Ashes of Fiery Weather

June 20, 2016
This breathtaking first novel spans several generations of Irish-American women whose lives revolve around the Glory Devlins, the Brooklyn fire company of which their loved ones are members. In 1983, we meet Norah O’Reilly, whose firefighter husband, Sean, has just died in a fire, leaving her to raise four children on her own. The story then travels back and forth in time, introducing Sean’s mother, Delia Keegan O’Reilly, a closeted lesbian; Annie-Rose Devlin Keegan, Delia’s mother, who loses two young sons to the influenza pandemic of 1918; and Sean’s adopted sister, Eileen O’Reilly Maddox, one of the FDNY’s first female firefighters. The story builds up to Sept. 11, 2001, as Sean’s daughter, Maggie, a graduate student in Irish literature studying in Ireland, tries desperately to learn news of her family. It all ends with Katie McKenna, the 20-year-old daughter Maggie gave up for adoption at birth, trying to find her biological roots 11 years after her adoptive mother died in the South Tower. The child of a family of Irish-American firefighters, the author shows how tradition, sorrow, and love of the old country bind these lives together. Her depiction of 9/11 is by far one of the best fictional accounts by that terrible day in which 343 members of the FDNY perished. In the end, her novel is a moving testament to the men and women who risk their lives every day.

March 1, 2016

Ranging across six generations, Donohoe's ambitious debut portrays women in the Keegan/O'Reilly clan, bound together by fire and ash. For a family of firefighters, life is fraught and sometimes tragic; we meet Irish-born Norah at the full fireman's funeral given her husband, while Eileen, among New York's first women firefighters, takes us through 9/11. With six firefighters in her family, Donohue wanted to gives us an on-the-ground perspective of the falling towers, and she ranges over New York City history as well. With a 30,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 15, 2016
Four generations of women tied to Irish-American firefighters in Brooklyn move through this sprawling debut as it renders a family and community held together by the threat of sudden loss and the burdens of new lives.From the death and diaspora sparked by Ireland's 1845 famine to the hundreds of firefighters killed on 9/11, Donohoe tells the story of seven women linked to the Keegan-O'Reilly clan in as many large sections. The cast includes about 20 main characters, and while a prefatory family tree helps, confusion can arise. The big chunks aren't in chronological order, and time shifts often within them under small-font subheads that are easily overlooked. The men are generally at the firehouse, working a second job, or in a bar. That leaves the central seven women and a narrative thread of personal or family crises, small and large, unspooling episodically like a rosary moving bead by bead through praying fingers. The major theme that sustains many loosely connected moments is that of missing persons. To take one example, before adopting a child, Delia consults with her Jewish friend Nathaniel, whose parents were forced to leave a sickly child behind in Poland before fleeing the Nazis. Nathaniel will spend most of his life searching for this lost brother. Delia will adopt Eileen, whose unwed mother in conservative 1950s Ireland must give her up, and Eileen will spend years wondering about her birth mother. A line also runs from Delia's son, Sean, to another girl curious about the unwed mother in liberal 1990s Brooklyn who agreed to have her baby adopted. The theme culminates of course with 9/11, and Donohoe brings a fresh eye to the catastrophe as it batters her characters and elevates her generally unspectacular prose. This is dangerously fertile ground for stereotypes and cliches, both of which Donohoe largely avoids in a sympathetic tale full of well-shaped vignettes.

COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

July 1, 2016
The history of the Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY) provides the backdrop for the lives of seven women united not only by blood ties and Irish heritage but also by fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons (and, after women are allowed to take the test for the FDNY for the first time, a daughter) who are firefighters. The novel begins with the funeral of fallen firefighter Sean O'Reilly in 1983 and ends shortly after 9/11. In between, it follows its own chronological conventions, so that the chapter devoted to the oldest woman, Annie-Rose Devlin Keegan, appears in the middle of the book. It is her father, Patrick, who arrived from Ireland in 1862 and later became a founding member of the Brooklyn fire company nicknamed the Glory Devlins, which helps shape the lives of so many of his descendants. Family, marriage, immigration, loss, choice, and religious faith are just a few of the themes interwoven with historical events. Donohoe, herself from a Brooklyn family of Irish-immigrant firefighters, has written a solid work that will satisfy readers who enjoy multigenerational fiction.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

Starred review from June 1, 2016

This riveting first novel takes readers from the 19th-century Irish potato famine to 21st-century New York City through the lives of six generations of women in an Irish American family of firefighters. Written almost as vignettes, the women's narratives flow from one generation to another, culminating in an entrancing story line. Adding to the book's power are the authentic Brooklyn details, making the borough a compelling character in itself. That the author grew up in such a family makes her work that much more realized with strongly developed supporting characters, gritty realism, and a non-Hollywood-style ending. VERDICT Admirers of Pete Hamill and Kate Atkinson will appreciate this gripping and intimate novel, as well as those who want an absorbing multigenerational read. [See Prepub Alert, 3/1/16.]--Marianne Fitzgerald, Severna Park H.S., MD

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.