Rating: 
Summary: Hungry? Scarlet Feather satisfies.
Review: As an avid Binchy fan, I could not let her newest addition go unread. While not as engaging or cozy as her others, I enjoyed every last page of Scarlet Feather, the novel which marks the beginning of Maeve Binchy's retirement.Cathy Scarlet and Tom Feather, friends and former cooking school classmates, have embarked upon their dream -- owning and operating their very own catering business, aptly named Scarlet Feather. For an entire year, from one New Year's Eve to the next, readers get a glimpse into the lives of Cathy and Tom and all the happenings surrounding Scarlet Feather. And as usual, par to Maeve Binchy's excellent character derivation, we get to meet several fascinating individuals along the way. Ingredients include Muttie Scarlet, Cathy's father and compulsive gambler; Neil Mitchell, Cathy's husband and an exhaustive workaholic; Hannah Mitchell, Neil's mother and rich snob (think Dharma and Greg's Kitty Montgomery); and Simon and Maud, nine-year-old twins with very inquisitive minds. We also get an amble serving of Maeve's forte -- a story that delves into various characters' lives and how they relate to each other. Mix everything up in a great big bowl and you have one big heapin' helpin' of Irish goodness. All Maeve Binchy veterans will need to read this book, if only to finish up the collection. If you are new to the wonderful world of Maeve, I suggest reading an older book first (Circle of Friends, The Glass Lake) because the content is much more indulging. Individually, Scarlet Feather is an easy read with lots of breaks in the story to ease the flow. Although I felt a little unattached in parts, I couldn't help but love this yummy smorgasbord.
Rating:
Summary: I see the flaws but I still loved it
Review: I loved this book because it was about real people with real problems. I just hated it when it ended and spent two whole days being a real couch potato to get to the end. It was a bit predictable and frustrating that since it was why not just get to it and then explore other avenues and define the characters complexities indepth. I too, found the book stressful in that so many disappointments occur but I also found myself laughing outloud at the twins and found them very endearing, other times I literally cried real tears at their predicaments, don't want to spoil anything, but Cathy's crisis was a real boo hoo for me. I was particularly perturbed by Cathy's husband and family. Celebrities and moneyed people often take up liberal causes thinking it somehow makes up for their often lack of character. They feel obliged to freely criticize people in a sweeping general manner all the while the people they are most irritated with are the ones that are quietly going about doing the very things that actually help others in need. I love to read about modern day Ireland and other European countries and how they are surviving and evolving. Ireland sounds like it is getting too much like America, sigh. I found it interesting that Cathy's husband, being a liberal was ever interested in saving the world and everyone in it except his own wife and the homeless twins that he could have cared less about. A situation that is all too often the case. Get my face on TV but in my heart I am basically a criticizing finger pointing louse that does very little in reality to help others.
Rating: 
Summary: Binchy is no Pilcher!!
Review: Oh, how I've been struggling to get through this book!!! I'm not even through yet but want to warn you away from buying it like I did, hoping that Maeve Binchy would be a comparable writer to Rosamunde Pilcher. Alas, she is not! It's predictable, wordy and redundant...a real snoozer. My first and last Maeve Binchy.
Rating:
Summary: A year in the life
Review: Maeve Binchy is a wonderful story teller with ease to her writing. In her newest novel she wins the prize again. Scarlet Feather centers around a cirle of family and friends and takes place over the course of a year. It tells the tale of friendship, love, and the surprises that come with everyday life. This book was an easy and enjoyable read.
Rating:
Summary: What a disappointment!!
Review: I have read all of Maeve Binchey's books and loved them, especially the earlier ones. Tara Road was the first hint of disappointment, but I hoped that this book would be more true to Ms. Binchey's talent. It was a struggle to read, and such a disappointment in the end! The book was wordy and the storyline was frustratingly redundant. What was the editor thinking??????
Rating:
Summary: A fast, engrossing read ...
Review: When I turned the last page in this book, I was a little sad ~~ because it's rumored to be her last book that she'll ever write. Fortunately, there isn't a law against re-reading her books again! I do have one thing to suggest ~~ do not read this book while hungry. If you're hungry, grab a scone or muffin, a cup of tea and settle down for a nice long read. If you don't prepare the food first, you will find yourself settling the book down to make something to eat and you don't want to put the book down! Cathy and Tom are partners in a new catering business called Scarlet Feather. They are also best friends ~~ becoming more so as their personal lives unraveled in a course of a year. There's Cathy's husband Neil, a barrister interested in saving the homeless ~~ and little time to spare for Cathy and her business. There's Marcella, Tom's live-in partner, whose dreams of being a famous model interferes with their plans for the future. There's Simon and Maud ~~ the twins who burrowed their way into the Scarlets' family lives ~~ and the reader's heart as well. There are other characters too ~~ too many to name individually. This book consists of many stories in a novel ~~ and everyone in it is related somehow to the main characters ~~ Cathy and Tom. It may seem that Binchy skips around when writing of the different scenes in the characters' lives ~~ but don't despair. It does become less confusing as the story moves along. It's not my favorite way of reading, but once you're into the story, it's hard to put the book down. You just have to know what's going to happen next!! I can guarantee that this book is not a boring book ~~ Binchy keeps the characters hopping with extraordinary events that happen in one year. This book is truly a story about ordinary people beset with events that seem to be out-of-control ~~ only to see everything fall in place. There are laughter, tears, anger and love ~~ a book to suit even the most persnickety reader. And though this may be her last book (or so she claims), it leaves you with the hope that it isn't. No one can write like Binchy ~~ and you long for just one more book from her. Till then, read this one and remember why Binchy has captured your heart from her first book. It is a pleasant book ~~ and one that will capture the imagination as well as the heart.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed!
Review: After breathlessly awaiting her new book I was given it as a present and rushed right into it. However, it was not typical Maeve Binchy. Perhaps having read book reviews that promised she shed the old Ireland and gave us her version of the new Ireland, mainly with the business end of the theme - the catering establishment- therein lay my disappointment. The story kept one's interest but my main criticism is that it just wasn't the tried and true Maeve. Give me back a Circle ofFriends any day!
Rating:
Summary: Big Disappointment!!!
Review: Maeve Binchy has always been one of my favorite authors, so I wasn't about to miss her last book. What a big disappointment!!! I am not even 1/4 through & it is a struggle to continue. One keeps hoping it will get more interesting & it doesn't. There are too many characters by far and too many story lines. It's like she decided to throw in the kitchen sink & more for her last book. Too bad she's leaving on a bad note.
Rating: 
Summary: I enjoyed it alot
Review: Before I read this book I read some of the reviews of it, and was a little worried that I wouldn't like it. I'm glad I went ahead and read it as I enjoyed it alot. I found the people well fleshed out and real. The story kept my attention, in fact I had trouble putting it down. I liked Cathy alot. I liked her husband less, but he was written as a real person, not all good or bad, but a mix. I can't wait for the next Maeve Binchy book!
Rating: 
Summary: Binchy's last, but not her best by a long way
Review: I've been looking forward to this book ever since I saw it in hardback before Christmas, so I leapt on the paperback as soon as I could get my hands on it. Maeve Binchy has been my favourite Irish writer for a long time; she writes Ireland as I know it, both in her 1950s stories and those set in contemporary Ireland. Her characters are normally richly drawn and three-dimensional. Scarlet Feather started well; I quickly became interested in Cathy and Tom's catering business and I found the main characters likeable. There was Cathy and her barrister husband Neil - who had married her against the wishes of his parents, Cathy being the daughter of their former cleaner. There was Tom and his girlfriend Marcella, who wanted to be a model and believed that she could make it. And there were Muttie and Lizzie, Cathy's parents, and Hannah and Jock, Cathy's parents; and Maura and TJ, Tom's parents; we were not told about Marcella's family. Yes, a lot of characters, and some I haven't mentioned here, but it wasn't difficult to keep track of them all. However, I put the book down when I'd finished reading and quite simply felt unsatisfied, as if someone had ripped out the final chapter. I felt the same way after reading Tara Road, but hoped that this time Binchy would do better; and she didn't. Cathy and Tom are partners in a catering business, Scarlet Feather, and at the start of the book have just found their premises and are ready to launch in a big way. There is history between Tom and Cathy; they almost became lovers once, but it's obvious that now they're the best of friends and are fond of each other's partners. Neil, Cathy's husband, is supportive of the business, but he's a very busy campaigning barrister and not always ready to listen when she wants to talk about *her* day. Tom is jealous of Marcella's beauty and hates other men looking at her - here we are shown, early on, the seeds of trouble in the relationships. Along the way, we meet Neil's nine-year-old cousins, Maud and Simon, abandoned by their parents and a trial to everyone because of their lack of manners. They are just frightened kids, however, and one of the nicer elements of this book is how Muttie, the compulsive gambler father of Cathy, becomes the most stable and the most determined influence in these children's lives, the one person prepared to fight for their welfare. However, otherwise this book shows that Binchy hasn't stopped rushing her plots. Some reviews have said that the pace is slow and boring; well, there's a lot of extraneous detail, but the central plot, that relating to Cathy, Neil, Tom and Marcella, and their families, moves very quickly. Too quickly, and lots of details are simply skipped over. Neil, when we first meet him, is certainly busy and more focused on his work than on Cathy's relationships, but he's dedicated to *Cathy*. And yet somewhere around the middle of the book he turns into a self-obsessed, self-important and neglectful git. That isn't the same person we were reading about 100 pages earlier. And the route that Cathy and Neil's relationship took was glossed over far too quickly, with too little information about the surrounding details before or after. Likewise, Tom - an otherwise nice bloke, unassuming, considerate, turns into a pathologically jealous idiot when his partner so much as speaks to another man. We're left to believe that she was the one at fault, where for some parts of the book it looked as if Tom was seriously in need of therapy. And yet he recovers from the eventual disaster, without us, the readers, being privy to any ways in which he might have been changed by it. And, as she's done a couple of times before, Binchy took us to the last few pages with many plot details still unresolved. In particular, she introduced us to many secondary characters and even some main characters, and their stories are left hanging. There was a resolution of sorts for one central thread - at least, I'm assuming that this is what we're meant to imply - but that wasn't satisfying for me. Binchy needed to take at least one more of her very long chapters to tidy things up properly.
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