Firefly Summer by Maeve Binchy (English) Paperback Book

Description: Firefly Summer by Maeve Binchy Kate and John Ryan have four children, of whom the eldest are Michael and Dara. Their small town is peaceful and friendly, an unchanging background for a golden childhood. In long, hot summers Michael and Dara and their friends fish and swim or play in the ivy-clad ruins of Fernscourt, when the great house burnt down during the Troubles... FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description Firefly Summer is warm, humorous, sad and happy. Reading it is a joy Irish IndependentEvery summer the four Ryan children play in the ruins of Fernscourt, the once-grand house on the bank of the river.But when the estate is bought by Patrick ONeill, the wealthy Irish American, his grand plans for its development threaten to shatter the peace. A new luxury hotel promises to breathe new life into the village, and yet it could also spell disaster for the Ryan family.And as old values and traditions begin to crumble away, no-one - not even Patrick - can predict what his big dreams will do to the heart of their quiet village._____________Wonderfully warm and involving KATIE FFORDEIf any author can help you survive lockdown, its Binchy DAILY MAILFirefly Summer is warm, humorous, sad and happy. Reading it is a joy IRISH INDEPENDENTI find myself yearning for the rain-soaked watercolour writing of Maeve Binchy JENNY COLGAN, GUARDIAN Best Comfort ReadsBinchys novels are never less than entertaining SUNDAY TIMESWhat better books to raise the spirits than the gentle, insightful Irish tales of Maeve Binchy? HELLO! Magazine_____________Readers love Firefly Summer ...***** Maeve Binchy never disappoints. I loved this book.***** Date I finished this book is impossible to say, as Ive read it so many times.***** I loved this book! Such a great story!***** Firefly Summer keeps readers engaged with the quotidian but never dull lives of Irish village life.***** This is what good fiction does, gives you a story, draws you in, and wont let go and Binchy is at the height of her powers with this novel. Notes Firefly Summer is warm, humorous, sad and happy. Reading it is a joy Irish Independent Back Cover Kate and John Ryan are happy in Mountfern, a peaceful and friendly village - and, for their four young children, an unchanging backdrop to a golden childhood. The summers are long and hot, and the twins Michael and Dara, and their siblings Eddie and Declan have, in the ivy-clad ruins of Fernscourt, the once-grand house on the bank of the river burned down during the Troubles, a place to play like no other. Then Patrick ONeill, an Irish American with a great deal of money in his pocket, buys the ruins of Fernscourt. No-one in Mountfern could have guessed what Patricks dream would mean for their small village, and its not until the very end of this tale of love won and lost that Patrick ONeill himself will understand the irony and significance of his grand dream for Fernscourt... Binchys novels are never less than entertaining. They are, without exception, repositories of common sense and good humour... chronicled with tenderness and wit Sunday Times Another joyful, absorbing Binchy read with lots of heart Irish Times Full of warmth and pure delight Woman & Home Author Biography Maeve Binchy was born in Dublin, and went to school at the Holy Child Convent in Killiney. She took a history degree at UCD and taught in various girls schools, writing travel articles in the long summer holidays. In 1969 she joined the Irish Times and for many years she was based in London writing humorous columns from all over the world. She is the author of five collections of short stories as well as twelve novels including Circle of Friends, The Copper Beech, Tara Road, Evening Class and The Glass Lake. Maeve Binchy died on 30 July 2012. She is survived by her husband, the writer Gordon Snell. Review Wonderfully warm and involving -- Katie FfordeMaeve Binchy has a gimlet eye for the seething cauldron of emotions which lies beneath the surface of everyday life * Irish Independent *An adept storyteller with a sharp eye for social nuances and a pleasing affection for her characters * Sunday Times *The secrets hidden behind lace curtains, a young girls first kiss, childrens summer games, unexpected pregnancies, sudden deaths. She makes us feel as if we also know the place and the people... One of those good old-fashioned stories that are as comfortable and comforting as home itself * The Philadelphia Inquirer * Promotional FIREFLY SUMMER is warm, humorous, sad and happy. Reading it is a joy - Irish Independent Review Text Wonderfully warm and involving Review Quote "Totally engrossing.... Promotional "Headline" FIREFLY SUMMER is warm, humorous, sad and happy. Reading it is a joy - Irish Independent Excerpt from Book 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 werent 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 whats keeping the twins. They have to be polished and smartened up for the concert and there isnt 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, theyll be late as it is. Listen, bring your paper and pencil down, theres 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 wasnt 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 hadnt 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 hadnt 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 didnt 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 settled into emigration; the church had helped of course, educating two nuns and two priests out of the Ryan family. John didnt see any vocation among his own offspring. Michael was dreamy and thoughtful: maybe a hermit? Or Dara a resourceful Reverend Mother somewhere? Eddie was a practical child, possibly a missionary brother teaching pagan tribes to build huts and dig canals. Declan the baby. Maybe they could make a curate out of him near home where they could keep an eye on him. This was all nonsense, of course. None of them would end up within an asss roar of a religious life. Still, John Ryan never saw the future standing surrounded by three sons and possibly his daughter all in the trade. There would never be enough business, for one thing. Like many Irish towns Mountfern had the appearance of having far too many pubs already. If you went down the main street, Bridge Street, there were no less than three public houses. Foleys at the top of the town, but that was hardly a pub at all these days, just a counter really and a few friends of old Matt Foley drinking at night, theyd hardly know how to serve a real customer. Then there was Conways which was more a grocery but it had the bar at the back. Conways had a clientele of secret drinkers, people who didnt admit to any kind of drinking, who were always going out for a packet of cornflakes or a pound of flour and would toss back a brandy for their health. Often too, it had a funeral business since old Barry Conway was the undertaker as well. It seemed only right to come back to his place to drink when someone had been buried up on the hill. And Dunnes was always on the verge of closing. Paddy Dunne never knew whether to reorder supplies; he always said that it would hardly be worth it since any day now hed be going to join his brother who ran a pub in Liverpool. But then either there would be a downturn in the fortunes of the Liverpool pub or an upswing in the drinking patterns of Mountfern. There was an unsettled air about his place and constant speculation about how much he would get if he were to sell his license. John Ryans pub had its rivals then, three of them in a small place like Mountfern. Yet he had all the business that came from the River Road side of the place. He had the farmers on this side of the town. It was a bigger and better bar than any of the other three, it had not only more space but it had more stock. And there were many who liked the walk out along the river bank. John Ryan knew that he was a man who had been given a great deal by fate. Nobody had gathered him up to swoop him off to a religious order when he was a young impressionable boy. Neither had he been sponsored out to a life of hard graft in America like two of his elder brothers. By all their standards he had a life of ease and peace where he should well have been able to run his business and write his poetry. But he was a man who did one thing at a time, almost overmethodically, too predictable sometimes for his wife who felt that people should be able to fire on several cylinders at the same time. John wanted time to write or time to serve drink, he couldnt switch from one mode to another like lightning. Like Kate. He couldnt switch toward the children like she could as well. Either they were good or they werent. He wasnt able to see the swift changes of mood like Kate was. He would not be cross and then smile minutes later. If he was cross he was very cross indeed. It was rare but it was all-embracing when it happened. One of Daddys great angers was remembered long, whereas Mammy had a dozen quick and easily forgotten angers in a week. John sighed again at his wifes swiftness and the annoyance at having to leave his work, his real work, just at that time. He knew that in this pub fate had handed him something that many a man in Ireland would envy mightily. It didnt bring in enough money for them to employ another pair of hands, but it wasnt so slack that a man could sit at the counter and write undisturbed. John Ryan hadnt brought his paper and pencils with him, any more than his thoughts. If customers saw you with paper and pencil they thought you were doing the accounts and making a small fortune. Anyway, what would have been the point? There was Jack Coyne from the garage who had just sold a heap of rusty metal to some unsuspecting farmer and they were in to seal the bargain with a pint. Jack Coyne had a face like a ferret and two sharp eyes looking around him for a bargain or a business deal. He was a small wiry man equally at home underneath a car, covered in grease and shouting out about the extent of the repairs, or in a suit showing off his newly acquired vehicles which was what he called his second-hand stock. Everything about him seemed to be moving, he never stood still; even now at the bar he was shifting, moving from foot to foot. "Great day, John," said Jack Coyne. "Its been a great day all the time," said John, preparing to pull the pints. "Bad for the crops," the farmer said. "When were you lot ever pleased with the weather?" Jack Coyne laughed, the happy sound of a man who could sell second-hand cars no matter what the weather did. The children of Mountfern had a place to play like no other children in the land. It was Fernscourt, the ruined house on the bank of the River Fern. It had been burned down one day forty years ago in 1922 during the Troubles. The Fern family had not been there on the day of the fire, they had been gone for many months before. The children often asked their grandfathers about the fire but found a strange lapse of memory. The passions that had run so high in those years had settled down as time went by. The Ferns and all they symbolized had bee Details ISBN0099498669 Author Maeve Binchy Year 2006 ISBN-10 0099498669 ISBN-13 9780099498667 Format Paperback Publication Date 2006-08-03 Imprint Arrow Books Ltd Place of Publication London Country of Publication United Kingdom DEWEY 823.914 Media Book Publisher Cornerstone Pages 928 Language English UK Release Date 2006-08-03 AU Release Date 2006-08-03 NZ Release Date 2006-08-03 Translator Sandra Smith Edited by Ana Sofia Ribeiro Birth 1969 Affiliation University of Wisconsin-Madison Position Former senior instructor and associate head, English (deceased) Qualifications Psy.D. 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