For those not familiar with the work of Maeve Binchy I’ll tell you a bit about her first. She is an Irish lady based in Dublin and has been writing for a few years now a few of her novels have been turned into movies such as the Liliac bus and Circle of friends. I read in an interview once that before she begins writing her novels she draws up a map of the ficticious town that her book centres round and visualises where each character lives and the home that they live in. Her frist novel ’’Light a Penny Candle’’ was published in 1982 and she won the British book award for lifetime achievement in 1999 so you can tell that she is a great authour. But enough about Maeve and a story of what the book is about.
Scarlet feather is about two people Cathy Scarlet and Tom Feathers who met at catering college and decided to go into buisness toghether. Cathy Scarlet is married to Neil Mitchell, the son of the lady that Cathy’s mother used to clean for so she is met with contempt from her mother in law who thinks that her cleaners daughter isn’t a suitable match for her wonderful son. You can gather from this that there is no love lost between mother in law and daughter in law and a barrier is soon drawn when one night Cathy has finaly had enough of her overpowering and downright rude mother in law Hannah. Cathy then gives her a huge piece of her mind and breathes a sigh of relief that she has finally had the courage to stand up to her after all this time and gathers courage from this. Her husband Neil becomes more withdrawn into his work but not as a result of this but because of his work. He is a solicitor and deals with important cases which earns him promotion but the only drawback is that it is in Holland which would result in Cathy leaving her beloved buisness just as is’t finally going somewhere.
Tom Feathers lives with Marcella, a wannabe model who is to old at 25 but doesn’t realise that she continues waiting for her big break. Tom’s father JT has a sucessful building buisness that he wanted Tom to join but Tom’s love was catering and not the building trade. Tom is the strength behind Scarlet feathers but although they work equally as hard at it Tom has the strenght to hold it together when a robbery might spell the end of the buisness altogether. As the story continues we meet other characters such as Simon and Maud ten year old twins who belong to Neils Aunt and Uncle who go missing and leave the twins in the care of his mother and father. It soon becomes clear that Hannah isn’t up to the job and so Cathy takes the twins to live with her parents Muttie and Lizzie who take in the twins and look after them until the return of their parents.
I loved this book and found it increasingly hard to put it down. I even found myself reading it while making the evening meal a few times and consequently burning it. A very lighthearted novel from the high quality that we expect from Maeve Binchy but don’t just take my word for it, read it yourself.