Here is a list on Bookshop.org with all the Maeve Binchy books I’ve read all year.
We’re back to Binchy, bitches!
However, I very much enjoyed reading that unpublished work and might be seeking out some more next year for a similar experience. We shall see.
Friday, October 11
- Book: Scarlet Feather
- Chapters: Prologue & 1 (they are long!)
- Location: Backyard – it is 77!
- Smoking: Private Reserve
What I’m listening to:
Did I cry?
Yes, twice.
Once when I remembered Simon and Maude existed and again when “The Run” by Jeff Russo came on.
Thoughts while reading (could be about the book, could not):
This is the Maeve Binchy book I’ve read the second-most times.
First is Circle of Friends, and in third place in my next book, Quentin’s.
These books feel so comfortable and warm.
Oh, btw, I had an analog day: paper notes and a paperback book.
This book features two of my comfort characters: Muttie and Lizzie, the parents of Cathy Scarlet, who take in the wayward twins Simon and Maude.
Welp, I guess I’m telling you about this book like we’re gossiping. Buckle in.
Okay, so. Cathy Scarlet, see?
She’s married to Neil, who lives in the big house. Neil’s mom HATES it because Cathy Scarlet’s mom (Lizzie) used to clean the big house. Cathy Scarlet’s dad, Muttie, is unemployed. The only work he does is go to the bookmakers like clockwork.
So, mean old Neil’s mom thinks Cathy is beneath him and is actively angry at their marriage. Neil’s dad does not give two shits as long as he gets to keep living his easy life.
Cathy and Neil didn’t have a big old lifelong love story either. He was lowkey a better-than-you dick to Cathy when they were kids and then went off to be a grown-up. She went off to be a grown up, too… to catering college with the dreams of opening a in-home catering business.
She was working in Greece one summer at a resort where Neil was staying, and that’s where they fell in love.
Okay, so who are Simon and Maude? Welp, they are related to Neil.
See? Neil’s parents had two other kids. One is named Amanda and lives in Canada with her lesbian lover who their mom obviously disapproves of. The other is a son whose name I am unable to recall at this junction.
That son had two kids, twins named Simon and Maude. They are young. 9, I think? Their mom has “bad nerves,” and their dad is never around. They have a brother who works in the same law firm as Neil’s dad – he’s a ne’erdowell, though, y’all.
Through an unusual series of events, the twins find themselves without anywhere to go, so they call their Aunt: Neil’s mean mom. The kids arrive, muss up the coat room (Neil’s parents are having a party), and eventually do something so terrible that they are no longer welcome at “the big house.”
So Cathy Scarlet and Neil take them in. Well, Cathy takes them in, really. Neil is busy with all his cases and TV appearances and whatnot.
Cathy also has a career of her own. That party where the twins came to live in the big house? Cathy was catering it – Scarlet Feather’s first big gig.
She’s not doing it alone, though. She has a partner, Tom Feather, who she met at catering college. He’s got a girlfriend, a leggy girl named Marcella, who really wants to be a model.
Cathy has to figure out a way to balance her career life with these two new kids who have become part of her household. The balance came from her parents, Muttie and Lizzie, who take the kids during the days and some nights.
The best part for the grandparents is that it helps occupy Muttie, keeping him out of the betting house.
So that’s basically how the book starts. Then it’s off to the races. I know the beats of this book very well, so I bet my mind will be doing some wandering.
Here is another note I’m leaving here, because I can’t recall the validity of this statement, but wanted to note it.
Geraldine feels like the Rosemary (Tara Road) of this book.
New birds heard:
We heard the Jack White rainbow of birbs again!
