Whitethorn Woods

Zusatztext “A tour de force. . . . Binchy is in top form.” – The Seattle Times “Binchy’s best read in a decade.” — The Globe and Mail “Love! longing! and rich scenes of daily life. . . . What could be sweeter than a trip to [an] Irish village packed with robust native characters.”  – The Christian Science Monitor   “A remarkably gifted writer [and] a wonderful student of human nature.” – The New York Times Book Review   “Binchy makes you laugh! cry and care.”  – San Francisco Chronicle “Binchy is a grand storyteller in the finest Irish tradition. . . . She writes from the very heart.”  – The Plain Dealer   “An engaging read.”  – Daily News   “Binchy can channel Irish voices with the best of them! and each of those voices has its own twisting story to tell.”  – The Columbus Dispatch “Reading one of Maeve Binchy’s novels is like coming home.” – The Washington Post Informationen zum Autor MAEVE BINCHY was born in County Dublin and educated at the Holy Child convent in Killiney and at University College, Dublin. After a spell as a teacher she joined The Irish Times. Her first novel, Light a Penny Candle, was published in 1982, and she went on to write more than twenty books, all of them best sellers. Several have been adapted for film and television, most notably Circle of Friends and Tara Road, which was an Oprah’s Book Club selection. She was married to the writer and broadcaster Gordon Snell for thirty-five years, and died in 2012 at the age of seventy-two. Klappentext A New York Times Bestseller "Love, longing, and rich scenes of daily life.... What could be sweeter than a trip to an Irish village packed with robust native characters." -The Christian Science Monitor When a new highway threatens to bypass the town of Rossmore and cut through Whitethorn Woods, everyone has a passionate opinion about whether the town will benefit or suffer. But young Father Flynn is most concerned with the fate of St. Ann's Well, which is set at the edge of the woods and slated for destruction. People have been coming to St. Ann's for generations to share their dreams and fears, and speak their prayers. Some believe it to be a place of true spiritual power, demanding protection; others think it's a mere magnet for superstitions, easily sacrificed. Father Flynn listens to all those caught up in the conflict, as the men and women of Whitethorn Woods must decide between the traditions of the past and the promises of the future.Father Brian Flynn, the curate at St. Augustine’s, Rossmore, hated the Feast Day of St. Ann with a passion that was unusual for a Catholic priest. But then, as far as he knew he was the only priest in the world who had a thriving St. Ann’s well in his parish, a holy shrine of dubious origin. A place where parishioners gathered to ask the mother of the Virgin Mary to intercede for them in a variety of issues, mainly matters intimate and personal. Areas where a clodhopping priest wouldn’t be able to tread. Like finding them a fiancé, or a husband, and then blessing that union with a child.Rome was, as usual, unhelpfully silent about the well.Rome was probably hedging its bets, Father Flynn thought grimly, over there they must be pleased that there was any pious practice left in an increasingly secular Ireland and not wishing to discourage it. Yet had not Rome been swift to say that pagan rituals and superstitions had no place in the Body of Faith? It was a puzzlement, as Jimmy, that nice young doctor from Doon village, a few miles out, used to say. He said it was exactly the same in medicine: you never got a ruling when you wanted one, only when you didn’t need one at all.There used to be a ceremony on July 26 every year, where people came from far and near to pray and to dress the well with garlands and flowers. Father Flynn was...

Product details

• Authors: Maeve Binchy
• Publisher: Anchor Books USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 09.03.2010
• EAN: 9780307455239
• ISBN: 978-0-307-45523-9
• No. of pages: 368
• Dimensions: 132 mm x 203 mm x 20 mm
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature