Kevin O'Connell is a native of New York City, the descendant of a young officer of the Irish Brigade of the French army. He holds both Irish and American citizenship.
Mr. O’Connell began the Derrynane Saga in 2014. His first book, Beyond
Derrynane: A Novel of Eighteenth Century Europe, was published in July 2016,
whilst the second, Two Journeys Home: A Novel of Eighteenth Century Europe was
released in November 2017. Both are in global circulation and have received
a range of positive critical reviews, in the United States, the United
Kingdom and Europe. Bittersweet Tapestry is the third of four projected
volumes.
The Saga has been described as being a sweeping, multi-layered story,
populated by an array of colourfully-complex characters, whose lives and
stories play out in a series of striking settings. Set against the drama of
Europe in the early stages of significant change, the book dramatizes the
roles which have never before been treated in fiction played by a small
number of expatriate Irish of the fallen Gaelic Aristocracy at the courts of
Catholic Europe. It is with Bittersweet Tapestry that O’Connell again focuses
in greater detail on their lives in English-occupied Ireland.