Showing results by narrator "Kate Binchy" in All Categories

Among the many evening classes starting all over Dublin is an "Introduction to Italian". On the surface, it could be just one of hundreds in which some students will succeed and some will fall along the way. But the Italian class at Mountainview School has its own special quality, and the hopes and dreams of so many people are tied up in the twice weekly lessons.

By the school house at Shancarrig stands a copper beech, its bark scarred with the names and dreams of the pupils who have grown up under its branches. This tree is the gateway to Maeve Binchy's marvellous portrait of a small Irish town whose untroubled surface conceals the passions, rivalries, friendships, ambitions, and jealousies beneath.

Scarlet Feather is set in contemporary Dublin, and is the story of Cathy Scarlet and Tom Feather, who go into business together as caterers. Tom is the son of a builder and his fanatically devout wife, both of whom are disappointed that he hasn't joined the family building firm. Cathy's father is an inveterately optimistic gambler on the horses, and her mother, Lizzie, is a domestic cleaner.

A silver wedding means a family gathering, difficult occasions at the best of times. But for the Doyles (Deidre, Desmond, and their children Anna, Helen, and Brendan) it will be more difficult than most. For each of them is keeping up a front; each of them is nursing a secret wound, or smarting over a hidden betrayal. As the day draws nearer, so the tension mounts, until finally the guests gather at the silver wedding party itself.

Mike Fisher has everything to live for: a stunning model girlfriend, who has just accepted his proposal, and a successful career as a computer programmer. So why would he suddenly resign, dress up in women's underwear and crash his car into a tree? And if he wanted to kill himself, why do it on his wedding day? His death is ruled as suicide, but his fiancée, Kim Drake, is sure there's more to it than meets the eye.

When Jim Nealon walks into Lizzie Flynn's shop and proposes that she help him make jigsaws, Lizzie agrees. Jim shows her the photographs he intends to use, and now the picture that was Lizzie's life is in the air, swirling around in a thousand pieces and threatening to fall. As she scrambles to put her life back together again, Lizzie realises that it can't be done, and it never was a real picture anyway. This is a story of Lizzie's journey towards the truth.

When Sally's husband Charlie says he's leaving her, she makes him go at once. As a child growing up in Dublin, she never had friends thanks to her lonely, secretive unmarried mother who kept her at home with her. A succesful actress, she can effortlessly mimic others, but who is she, herself? With desperate courage she decides to visit her grandfather, a shadowy figure, in the forlorn hope that she can unlock the door to her past.