Light A Penny Candle: Maeve Binchy

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I found myself hoping for certain outcomes and rooting for the girls, as they had endured some of life's most troubling and exciting events - together and apart. The story is balanced between life in Kilgarret and life in London and portrays a real picture of the different lives these women lead and how they remained friends throughout the years. I loved that handwritten letters played such an important role in maintaining their friendship once they lived apart.

However, as novelist she has 16 published novels and as short story writer, four short stories. Initially, she wrote short stories such as Central Line and Victoria Line. In 1982, her first novel was published called Light a Penny Candle, which earned her a sum of 52,000 pounds. Evacuated from Blitz-battered London, shy and genteel Elizabeth White is sent to stay with the boisterous O’Connors in Kilgarret, Ireland. It is the beginning of an unshakeable bond between Elizabeth and Aisling O’Connor, a friendship that will endure through twenty turbulent years of change and chaos, joy and sorrow, soaring dreams and searing betrayals. She studied at University College Dublin and was a teacher for a while. She also loved traveling, and this was how she found her niche as a writer. She liked going to different places, such as a Kibbutz in Israel, and she worked in a camp in the United States. While she was away, she sent letters home to her parents. They were so impressed with these chatty letters from all over the world that they decided to send them to a newspaper. After these letters were published, Maeve left teaching and became a journalist.Neither of them were to know it would become the most important friendship of their lives. Their bond is unshakeable, enduring over turbulent years of change and chaos, joy and sorrow, soaring dreams - and searing betrayals . . . But rather than being totally negative I'll note the two things I did like: Elizabeth White as a child was stronger. Mostly because we were able to see her adapt to a new country, family, and culture and see her change there—which doesn't happen at all in the rest of the novel, and when Eileen changes her mind about her daughter's separation from her husband it doesn't seem anyone cares anyway. And the relationship between the strong independent woman when Aisling moves to London. Though I totally saw Aisling and Johnny's relationship coming, I did like that she has Aisling ending the book as single, childless, but content and willing to duke it out in the tough streets on London rather than returning to her familial Irish tough. Maeve Binchy was born on 28 May 1940 in Dalkey, County Dublin, Ireland, the eldest child of four. Her parents were very positive and provided her with a happy childhood. Although she described herself as an overweight child, her parents' attitude gave her the confidence to accept herself for who she was.

Aisling and Elizabeth have to survive DeValera’s Ireland, their raging hormones, and the struggle for independence in a world at war. Through it all, they discover that there is no right and wrong in this world, there is only what is right for those you love.This is Binchy's first published book, and it's a wonderful debut. Character-driven, the slow-burn narrative was difficult to put down, which is surprising for its length. I never knew where the story was heading next, but I was excited to find out, and it's making me glad I've got so much more Binchy to work my way through. Kennedy, Janice (31 October 1998). "Maeve: Extravagant, generous, self-deprecating". Ottawa Citizen. p.60 – via Newspapers.com.