"Whatever made us think that a catering business had anything to do with producing food?" asks the exasperated heroine of Maeve Binchy's Scarlet Feather. Cathy Scarlet and her partner Tom Feather had wanted to open their own catering firm ever since they attended college together. When the perfect location finally becomes available at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, they jump straight into renovations, ignoring the owner's mysterious eagerness to sell. But as they soon learn, chasing a dream demands far more than just cream puffs and canapés. In the months that follow, Tom and Cathy weather the ups and downs of founding a small business, soothe many a client's fragile ego, plan and pull off a fairy-tale wedding, minister to two of the most appealingly waifish children this side of Dickens, and generally work themselves to the bone--all the while producing some of the most exquisite food Dublin has ever seen.

Binchy is a master spinner of tales, the kind of storyteller who captures the rich tapestry of relationships at work in even the most ordinary of lives. Tom and Cathy come surrounded by a cast of characters as skillfully drawn as themselves: Neil, Cathy's activist-lawyer-husband, who's so busy worrying about the world's problems that he sometimes forgets to worry about his own; beautiful Marcella, Tom's girlfriend, who wants to be a top model more than anything else; and most endearingly of all, Maud and Simon, Neil's neglected 8-year-old cousins, who prove equally talented at wreaking havoc and asking awkward questions. Stir in a full complement of clients, family, friends, and enemies, and you have the makings of a bestseller that's very busy and very Binchy. Tom and Cathy's work, after all, is not so different from that of the novelist herself. Like writers, they stage-manage some of the most important events in people's lives, from weddings and funerals to romances and reunions. Before the year is out, Tom, Cathy, Neil, and Marcella will find themselves changed forever--and Binchy fans will have fallen in love with yet another of her fully realized worlds. --Chloe Byrne


From Publishers Weekly
Bestselling author Binchy (Tara Road, etc.) again explores the depths of family relationships in an 11th warm, involving drama. Set in contemporary Ireland over a period of one year, the smartly paced tale focuses on Cathy Scarlet and Tom Feather, cooking school chums who achieve their dream of opening a posh catering business, Scarlet Feather, in Dublin. Professionally, they're off to a good start; personally, their lives are falling apart. Cathy, whose out-of-work father plays the races while her mother toils as a housemaid, faces the consequences of having married Neil Mitchell, prized son of an upper-class family who employed Cathy's mother for years. Neil, a lawyer who champions worthy causes, is unconcerned about the tension between his wife and his snooty mother, and Cathy and Neil find themselves leading busy, separate lives. Tom has a live-in girlfriend whom he would love to marry, but Marcella, a manicurist in a classy store, yearns to succeed as a model before making any commitments. A charming cast of secondary characters includes Neil's cousins, Simon and Maud, two abandoned, nine-year-old twins who, in a surprising turn of events, come to live with Cathy's parents. The children's deadpan, exceedingly serious outlook on life is both heartbreaking and hilarious. One of Binchy's strengths is her subtle depiction of gradual changes in Irish society. By making her principal characters entrepreneurs, she reflects the ways Ireland's growing economic prosperity has altered social mores. Whether her readers are aware of such details, they help this wonderfully engaging book ring true. (Mar. 5).Forecast: Binchy's gift for creating a wide range of characters whose foibles and challenges make them lovable and real, coupled with her theme that genuine love can transform lives, add up to another crowd-pleaser. With major ad/promo, plus an author tour, this one is a lock for the charts. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
An engaging year-long chronicle of the lives of two business partners and their families, Scarlet Feather refers also to the new catering venture of Cathy Scarlet and Tom Feather. Set in Dublin, the book is filled with distinctly memorable characters whose dreams and struggles form small but essential daily dramas. The month-by-month structure of the novel is well paced and allows for full development of the personalities and their shifting relationships. Barbara Caruso captures the varied identities well, especially the precociously innocent nine-year-old twins Maude and Simon. Rich with irony and gentle humor, this work is recommended as an entertaining example of a longer audiobook. Joyce Kessel, Villa Maria Coll., Buffalo, NY Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


USA Today
...a great read: engaging, fast-paced and suspenseful.


From AudioFile
Maeve Binchy has written another sure favorite. Tom Feather and Cathy Scarlet, recent cooking school graduates, have just found the perfect premises in Dublin to start their new catering company, called Scarlet Feather. Without dramatics, Caroline Winterson's understated presentation draws the reader into this relational drama. Her gentle accent and brisk reading style present the characters with precision. We meet their family and friends, and learn of the pain and joys, disappointments and successes in both their personal and professional lives. Some of the richness of character development is lost in the abridgment, but it has obviously been done with care. F.L.F. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
Prolific Irish writer Binchy's latest novel is maddeningly slow to get started. Eventually, though, the novel builds in speed and force until it is nearly impossible to put it down. What initially slows the reader down is the vast detail, but it soon becomes obvious that Binchy is layering her story with nuances and shaping her characters with shading and dimension. The setting is contemporary Dublin; the cast of characters is large, chief among them two partners in the brand-new catering business Scarlet Feather. The name is a combination of their own: Cathy Scarlet and Tom Feather. Cathy is married to the son of the woman who used to employ her mother as housekeeper; Tom is involved in a problematic relationship. Around them swirl their individual and coupled worlds, centering on family members with all kinds of problems and issues. Cathy's husband's mother is caught up in social prestige; Cathy's parents are dutifully and generously taking care of two troublesome children to whom they are not even related; and Cathy's husband himself presents a sore spot, because he has a job consuming all his time, energy, and interest. In the meantime, Cathy and Tom are looking for a building to house their growing enterprise, only to have the place vandalized once they have set it up. Binchy writes domestic drama at its most realistic and moving, and her adoring fans will appreciate her latest work. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
Following the international success of Tara Road, Maeve Binchy offers Scarlet Feather, an enchanting and richly plotted new tale of family, friendship, honesty, and deception. This time out, the beloved author sets her story against the dynamic social and economic whirl of modern Ireland, tracing the interconnected destinies of an engaging cast of Dubliners over the course of a single unforgettable year. The novel opens with an uncharacteristically graceless series of character sketches designed to plunk readers squarely in medias res with as little fuss or literary artifice as possible. However, once these introductions have been made, Binchy quickly atones for this perfunctory exercise in stage-setting with a bravura demonstration of her vaunted storytelling skills.

Tom Feather and Cathy Scarlet have been the best of friends since they attended cooking school. If not for a simple twist of fate, they might once have become lovers. But now Cathy, from homely St. Jarlath's Crescent, is married to Neil, a human rights lawyer and scion of the upper-crust Mitchell family. If Neil's posh parents have never been able to forget (or forgive) the fact that Cathy's "poor" mother, Lizzie, once cleaned and scrubbed their family manse, Cathy, for her part, is proud of her working-class accent and fierce independence. Charming and handsome, Tom has turned his back on the family construction business to pursue the dream of opening his own catering shop. His longtime significant other, the equally stunning Marcella, steadfastly refuses to marry him for fear of jeopardizing her nascent modeling career.

The catalyst that upsets the delicate balance between these two "happy" couples, their extended families at home and abroad, and an assortment of clients, pets, petty criminals, and racetrack touts is the discovery late one New Year's Eve of a suitable location from which to launch Cathy and Tom's gourmet catering company, Scarlet Feather.

As the cherished idea of Scarlet Feather transforms itself into a true labor of love -- with special emphasis on labor -- tensions begin to grow between Neil and Cathy, Tom and Marcella. Each couple learns that maintaining a relationship with a work-obsessed, absentee mate becomes increasingly difficult when both partners are equally consumed by their toil. Factor in the unexpected desiderata of everyday life -- financial woes, "innocent" deceptions, and the odd family crisis (most comically, the adoption of a pair of precocious, semi-feral twins) -- and Tom and Cathy soon find that the price of success may be far greater than the cost of failure.

In Scarlet Feather, Maeve Binchy has once again delivered a broad, lighthearted entertainment that also compellingly addresses very real social issues -- from the bureaucracy of the foster care system to the erosion of age-old class distinctions to the rise of the new materialism attending Ireland's economic miracle. And, like the mouthwatering culinary creations concocted in Tom and Cathy's kitchen, Scarlet Feather is likely to whet your appetite for more delicious fiction from Binchy. (Greg Marrs)

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Set in contemporary Ireland, filled with warmth, wit, and drama, Scarlet Feather is "classic Binchy" (Boston Globe)-the story of Cathy Scarlet and Tom Feather, their spouses, families, and friends, and the struggling new catering business that transforms their lives in ways big and small.

FROM THE CRITICS

Susan Kelly - USA Today

In Scarlet Feather, Binchy again proves herself a master storyteller, expertly setting out a smorgasbord of plot lines and flavoring it all with dollops of humor and compassion.

USA Today

...a great read: engaging, fast-paced and suspenseful.

New York Times Book Review

...[a] highly readable memoir...

Book Magazine

Novelist Binchy is another bestselling Irish writer with a new book out this summer. This time around, she introduces Cathy Scarlet and Tom Feather, close pals who finally open the catering business they have been dreaming of since college. Cathy's husband's cousins, Simon and Maud, are perhaps the most memorable of Binchy's characters, which in this book include an array of spouses, friends and family members. Simon and Maud, eight-year-old twins abandoned by their immediate family, have come to live with Cathy's parents. Their serious outlook on life is both touching and, ironically, hilarious. Other than some of the lively characters, especially the children, little about the novel stands out. It is fast-moving but predictable. It entertains moderately, but it lacks the tenderness and cassette-flipping appeal of Binchy's last novel, Tara Road. Although Caroline Winterson often reads her lines too quickly, she does vary the characters' voices, giving each just enough personality to keep them distinct. The upbeat Irish music that begins and ends each tape is a nice touch. —Rochelle O'Gorman (Excerpted Review)

Publishers Weekly