Firefly summer

Maeve Binchy, 1940-2012

Large print - 2007

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Subjects
Published
Waterville, Me. : Thorndike Press 2007.
Language
English
Main Author
Maeve Binchy, 1940-2012 (-)
Edition
Large print ed
Item Description
Originally published: 1988.
Physical Description
943 p. (large print) ; 24 cm
ISBN
9780786297757
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

When American Patrick O'Neill buys the ruined old house called Fernscourt, the life of almost everyone in the little Irish town of Mountfern is changed. In particular, the Ryans, who own one of the village pubs, will be affected when O'Neill completes his plans to turn Fernscourt into a hotel. But more than the Ryans' livelihood is at stake. Kate Ryan is crippled in an accident at the Fernscourt construction site, while Ryan twins Dara and Michael develop relationships with O'Neill's children, Kerry and Grace. In a very leisurely manner, the novel traces the lives of the Ryans and other villagers during a four-year period, from the time O'Neill buys the old house until the tragic climax of his dream. The careful examination of life and culture in a small Irish town during the 1960s will appeal to many readers. MEQ.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Binchy's latest novel (after Light a Penny Candle ) is set in the tiny Irish backwater of Mountfern, home to a handful of families and typical of hundreds of similar hamlets in the British Isles where life is lived to the rhythm of the seasons. Mountfern is the ancestral home of Patrick O`Neill, a rough, rich American whose wealth comes from bars and restaurants, and whose dream is to build a grand hotel in Mountfern. The consequences of Patrick's arrival there early in the '60s are often hilarious: the local aristocracyespecially the widows and spinstersvies for his attentions, while the villagers are beguiled by his largesse and by thoughts of the prosperity the hotel will bring. But tragedy strikes when a bulldozer working on the hotel site crushes Kate Ryan's spine; her adaptation to life in a wheelchair is brave and touching. Kate (Binchy's most splendid character) and her husband own a pub that is bound to suffer when the hotel opens. Other charactersall memorably portrayedcome to be resentful of the ``Yank's'' money while they reveal their own cupidity. Patrick's joy at his homecoming is slowly eroded, and his teenage son Kerry breaks hearts, including his father's. Binchy's lyrical prose has a lilt and musicality that makes it a joy to read. With a strong narrative drive that never flags, the story engages all the reader's emotions. (September) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

When American millionaire Patrick O'Neill returns to his ancestral home in Ireland, his intent is to bring prosperity to Montfern in the form of a luxury hotel built from the ruins of an old estate. Instead, the villagers see their lifestyles irrevocably changed and the town's inner harmonies disrupted in the four years it takes to build O'Neill's hotel. Binchy ( Light a Penny Candle , LJ 2/15/83) offers vital, complex characters, from John and Kate Ryan, whose pub will be threatened by the new hotel, to Miss Barry, the canon's alcoholic housekeeper. These people live in all their quirky individualism and will remain with the reader long after the book is completed. Accolades. Andrea Caron Kempf, Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, Kan. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

Binchy knows Ireland, as she proved in Light a Penny Candle and Echoes; and once again, it's the full understanding love of the Irish that lights up her third novel, about the village of Montfern in the early 60's--a book that rolls out of its covers like clotted cream, richly but slowly, with Binchy taking her own sweet time to create a huge cast of characters. At the top of the list are Kate and John Ryan, Montfern pub-keepers, with a boisterous family of four, including the twins, Dara and Michael, little Declan, and the miscreant Eddie, collared for defacing a poster of Doris Day at the local cinema. Then there's the lawyer Slattery, single at 27 and silently carrying a torch for Kate; the sage postmistress, Mrs. Whelan, who knows all and says nothing; the canon's drunkard housekeeper, and the town whore. Into this small, humming world comes Patrick O'Neill, a rich Irish-American restauranteur with notions of reclaiming his heritage by rebuilding Ferncourt, the village great house, burned during the Troubles. His plans to turn Ferncourt into a fancy hotel threaten to put the Ryans out of business, and Worse--for Kate succumbs to a construction-site accident that paralyzes her. Still, O'Neill manages to seduce other villagers; likewise, his son and daughter seduce the local kids, with Dara falling in love with the mean-spirited Kerry, and Michael with darling Grace. Alas, O'Neill's efforts prove ill-fated, when fire strikes Ferncourt on its opening day. Except for the explosive finale, this is just too leisurely plotted to enthrall, though it should charm the many Binchy fans--provided they have lots of time on their hands. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

The sun came in at a slant and hit all the rings and marks on the bar counter. Kate Ryan managed to take a cloth to them at the same time as she was kicking off her house shoes and pulling on her wellington boots. She tucked her handbag under the counter and in almost the same movement opened the kitchen door to make sure that Eddie and Declan weren't torturing the new girl. The new girl had red eyes and a sad face and was missing her farm home. She might run back to it if Eddie and Declan were at their worst. But mercifully the appeal of the tortoise was still very strong even after three weeks. They lay on their stomachs and fed it stalks of cabbage, screaming with delight when it accepted them. "John," she shouted, "will you come down to the bar, I have to go across the river and see what's keeping the twins. They have to be polished and smartened up for the concert and there isn't a sign of them." John Ryan groaned. His train of thought was gone again. He had thought he would manage an hour or two on his own, struggling with his poetry. "Give me a minute," he called, hoping to catch the idea before it was gone. "No, they'll be late as it is. Listen, bring your paper and pencil down, there's likely to be no one in, but there has to be someone behind the counter." The door banged behind her and John Ryan saw, through the bedroom window, his wife run across the small footbridge opposite the pub. She climbed over the gate like a girl instead of a woman in her thirties. She looked altogether like a girl in her summer dress and her boots as she ran lightly across to the ruined house, Fernscourt, to find the twins. He sighed and went down to the pub. He knew there were poet publicans, he knew there were men who wrote the poetry of angels in the middle of the stinking trenches of war. But he wasn't like that. John Ryan moved slowly, a big man with a beer belly that had grown on him sneakily during the years standing behind a bar, jowls that had become flabby at the same trade. His wedding picture showed a different person, a thinner more eager-looking figure, yet the boyish looks hadn't completely gone. He had a head of sandy brown hair only flecked with grey and big eyebrows that never managed to look ferocious even when he willed them to, like at closing time or when he was trying to deal with some outrage that the children were reported to have committed. Kate had hardly changed at all since their wedding day, he often said, which pleased her, but she said it was just a bit of old softsoaping to get out of having to stand at the bar. It was true, though; he looked at the girl with the long, curly dark hair tied back in a cream ribbon that matched her cream dress and coat. She looked very smart on that wet day in Dublin, he could hardly believe she was going to come and live with him in Mountfern. Kate hadn't developed a pot belly from serving drinks to others, as she often told him sharply. She said that there was no law saying you must have a drink with everyone who offered you one or pull a half pint for yourself to correspond with every half-dozen pints you pulled for others. But then it was different for women. John was the youngest of the seven Ryan children and the indulged pet of a mother who had been amazed and delighted at his arrival when she had been sure that her family was complete. He had been overfed and given fizzy drinks with sweet cake as long as he could remember. As a lad the running and leaping and cycling miles to a dance had kept him trimmer. Now, between sessions of writing his poetry and serving in his bar, it was a sedentary life. He didn't know if he wanted it for his sons; he had such hopes for them--that they might see the world a bit, study maybe and go on for the university. That had been beyond the dreams of his parents' generation. Their main concern had been to see their children well s Excerpted from Firefly Summer by Maeve Binchy All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.