Hazel Mc Intyre’s novel ‘Lament In The Wind’ was launched in October 1999. Beginning in the present, the carefully researched work of fiction set against the background of famine Ireland, tells the compelling story of Cassie O’ Connor. It has already been described, as a story of that will live long in the memory of the reader.‘Lament in the wind is not only Hazel Mc Intyre’s tribute to the victims of The Great Hunger, but is also a tribute to the courage and dignity of the human spirit.
An interesting footnote to Hazel Mc Intyre’s third book is that young Irelander, Thomas Darcy Mc Gee, escaped to America in 1848 via Culdaff in Co. Donegal where Mc Gee—disguised as a clergyman—hid in a farmhouse until passage was secured for him on a Derry emigrant ship. By 1858 he had established the ‘New Era’ newspaper in which he advocated the creation of a Canadian nation. On July the first, 1867, he was a member of the Canadian legislature which admitted New Brunswick as one of the four original provinces of the Dominion of Canada. ‘As I followed the turbulent life and times of Cassie O’ Connor from County Donegal to New Brunswick , I was reminded of T. S. Elliot’s lines;"Beneath the bleeding hands we feel The sharp compassion of the healer’s art  Resolving the enigma of the fever chart."Cassie’s life parallels an equally convulsive period in famine Ireland but Hazel Mc Intyre doesn’t resort to easy cliché or cosy familiarity.       is ‘the healers art’; the British and Irish are not conveniently brutal and downtrodden in equal measure; ‘the fever chart’ of Ireland’s history is much too enigmatic to be used as a expedient backdrop for a work of fiction. There is suffering in ‘Lament In The Wind’ but the innate compassion of the author ensures that we are left with hope and affirmation. This is a love story and to quote Anthony Trollope; ‘Those who have courage to love should have courage to suffer.’  

Frank Galligan writer and broadcaster BBC Radio Foyle and Radio Ulster.
The celebrated writer Joyce Carey once wrote about the ‘dark light’ which enveloped the Inishowen Peninsula, the setting for one of his novels. He evoked the landscape, its colors and moods and as I read Hazel McIntyre’s moving account of the life of her central character, Cassie O’Connor, in ‘Lament In The Wind,’ the themes of light and darkness kept recurring. The darkness was the shadow of the Great Famine but the light shone from the love and warmth of the characters in their triumph over adversity in a traumatic period in Irish history.In this, her third publication, Hazel McIntyre vividly recounts the dark episodes in the lives of the famine victims; their fear of the workhouse, the threats of eviction, the hemorrhage of emigration and the deserted homesteads left in its wake. But she also evokes the redeeming brighter side of human nature as events unfold, which bring hope out of despair and which, a century later, turn darkness into light.No-one can remain unmoved after reading this heroic story, skillfully narrated with sympathy and understanding by Hazel McIntyre ; a powerful tribute that will be eagerly read everywhere, but especially in Ireland and Canada.                                                                                                                                                   
Sean Beattie writer and historian. Inishowen Co Donegal. 15 Oct 1998
Hazel McIntyre is a born storyteller and her latest novel ‘Lament In The Wind’ is proof of that seemingly effortless talent.‘Lament In The Wind’ unfolds naturally as an absorbing family history, taking us from the comfort of a high-tec present to the harshness of of a Donegal past during the famine. And as Hazel fills her canvas with realistic characters, landscape and historical detail, she sympathetically recreates that cruel period without wallowing in it.                                                                                                                                                            
Lynne Reece Loftus:    Irish Canadian Education Resource Programme Director and Chairperson of The Irish Canadian Society, Greystones Co. Dublin  
‘Lament In The Wind’ is a meticulously researched novel which explores understanding and suffering. It is also a story of love and its ability to transcend even the most vicious hardships. It’s a powerful and evocative subject and the story of the novel’s protagonist, Cassie O’ Connor mirrors the tragic plight of Ireland. Cassie’s pangs are Ireland’s pangs, her displacement Irelands displacement, her ennobled spirit that of Irelands. During the famine, clinging to a miserable existence was a daily occupation, the only occupation. ‘Lament In The Wind’ coveys this without embroider.
Fear of the workhouse, the threat of eviction, the disarray involved in emigration and the deserted waste-land left behind are rendered starkly. The book imaginatively re-counts this dreadful chapter without descending into gloom. The restoration of hope at the end is triumphant. 

Eamonn Huston. The Sentinel.
NEWS LETTER, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1998
HAZEL’S first book was a look back to contented childhood in her beloved Donegal. Her first novel was also set in Donegal, and in America, and tells a compelling story of Mary Kate, who was rescued from a nunnery, went on to life and love.Hazel’s storytelling gets even better, and in this, her second novel, she moves between Canada and yes, Donegal. Set in modern and famine times, one and a half centuries ago, it is a story of poverty, fear, love, avarice, goodness, heroism.The reader is hooked on page one, well this reader was, and drawn into a gripping and romantic story. The story begins in the present, in a blend of decision and indecision, quite a human state, I thought. Through the art of research, the reader is gently drawn back 150 years. There you can look in at life in that time, see and hear people living and dying, getting on with themselves and their neighbors.You can share their hardships, their romance, their hard lives and their tender moments.You can witness their despair and follow their hope. And you can see it all pass before you from birth to death.Hazel brings us back to "now" reality at intervals. This makes us differentiate between the present day and the past, and we can see what a great difference exists. But we feel that this difference concerns material things, and that which matters is in people’s hearts and minds. That does not change.The end of the book brings us back to the present, and towards a hopeful future. And we are left contemplating that future.

Paul Cormacain The Great Famine, as it has since been labelled, is widely regarded as one of the most important and vivid times in Irish history. Yet the human aspect of this time that touched so many lives so profoundly, has often been forgotten.
In her latest novel "Lament in the Wind," Donegal author Hazel McIntyre addresses the subject
and shows us how, even in the depths of despair and deprivation, the strength of human courage can come shining through.  A retrospective look at this 
significant time in Irish history, "Lament in the
        
Wind," tells the story of Cassie O'Connor who with her mother, is saved from the workhouse by Marcia Briggs, daughter of the local clergyman. Yet, this is not just a piece of history, nor just a love story or indeed a sad story,.
Instead it is a tale that magically encapsulates all these aspects. In combining them, Hazel McIntyre has crafted a work that will appeal to a wide spectrum of the public. A story sure to etch itself into memory and one that can and will be read time and time again. 
DONEGAL DEMOCRATE, DECEMBER 31^st, 1998.