IRISH EYES, Book 1 of Hope’s American Songbook series, spans twenty-five years of Gilded Age through the Jazz Age Manhattan, as seen through the eyes of spirited Irish-born Rose O’Neill.

In light of all that’s since happened, I suppose it makes a sad sort of sense that the great love of my life should come to me by way of despair and carnage of the darkest, most savage sort…

December 1898. In the aftermath of America’s war with Spain, Rose leaves her beloved Arans and boards a steamer for New York City. Herded through the  emigrant landing depot at The Battery, abandoned and alone, she soon discovers that the New York streets are no more paved in gold than those of Galway. To survive, she must ford her way through Lower East Side tenements and sweatshops, Fifth Avenue mansions and tony hotels – tangling with Tammany Hall for the soul of the man with whom her fate is inextricably linked while fighting her feelings for the first love who still holds her heart. Just as she begins to make peace with the past, the Great War erupts in Europe, threatening to topple the dynasty for which she has sacrificed so much.

December 7, 2023 from Lume Books.