Light A Penny Candle

'Maeve Binchy! I love her stories and have since Light a Penny Candle.' TOM HANKS _____________________ A FRIENDSHIP NOTHING COULD DESTROY Evacuated from Blitz-battered London, the shy Elizabeth White is sent to stay with the O'Connor family in Kilgarret, Ireland, where she strikes up an unlikely friendship with the lively, boisterous Aisling O'Connor. Neither of them were to know it would become the most important friendship of their lives. Their bond is unshakeable, enduring over turbulent years of change and chaos, joy and sorrow, soaring dreams - and searing betrayals . . . With warmth, wit and great compassion, Maeve Binchy tells a magnificent story of two women, bound together in a friendship that nothing could tear apart - not even the man who threatened to come between them forever. _____________________ 'What better books to raise the spirits than the gentle, insightful Irish tales of Maeve Binchy'? HELLO! Magazine 'Wonderfully warm and involving' KATIE FFORDE 'If any author can help you survive lockdown, it's Binchy' DAILY MAIL 'I find myself yearning for the rain-soaked watercolour writing of Maeve Binchy' JENNY COLGAN, GUARDIAN Best Comfort Reads 'Binchy's novels are never less than entertaining' SUNDAY TIMES.

To Light a Penny Candle offers Christmas and Easter devotionals full of colour, poetry, and joyful symbolism to touch our souls in many ways. These holidays, in particular, are a delight for every preacher, with their endless variety of themes and rich messages. The sermons in this collection were written at the height of author Alex Lawsons ministry; preaching was, for him, an activity of great joy. Alex loves the challenge of telling the old, old stories in new and exciting ways. His personal art of preaching shows the influence of two main factors: his extensive training in psychotherapy and his many visits to the lands of the BibleIsrael, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, and Palestine. His sermons reflect his experiences in both cases, offering added insight into the biblical stories he relates. These are topical, homespun sermons, preached to congregations of prairie folk; they surprise and delight with flashes of insight and wisdom, painting in memorable and often lyrical terms a picture of a loving God, as well as a portrait of his loving minister. Alex Lawson has a way of touching souls, lifting spirits, and bringing scripture alive. Maxine Reidell, psychotherapist.

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It is 1940 and ten-year-old Elizabeth is sent from her parents' precise home in London to the safety of Ireland and the boisterous, unruly brood of the O'Connor family. For the next twenty years their lives are to interweave and affect each other..

Surveys the lives and works of roughly 75 Irish women writers active in a range of genres and periods..

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Maeve Binchy's heartwarming tales of love, life, and loss made her one of America's best-loved storytellers. Her novels, which sold more than 40 million copies worldwide, captured imaginations on both sides of the Atlantic in a way that most authors only dream of. Seared with a truth and honesty that leapt from the page, her stories capture the imagination and continue to win her legions of loyal fans. In this extraordinary biography, Piers Dudgeon reveals that the inspiration for many of her stories came from Maeve's own hard-won experience growing up in Ireland. In the land of her birth and what would become the setting of her novels, Maeve suffered through a difficult adolescence and famously lost her faith before coming to terms with who she was and expressing at last the qualities that would come to define her as both a writer and a person. Drawing on extensive research and humorous personal anecdotes, Maeve Binchy: The Biography celebrates the life of a compassionate, down-to-earth and charming woman who touched hearts around the world and left behind an incredible legacy..

'Heart-felt stories of life and love' Woman & Home from the No. 1 bestselling author 'Maeve Binchy's work continues to inspire . . . thought-provoking, warm and funny in equal measure' Woman A pair of star-crossed travellers pick up each other's bags, and then learn that when you unlock a stranger's suitcase, you enter a stranger's life. An unspoken office passion meets the acid test on a business trip. A man and a woman's mutual disdain at first sight shows how deceptive appearances can be. And an insecure wife clings to the illusion of order, only to discover chaos at the hands of a house-sitter who opens the wrong doors. These and many more poignant, often humorous, unforgettable slices of life show why Maeve Binchy is one of the world's favourite storytellers..

Five decades of selected writings from the Irish Times by the beloved and best-selling author, filled with her hallmark humor, candor, and wisdom-a timeless gift to her legion of fans. Maeve Binchy once confessed: "As someone who fell off a chair not long ago trying to hear 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." She was an accidental journalist, yet from the beginning, her writings reflected the warmth, wit, and keen human interest that readers would come to love in her fiction. From the royal wedding to boring airplane companions, Samuel Beckett to Margaret Thatcher, "senior moments" to life as a waitress, Maeve's Times gives us wonderful insight into a changing Ireland as it celebrates the work of one of our best-loved writers in all its diversity-revealing her characteristic directness, laugh-out-loud humor, and unswerving gaze into the true heart of a matter. “Binchy’s wry, self-effacing style reminds one of a Celtic Nora Ephron. . . . [She] throws a spotlight on strong, imperfect women confronting complicated challenges.” —The Christian Science Monitor.

A Vintage Shorts “Short Story Month” Original Selection It starts out like any other dull day in a busy airport bar. James, the bartender, would much rather serve regulars at a local pub than cranky travelers. Katy and Colin have been involved in a longtime affair that comes to literal blows when he reveals that he hasn’t kept his promise to leave his wife. Between some quick thinking by James and the kindness of an American couple, Jean and Maurice, the situation is defused. And Jean’s insistence that they all stay in touch sparks friendships that are maintained across the ocean. But after nearly a decade of writing annual letters, she reveals a secret that casts the events of that day in a whole new light… The recent New York Times best seller, A Few of the Girls, is a collection of Maeve's beloved short stories that one reviewer called “reminiscent of a letter from an old friend.” We are lucky that there are even more stories for her readers. In “The September Letters,” never before published in the United States, Maeve once again brings us into the lives of ordinary people where chance meetings have the potential to change lives. An ebook short..

'THE GLASS LAKE is Maeve Binchy at her spellbinding best - you'll never want it to end' Woman's Journal 'Maeve Binchy really knows what makes women tick. She crystallises their hopes, dreams and passions in her novels and now she has done it again in THE GLASS LAKE ... a marvellous read' Daily Mirror 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....

An emotional story of love, betrayal, friendship, and family from #1 New York Times bestselling author Maeve Binchy. David Power and Clare O'Brien both grew up dreaming of escape from the battered seaside town of Castlebay, Ireland, but they might as well have had the ocean between them. David is the cherished son of a prosperous doctor, while Clare lives with her large family behind their faltering store, longing for a moment of quiet to study. When they both go to university in Dublin—he as a matter of course, she on a hard-won scholarship—their worlds collide. They find freedom in each other—until the families, lovers, and secrets they left in Castlebay come back to haunt them... “Laughter and tears, it’s what Binchy does best.”—San Francisco Chronicle Book Review “The Castlebay Maeve Binchy creates is a marvelous place.”—The New York Times Book Review.

Heart-warming and heart-pulling tales of everyday life, full of wit, charm and wisdom from the world's greatest storyteller. 'One of the world's best-loved writers' Woman's Weekly Heart-warming and heart-pulling tales of everyday life, full of wit, charm and wisdom from the world's greatest storyteller. 'One of the world's best-loved writers' Woman's Weekly Contains: THE COPPER BEECH, THE GLASS LAKE, EVENING CLASS, TARA ROAD, SCARLET FEATHER.

'There's nobody like Binchy for warming the cockles, and this collection of Christmas stories warms them to white heat' Kate Saunders, The Times Christmas: a time of year when emotions run high and long-held secrets can unexpectedly surface... This Year It Will Be Different powerfully evokes the lives of wives, husbands, children, friends and lovers. As the festivities take hold, there are step-families grappling with exes; long-married couples faced with in-law problems; a wandering husband choosing between the other woman and his wife; a child caught up in a grown-up tug-of-war. 'We are all in her pages, all of us: mothers, daughters, fathers, sons, husbands, wives, children, friends, lovers ... It is this combination of Maeve's understanding of what it is to be human, and how to cope with life, that makes her so popular' Veronica Henry, bestselling author of Christmas at the Beach Hut.

From Maeve Binchy’s earliest writings to the most recent, her work is filled with wisdom and common sense and also a sharp, often witty voice that is insightful and reaches out to her readers around the world and of all ages. Whether it is one of her best-selling novels or a short story, Maeve shows us that 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 Few of the Girls is a glorious collection of the very best of her short story writing, stories that were written over the decades—some published in magazines, others for friends as gifts, many for charity benefits. The stories are all filled with the signature warmth and humor that have always been an essential part of Maeve’s appeal..