Writers and Readers Network -TK

The Keeners

By Maura D. Shaw

Maura D. Shaw gives readers a story rich in history and steeped in tradition in her new novel “The Keeners” from Medallion Press.

All is blooming in County Clare, Ireland in the spring of 1846, including seventeen-year-old Margaret Meehan. She is sure the heart of handsome rebel Tom Roidan is hers and he will soon take her hand. When not practicing the ancient art of the Keeners, singing and chanting songs of lament for the dead with Nuala Lynch, Margaret dreams and plans with her best friend, Kitty Dooley, of a cottage across the road from each other and their children playing in the lane.

But it is 1846, the year of the blight. The potato blight and famine will soon shatter her dreams. The devastation has her keening daily for friends, family, strangers, and her beloved County Clare.

Most of her family is gone. Kitty is a broken shell. Nuala has keened her last lament. Tom’s Rebel activities have made him a wanted man. It’s to America for Margaret Meehan. She flees with Tom to Troy New York. With a heart that keens for County Clare and a young girl’s dreams, she will carve a new life in a strange land with the man she loves.

A gifted storyteller with a mastery of language writes a tightly paced story, and Maura D. Shaw is such a storyteller. Her knowledge of Ireland and its history, her empathy with a people she is connected to through her great grandmother, add a depth to this story that pulled me in to feel the hunger, pain, loss, fear, love, strength, and courage that take Margaret from the shores of Ireland to a new home and a new life. She captures the devastation of a land and its people through the eyes of characters that tug at the heartstrings and tie them into a forget-me-not bow. “The Keeners” is a bookshelf keeper. A book, a story, you will want to read again, from a talented author who respects her craft and cares about her readers and her subject.