Kelly is the author of several novels and has ghostwritten for a popular children's series. Her writing has appeared in Time, The Washington Post, The Toast, The Millions, and Rust Belt Chicago: An Anthology.
What if the most important decision of your life was not yours to make? This vivid and powerful novel follows two women whose paths intersect at a maternity home in the "Baby Scoop Era."
The Myth of Surrender (Pegasus Books, 2022)
In 1960, free-spirited Doreen is a recent high-school grad and waitress in a Chicago diner. She doesn't know Margie, sixteen and bookish, who lives a sheltered suburban life, but they soon meet when unplanned pregnancies send them to the Holy Family Home for the Wayward in rural Illinois. Assigned as roommates because their due dates line up, Margie and Doreen navigate Holy Family’s culture of secrecy and shame and become fast friends as the weight of their coming decision — to keep or surrender their babies — becomes clear.
Except, they soon realize, the decision has already been made for them. Holy Family, like many of the maternity homes where 1.5 million women “relinquished” their babies in what is now known as the Baby Scoop Era, is not interested in what the birth mothers want. In its zeal to make the babies “legitimate” in closed adoptions, Holy Family manipulates and bullies birth mothers, often coercing them to sign away their parental rights while still under the effects of anesthesia.
What happens next, as their babies are born and they leave Holy Family behind, will force each woman to confront the depths and limits of motherhood and friendship, and fight to reclaim control over their own lives.
"It’s a story of mothers and daughters, of life-changing faux-pas for which you will not be forgiven, of the shame brought upon family and community, that unforgivable lapse in judgement never visited upon the father. The novel is also an exploration of secrets and lies, how church and family colluded to make decisions, supposedly with best interests in mind, without any input from the mothers-to-be, who were expected to move on with their lives as though nothing had happened. . . . Bravo to Ms. McNees for illuminating a mostly forgotten piece of history . . ."
—The Historical Novel Society, EDITOR’S CHOICE
Undiscovered Country (Pegasus Books, 2019)
An extraordinary novel portraying one of the greatest untold love stories in American politics.
In 1932, New York City, top reporter Lorena “Hick” Hickok starts each day with a front page byline―and finishes it swigging bourbon and planning her next big scoop.
But an assignment to cover FDR’s campaign―and write a feature on his wife, Eleanor―turns Hick’s hard-won independent life on its ear. Soon her work, and the secret entanglement with the new first lady, will take her from New York and Washington to Scotts Run, West Virginia, where impoverished coal miners’ families wait in fear that the New Deal’s promised hope will pass them by. Together, Eleanor and Hick imagine how the new town of Arthurdale could change the fate of hundreds of lives. But doing what is right does not come cheap, and Hick will pay in ways she never could have imagined.
Undiscovered Country artfully mixes fact and fiction to portray the intense relationship between this unlikely pair. Inspired by the historical record, including the more than three thousand letters Hick and Eleanor exchanged over a span of thirty years, McNees tells this story through Hick’s tough, tender, and unforgettable voice. A remarkable portrait of Depression-era America, this novel tells the poignant story of how a love that was forced to remain hidden nevertheless changed history.
“The adept historical novelist Kelly O’Connor McNees chronicles this daring relationship from Lorena Hickok’s point of view. McNees’s more politically detailed fiction has Hick’s ultimate solitude, and her disappointment, at its heart. McNees takes us through the women’s headiest romantic period . . . celebrat[ing] an Eleanor Roosevelt who is warm and affectionate.” —New York Times Book Review
“The combination of sympathetic yet flawed characters, rich atmospheric details about Depression-era America, and lyrical writing make this one a winner." —Library Journal (Starred)
“Letters between First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and journalist Lorena ‘Hick’ Hickok inspire McNees’s rich exploration of their secret relationship. A moving and intimate glimpse of Hick and Roosevelt.” —Publishers Weekly
"McNees’ convincing tale illuminates a difficult time for Americans and a woman following her heart, no matter the cost, in a world that had no place for a person like her." —Booklist
"A quiet, elegant, meaningful look at an affair that affected American history." —Lithub
The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott (Amy Einhorn/Putnam, 2010)
A richly imagined, remarkably written story of the woman who created Little Women—and how love changed her in ways she never expected.
Countless readers have fallen in love with Little Women. But how could the author—who never had a romance—write so convincingly of love and heartbreak without experiencing it herself?
Deftly mixing fact and fiction, Kelly O'Connor McNees returns to the summer of 1855, when vivacious Louisa May Alcott is twenty-two and bursting to free herself from family and societal constraints and do what she loves most. Stuck in small-town New Hampshire, she meets Joseph Singer, and as she opens her heart, Louisa finds herself torn between a love that takes her by surprise and her dream of independence as a writer in Boston. The choice she must make comes with a steep price that she will pay for the rest of her life.
“Devotees of Little Women will flock to this story with pleasure.”
— The Washington Post
The Island of Doves (Berkley/Penguin, 2014)
The Island of Doves
Vivid and enthralling, Island of the Doves tells the story of two women in early nineteenth century America—one typical of her time, one extraordinary for it—who transform each other’s lives.
Susannah Fraser lives in one of Buffalo’s finest mansions, but her husband has made it a monstrous prison. When a mysterious woman offers to help her escape, Susannah boards a steamboat for Mackinac Island. But after being a dutiful daughter and obedient wife, it is only as she flees that she realizes how unprepared she is for freedom.
An exceptional woman of early America, Magdelaine Fonteneau has overcome convention to live a bold and adventurous life, achieving great wealth and power as a fur trader. But Magdelaine has also seen great tragedy and lost all that was dear to her, and she is no longer sure her hardened heart is capable of love.
Now, Magdelaine seeks redemption by offering safe harbor to Susannah. But as their friendship grows into something miraculous, it changes each woman in unexpected ways. Each needs to learn to love again, and only together can they realize a future bright with the promise of new life…
In Need of a Good Wife (Berkley/Penguin, 2012)
In Need of a Good Wife
Richly detailed, vivid, and unforgettable, this is an extraordinary novel about three women challenging the American West—and unpredictable fate—for a future only the most daring can secure…
For Clara Bixby, brokering mail-order brides is a golden business opportunity—and a desperately needed chance to start again. If she can help New York women find husbands in a far-off Nebraska town, she can build an independent new life away from her own loss and grief.
Clara’s ambitions are shared by two other women, who are also willing to take any risk. Quiet immigrant Elsa hopes to escape her life of servitude and at last shape her own destiny. And Rowena, the willful, impoverished heiress, jumps at the chance to marry a humble stranger and repay a heartbreaking debt. All three struggle to find their true place in the world, leaving behind who they were in order to lay claim to the person they want to be. Along the way, each must face unexpected obstacles and dangerous choices, but they also help to forge a nation unlike any that came before.