 First edition | |
| Author | Maeve Binchy |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Orion Books |
Publication date | 2000 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 560 |
| ISBN | 0-451-20377-1 |
Scarlet Feather is a 2000 novel by the Irish author Maeve Binchy. It was the winner of the 2001 WH Smith Literary Award for Fiction.
The novel follows the fortunes of Cathy Scarlet and her college friend, Tom Feather, who set up a catering business together (the 'Scarlet Feather' of the title). The two are close, but not romantically involved - Cathy is married to Neil Mitchell, the son of the wealthy household where her mother Lizzie used to scrub floors, and Tom is in a relationship with beautiful Marcella, who dreams of being a model. Neil's mother Hannah, against the marriage of her son to the cleaner's daughter, makes life hard for Cathy, while Marcella's ambitions come between her and Tom. There is also a growing distance between Cathy and Neil due to the pressures of Neil's high-profile law career, and Cathy's realisation that her husband sees the business as a hobby.
A key subplot is the arrival of Neil's twin nephew and niece Simon and Maud, whose alcoholic mother and errant father have virtually abandoned them. With Hannah unwilling to allow the children to stay with her and her husband, they are unofficially adopted by Cathy's parents, Lizzie and Muttie, who live in St. Jarlath's Crescent in a far less affluent part of town, but show the children real love for the first time. The twins' older brother Walter reappears in their lives periodically, usually causing trouble, including robbing and vandalizing the Scarlet Feather premises. When the insurance company suspects an inside job, Cathy and Tom are potentially ruined. The pair's battle for survival, and its impact on their respective relationships, is the key theme for the second half of the novel.
Scarlet Feather won the 2001 WH Smith Literary Award for Fiction. [1]
Diana Wynne Jones was an English novelist, poet, academic, literary critic, and short story writer. She principally wrote fantasy and speculative fiction novels for children and young adults. Although usually described as fantasy, some of her work also incorporates science fiction themes and elements of realism. Jones' work often explores themes of time travel and parallel or multiple universes. Some of her better-known works are the Chrestomanci series, the Dalemark series, the three Moving Castle novels, Dark Lord of Derkholm, and The Tough Guide to Fantasyland.
East of Eden is a novel by American author and Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck. Published in September 1952, the work is regarded by many to be Steinbeck's most ambitious novel and by Steinbeck himself to be his magnum opus. Steinbeck stated about East of Eden: "It has everything in it I have been able to learn about my craft or profession in all these years," and later said: "I think everything else I have written has been, in a sense, practice for this." The novel was originally addressed to Steinbeck's young sons, Thom and John. Steinbeck wanted to describe the Salinas Valley for them in detail: the sights, sounds, smells and colors.
Anne Maeve Binchy Snell was an Irish novelist, playwright, short story writer, columnist, and speaker. Her novels were characterised by a sympathetic and often humorous portrayal of small-town life in Ireland, and surprise endings. Her novels, which were translated into 37 languages, sold more than 40 million copies worldwide, and her death at age 73, announced by Vincent Browne on Irish television late on 30 July 2012, was mourned as the death of one of Ireland's best-loved and most recognisable writers.
Rosamunde Pilcher, OBE was a British writer of romance novels, mainstream fiction, and short stories, from 1949 until her retirement in 2000. Her novels sold over 60 million copies worldwide. Early in her career she was also published under the pen name Jane Fraser. In 2001, she received the Corine Literature Prize's Weltbild Readers' Prize for Winter Solstice.
The Poisonwood Bible (1998), by Barbara Kingsolver, is a best-selling novel about a missionary family, the Prices, who in 1959 move from the U.S. state of Georgia to the village of Kilanga in the Belgian Congo, close to the Kwilu River.
Donna Louise Tartt is an American author. Tartt's novels are The Secret History (1992), The Little Friend (2002), and The Goldfinch (2013). Tartt won the WH Smith Literary Award for The Little Friend in 2003 and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Goldfinch in 2014. She was included in Time magazine's 2014 "100 Most Influential People" list.
Sula is a 1973 novel by Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison, her second to be published after The Bluest Eye (1970).
Nina Bawden CBE, FRSL, JP was an English novelist and children's writer. She was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1987 and the Lost Man Booker Prize in 2010. She is one of very few who have both served as a Booker judge and made a Booker shortlist as an author. She was a recipient of the Golden PEN Award.
The Glass Lake is a 1994 novel by the Irish author Maeve Binchy. The action takes place in a rural Irish village as well as in London in the 1950s. It is notable as the last of Binchy's novels to be set in the 1950s. Binchy explores the roles of women in Irish society and inconstant lovers, and uses an operatic plot to hold the reader's attention.
Mary Dorcey,(born 1950)the author of ten books,is an Irish poet, novelist and short story writer. "Life Holds Its Breath."her latest book was published this year 2022 by Salmon Poetry. She was awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature for her first collection of stories "A Noise from the Woodshed.' She has won critical acclaim internationally for her portrayal of romantic and erotic relationships between women and for her subversive and tender exploration of the mother/daughter dynamic. Her most recent poetry collection, published in February 2022. is "Life Holds Its Breath."
Flowers in the Attic is a 1979 Gothic novel by V. C. Andrews. It is the first book in the Dollanganger Series, and was followed by Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, Garden of Shadows, Christopher's Diary: Secrets of Foxworth, Christopher's Diary: Echoes of Dollanganger and Christopher's Diary: Secret Brother. The novel is written in the first-person, from the point of view of Cathy Dollanganger. It was twice adapted into films in 1987 and 2014. The book was extremely popular, selling over forty million copies world-wide.
Eva Elisabeth "Liza" Marklund is a Swedish journalist and crime writer.
A Breath of Snow and Ashes is the sixth book in the Outlander series of novels by Diana Gabaldon. Centered on time travelling 20th century doctor Claire Fraser and her 18th century Scottish Highlander warrior husband Jamie Fraser, the books contain elements of historical fiction, romance, adventure and fantasy.
Nights at the Circus is a novel by British writer Angela Carter, first published in 1984 and the winner of the 1984 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. The novel focuses on the life and exploits of Sophie Fevvers, a woman who is – or so she would have people believe – a Cockney virgin, hatched from an egg laid by unknown parents and ready to develop fully fledged wings. At the time of the story, she has become a celebrated aerialiste, and she captivates the young journalist Jack Walser, who runs away with the circus and falls into a world that his journalistic exploits had not prepared him to encounter.
Gail Godwin is an American novelist and short story writer. Godwin has written 14 novels, two short story collections, three non-fiction books, and ten libretti. Her primary literary accomplishments are her novels, which have included five best-sellers and three finalists for the National Book Award. Most of her books are realistic fiction novels that follow a character's psychological and intellectual development, often based on themes taken from Godwin's own life.
Quentins is a 2002 novel by the Irish author Maeve Binchy. The title refers to Quentins Restaurant, a fictional upscale dining establishment in central Dublin, Ireland. The restaurant was referenced numerous times in previous Binchy titles; this novel explores its 30-year history as well as the lives of its patrons. The novel was produced as a BBC Word for Word audiobook in 2003.
Light a Penny Candle is a 1982 novel by the Irish author Maeve Binchy. Her debut novel, it follows the friendship between an English girl and an Irish girl over the course of three decades, beginning with the English girl's stay in Ireland during the Blitz. It is one of Binchy's best-known novels.
Cathy Kelly is an Irish former journalist and writer of women's fiction since 1997. She has gained international recognition with her popular fiction novels, which are published globally in many languages. In 2001, her novel Someone Like You won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association. Kelly is one of the most successful female authors to come out of Ireland since Maeve Binchy, having once outsold both Dan Brown and J. K. Rowling in the UK.
Roopa Farooki is a British novelist and medical doctor. Born in Lahore, she lives between France and Great Britain. Her first novel, Bitter Sweet, was shortlisted for the 2007 Orange Award for New Writers.
Lost Children Archive is a 2019 novel by writer Valeria Luiselli. Luiselli was in part inspired by the ongoing American policy of separating children from their parents at the Mexican-American border. The novel is the first book Luiselli wrote in English.
 | This article about a 2000s novel is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. See guidelines for writing about novels. Further suggestions might be found on the article's talk page. |