Maeve Binchy

"In a small seaside Irish town in the late 1950s, two very different children are growing up, shouting their hearts desires into the echo cave, praying that their destiny will lead them far from Castlebay, a place empty and gloomy in winter but bustling with visitors in the gaudy days of summer. One of the children is Clare, shopkeeper Tom O'Brien's younger daughter. She wins a scholarship to University College, Dublin, and seems set for academic...

From the New York Times bestselling author of Circle of Friends and The Glass Lake comes This Year It Will Be Different, a stunning new work that brings us the magic and spirit of Christmas in fifteen stories filled with Maeve Binchy's trademark wit, charm, and sheer storytelling genius. Instead of nostalgia, Binchy evokes contemporary life; instead of Christmas homilies, she offers truth; and instead of sugarplums, she...

After many happy years of marriage and raising a family, Brian and Kathleen suddenly find themselves a bit lost in life. Midwesterners who’ve never traveled, Kathleen decides that what she and Brian need is a vacation, and with the help of an enthusiastic travel agent she plans a trip to Ireland in search of her roots. In beautiful, quaint Lisdoonvarna, to the couple’s surprise, they find themselves in the midst of a joyous yearly gathering...

In the Irish town of Schancarrig, the young carve their initials--and those of their loves-into the copper beech tree in front of the schoolhouse. But not even Father Gunn, the parish priest, who knows most of what goes on behind Shancarrig's closed doors, or Dr. Jims, the village doctor, who knows all the rest, realizes that not everything in the placid village is what it seems.

Night after night the beautiful woman walked beside the serene waters of Lough Glass until she disappeared, leaving only a boat drifting upside down on the unfathomable lake that gave the town its name. Helen McMahon, a Dubliner, never belonged in Lough Glass, not the way her genial pharmacist-husband Martin belonged, or their daughter Kit. Now Kit is haunted by the memory of her mother, seen through a window, alone at the kitchen table, tears streaming...

When Noel learns that his terminally ill former flame is pregnant with his child, he agrees to take guardianship of the baby girl once she's born. But as a single father battling demons of his own, Noel can't do it alone. Fortunately, he has a competent, caring network of friends, family and neighbors: Lisa, his unlucky-in-love classmate, who moves in with him to help him care for little Frankie around the clock; his American cousin, Emily, always...

Nestled outside the once sleepy Irish village of Rossmore in a copse known as Whitethorn Woods is the shrine of St. Ann's Well, which attracts so many of the faithful and hopeful that the little town overflows with visitors. This prompts a controversial proposal to construct a bypass highway that would divert traffic, ironically, right through the Woods, thus destroying the source of the town's popularity. Worried that the shrine's days are numbered,...

A collection of the very best of Binchy's short story writing, stories that were written over the decades—some published in magazines, others for friends as gifts, many for charity benefits. Stories that show times may have changed, but people often remain the same: they fall in love, sometimes unsuitably; they have hopes and dreams; they have deep, long-standing friends whose secrets are shared; they go on holidays and celebrate new jobs.

A collection of eight interconnected stories features seven different people who, every Friday evening, travel from Dublin to Rathdoon on Tom Fitzgerald's lilac-colored bus.

Two friends who grew up together in a small Irish village attend college in Dublin, where their lives become intertwined with the beautiful Nan Mahon and Jack Foley, the handsome son of a doctor.