Showing results by narrator "Kate Binchy" in All Categories

Cathy Scarlet and Tom Feather have decided to create the best catering company in Dublin. They have the perfect premises, heaps of talent, and even a few contacts - but not everyone seems as pleased by the idea of Scarlet Feather as they are. Tom's parents are disappointed that he has turned his back on the family business. Cathy's husband buries himself in work, becoming ever more distant, whilst his mother thinks Cathy should stay at home to look after him.

This is the story of two very different children growing up in a small Irish seaside town in the 50s and 60s. Shouting their hearts' desires into the echo cave, praying that their destiny will lead them far away from the town in which they live. Castlebay, in winter empty and grey with wind and sea spray, becomes all bustle and colour in the gaudy days of summer. The paths of these two characters are destined to criss-cross in a quite unforeseen way, and eventually both roads will lead back to Castlebay.

Every table at Quentins Restaurant has a thousand stories to tell: tales of love, betrayal and revenge. Ella Brady wants to make a documentary about the renowned Dublin restaurant that has captured the spirit of a generation and a city in the years it has been open. In Maeve Binchy's magical Quentins you will meet new friends and old: the twins from Scarlet Feather, the Signora from Evening Class, Ria from Tara Road, and a host of fresh faces.

Baby Frankie is born into an unusual family. Her mother is desperate to find someone to take care of her child, and she doesn’t have much time. Noel doesn’t seem to be the most promising of fathers, but despite everything he could well be Frankie’s best hope. As for Lisa, she is prepared to give up everything for the man she loves; surely he’s going to love her back. And Moira is having none of it. She knows what’s right and has the power to change the course of Frankie’s life.

In the small Irish town of Knockglen, best friends Bernadette ('Benny') and Eve are inseparable. Benny is an adored only child, and Eve, a poor, birdlike orphan brought up by nuns. On their first day at University College, Dublin, a fatal road accident brings the pair together with fellow students Nan Mahon and Jack Foley, and new friendships are quickly struck. Jack and Nan introduce Eve and Benny to a life of excitement and sophistication.

Described by Len Deighton as ‘a classic writer of espionage fiction’, Ted Allbeury based his many acclaimed spy novels on his own real-life experiences. In World War II, he served as an intelligence officer with Special Operations Executive, and subsequently ran agents across the border between East and West Germany during the Cold War. He began writing in his fifties, and went on to pen over 40 bestselling books, five of which are dramatised here alongside three plays specially written for BBC Radio and two bonus documentaries.

Every Friday night the same seven Dublin workers meet to travel home in Tom Fitzgerald's lilac-coloured minibus. Each of them needs to return regularly to Rathdoon: Nancy Morris, a real 'Miss Mouse', is known for her meanness and has to escape her flatmate's carping; Dee Burke is engrossed in her affair; Kev Kennedy has a side to his character hidden even from his family; Celis Ryan has to face her mother making a drunken exhibition of herself - and Tom has his reasons.

Firefly Summer is warm, humorous, sad and happy. Reading it is a joy' Irish Independent In the summer of 1962, an American millionaire arrives in a small, sleepy Irish town with far-reaching consequences. For the children of the Ryan family, the long hot summers are usually spent playing in the ruins of a large, abandoned house.

As a child, Elizabeth was sent from her war-torn, rather loveless home in London to stay with a big, boisterous family in a small town in Ireland. There she meets Aisling, and begins what becomes a long-lasting friendship. Over the next 20 years, Aisling and Elizabeth's paths will cross and re-cross. As they face their loves, their marriages, and their disappointments, they realise that not all problems will be solved, nor all wishes granted by lighting a penny candle.

Kit McMahon lives in the small Irish town of Lough Glass, a place where nothing changes - until the day Kit's mother disappears and Kit is haunted by the memory of her mother, alone at the kitchen table, tears streaming down her face. Now Kit, too, has secrets: of the night she discovered a letter and burned it, unopened. The night her mother was lost. The night everything changed forever....

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. Under Junior Assistant Mistress Maddy Ross's careful gaze the children play, but out of school Maddy's gaze lingers where it shouldn't. Maura Brennan, a bundle of fun from the rough end of town, plays with her pals.

Just round the corner from St Jarlath's Crescent (featured in Minding Frankie) is Chestnut Street. Here, the lives of the residents are revealed in Maeve Binchy's wonderfully compelling tales: Bucket Maguire, the window cleaner, who must do more than he bargained for to protect his son. Nessa Byrne, who's aunt comes to visit from America for six weeks every summer and turns the house - and Nessa's world - upside down. Lilian, the generous girl with a big heart, and the fiancé not everyone approves of.

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...

When Danny Lynch tells his wife Ria that he has a young pregnant mistress, Ria thinks that her world has ended. Little does she know that within weeks a telephone call from America will open up a whole new world for her. Marilyn Vine, escaping from her own private demons, wants to exchange her house in Westville, New England, for a house in Dublin during a few summer weeks. Ria Lynch's big Victorian house in Tara Road is perfect.

Ria and Marilyn have never met - they live thousands of miles apart, separated by the Atlantic Ocean: one in a big, warm, Victorian house in Tara Road, Dublin, the other in a modern, open-plan house in New England. Two more unlikely friends would be hard to find: Ria's life revolves around her family and friends while Marilyn's reserve is born of grief. But when each needs a place to escape to, a house exchange seems the ideal solution.

A delectable collection of 22 short stories centred around people travelling on the London Underground. We meet a young couple travelling nervously to Seven Sisters for their first wife-swapping party; there's Annie's Pimlico Hotel, which is only open for specially-chosen guests; Rita, the mysterious temp, who lives in Notting Hill Gate; and Sophie, who runs a handbag shop at Marble Arch. All the stories have in common Maeve Binchy's delicious humour and warmth.

As someone who fell off a chair not long ago trying to hear they what they were saying at the next table in a restaurant, I suppose I am obsessively interested in what some might consider the trivia of other people's lives'. Maeve Binchy is well known for her best-selling novels, the most recent of which was A Week in Winter. But for many years Maeve was a journalist, writing for The Irish Times.

A society hostess entertains her husband's mistress to dinner; a country girl savours the delights of city life; a student faces the dilemma of unmarried pregnancy; and a drink-ridden photographer tries to relaunch his shattered career.A vintage collection of four stories set in the heart of Dublin's fashionable Southside, DUBLIN 4 has all of the author's intimate grasp of human feelings, and her marvellous ear for dialogue.

Clara Casey has more than enough on her plate. Her daughters Adi and Linda were no problem during the usually turbulent teens. Now in their twenties, Adi is always fighting for or against something: the environment or the whale or battery farming; while Linda lurches from one unsatisfactory relationship to the next. As if this wasn't enough, Clara, a senior cardiac specialist, has a new job to cope with - and now her ex-husband wants something from her.

High on the cliffs of the west coast of Ireland, overlooking the windswept Atlantic Ocean, is Stone House. Once falling into disrepair, it is now a beautiful hotel specialising in winter holidays. With a big, warm kitchen, log fires and understated, elegant bedrooms, it provides a welcome few can resist, whatever their reasons for coming...Henry and Nicola are burdened with a terrible secret, and are hoping the break at Stone House will help them find a way to face the future.