The Copper Beech

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The Copper Beech

By: Maeve Binchy

Narrated by: Kate Binchy

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About this listen

By the school house at Shancarrig stands a copper beech, its bark scarred with the names and dreams of the pupils who have grown up under its branches.

Under Junior Assistant Mistress Maddy Ross's careful gaze the children play, but out of school Maddy's gaze lingers where it shouldn't. Maura Brennan, a bundle of fun from the rough end of town, plays with her pals: leap year baby Eddie Barton, the apple of his mother's eye, and Nessa Ryan, who little realises as she carves his name at the roots of the copper beech on the very last day of school that she'll get a lot more from one of her schoolmates than her first shy kiss.

The Copper Beech is the gateway to Maeve Binchy's marvellous portrait of a small Irish town whose untroubled surface conceals the passions, rivalries, friendships, ambitions and jealousies beneath.

Contemporary

Contemporary Romance

Family Life

Fiction

Genre Fiction

Literary Fiction

Small Town & Rural

Romance

Feel-Good

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I am latecomer to Maeve Binchy's writing. I have to admit I had always avoided it thinking it would be too sentimental or cosy. I was wrong. She has a sharp eye for human relationships and her characters show themselves to be misguided, foolish, unreliable, and cruel as well as loving, rounded, and patient. Her real interest in the way we form communities, and her warm but not sentimental belief in redemption, fills her novels with human interest. I was gripped, and this was a very good reading by Kate Binchy. Highly recommended.