies in some dishonorable grave.’ In County Down, Ireland, in 1767, a nobleman secretly marries his servant, in defiance of law, class, and religion. Can their love survive tumultuous times?
‘Honest and intriguing, this gripping saga will transport and inspire you, and it just might break your heart. Highly recommended.’ Historical Novel Society
'Mezzacappa brings nuance and a great depth of historical knowledge to the cross-class romance between a servant and a nobleman.' Publishers Weekly.
The Ballad of Mary Kearney is a compelling must-read for anyone interested in Irish history, told through the means of an enduring but ultimately tragic love.
Buy Link:
Universal Buy Link: https://books2read.com/u/3yxPpJ
Author Bio:
Katherine Mezzacappa is Irish but currently lives in Carrara, between the Apuan Alps and the Tyrrhenian Sea. She wrote The Ballad of Mary Kearney (Histria) and The Maiden of Florence (Fairlight) under her own name, as well as four historical novels (2020-2023) with Zaffre, writing as Katie Hutton. She also has three contemporary novels with Romaunce Books, under the pen name Kate Zarrelli.
Katherine’s short fiction has been published in journals worldwide. She has in addition published academically in the field of 19th century ephemeral illustrated fiction, and in management theory. She has been awarded competitive residencies by the Irish Writers Centre, the Danish Centre for Writers and Translators and (to come) the Latvian Writers House.
Katherine also works as a manuscript assessor and as a reader and judge for an international short story competition. She has in the past been a management consultant, translator, museum curator, library assistant, lecturer in History of Art, sewing machinist and geriatric care assistant. In her spare time she volunteers with a second-hand book charity of which she is a founder member. She is a member of the Society of Authors, the Historical Novel Society, the Irish Writers Centre, the Irish Writers Union, Irish PEN / PEN na hÉireann and the Romantic Novelists Association, and reviews for the Historical Novel Review. She has 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. She is represented by Annette Green Authors’ Agency.
Author Links:
Website: https://katherinemezzacappa.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katmezzacappa/
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/author/katherinemezzacappa
Book Excerpt:
Edwin and Janet Chittleborough discuss another Morning After
11th January 1767
“Janet, what troubles thee? Put that linen down directly and sit thee down here.”
Janet dropped the white bundle she was carrying and burst into tears.
“Oh Edwin, Edwin! A motherless child who looked to me for protection and I failed her!”
Chittleborough crossed to his wife, and it was only whilst his foot was shifting the laundry to one side to reach her, that he wondered what Janet was doing with bed linen when it wasn’t wash-day. She sobbed into her hands but between gasps he made out the incoherent words, “Salt. Need salt before it’s too old.’ He looked down and saw the blood on the sheet.
‘From young Kilkeel’s chamber?’ he murmured, and putting his arms around Janet felt her nodding against his shoulder.
“I let her have her day’s holiday yesterday for she did say she wanted very much to see her father. I objected none for she said she would lay the fires before she left and indeed she did, to early for me to see her go. But young Lord James brought her back; McNamara told me this morning when I was looking for her that he saw them come after darkness, her bundled before him on his horse with one arm firm around her and the other on the reins.
“She looked me full in the face when she asked for leave to visit her father and I have always taken her for an honest girl in all things and though she did colour some I thought it only for the oddness of asking a day other than Sunday.
“I see’d them this morning, out in the park, going towards the pond. He was laughing and pulling her along by the hand, pointing out the deer. But she, poor ruined maid, was looking down as though she would find her lost honour there in the wet grass, and coming along of him all reluctant like, as though she’d not wished to be out there where all might see her, till he put his arm around her waist and pulled her close and then when he bent to kiss her face and I saw her look up and smile at him all happy I could not look no more for shame. Early I found Bridget in the scullery crying with her apron thrown over her face saying she had slept alone and no one to lay the fires this morning with her and was she now to attend her own sister the way Mary had attended Lady Mitchelstown for she said it was not right and indeed it is not.”
“Ah, Janet, if he could have only taken another fine lady to him such as had nothing precious to lose. I tremble to think what her destiny is now. This makes clear what Mr. Andrews told me—the new agent that knows so much about turnips. The bantlings that are still at home with Mary’s father are to be educated by Mrs. Samuels and a man is to be hired to take on their work alongside of Kearney. Packy and Bridget are also to go to Mrs. Samuels. Mr. Andrews did say this was monstrous enlightened of Viscount Kilkeel and he hoped that all landlords in Ireland might
follow his example.”
“When all he wanted was to dishonour the poor maidy, and his way to it was to bribe her poor father through those hungry children,” wept Mrs. Chittleborough. “That humble man who had saved him from the pond when he was barely out of leading strings. And we who have known the young Master since a babe and loved him too in our way—to know our kind young man is no better than those toping friends of his we did not care for and thought he’d grown away from.”
“Janet, try not to weep. We must make the best of it. She will need us more than ever, and so will Bridget, though she is made of tougher stuff than poor Mary. We can give no blame to Kearney, for he is a decent man who strives to be a good father in the hardest of times. What choice did he really have? The Gowards own him as they do all their tenants. Who knows; her influence on Lord James may be a positive one though I wish it had been by some other means. I do believe that he loves her in his way, Janet, and let us hope he does not tire of her soon, for we have seen what he wanted these past months in all his looks and deeds—”
“And feared where it would lead.”
“Remember his rage over Blanch? Yet he could have—forgive my indelicacy, wife he could have had her long before now, and much easier, with threats to her, not bribes to a poor father.”
“But will he love her still now that she has yielded?”
“We can only pray for them both.”
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