Echoes of the Past

Advantages: Classic Maeve Binchy
Disadvantages: Wasn't impressed with the ending, it was a little too unresolved for my liking

...Like the majority of Maeve Binchy's books, this is set in a small town in Ireland. 'Echoes' tells the story of Clare O'Brien, the daughter of a shopkeeper who have to rely on the tourists of this seaside town to keep afloat. Clare is bright, and dreams of a life beyond her rpesent circimstances. David is the son of a doctor and a class consceience mother, he goes to boarding school rather than the local school in the village. Angela O'Hara, a teacher at the school, who is the daughter of a drunk who was able to get an education against the odds, and who risks everything to help Clare escape and achieve the the same. And Gerry Doyle, a photographers son, town charmer who vows to have Clare at any price.... As always, Binchy makes each of the characters come alive with this amazing but slightly depressing plot. Each characters personal... Read review

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Advantages: good read
Disadvantages: none

...Echoes is another good read by Maeve Binchey. This is about two children and how different they were and had different outlook and desires on life nothing very common with each other but at this stage of the book we did not know that they would meet up again. They would go to the cave which was called Echo Cave and asking and prayering to get away from Castlebay which was the town that they grew up in,It was always very bleak at winter always looking so grey with the wind and the sea, it was so much better in the summer months when visitors used to come to the beach -typical sea side town. Clare was one of those children with great ambitions to leave Castlebay,she was Tom O'brien's younger daughter. Winning a scholarship to go to the University College in Dublin. She was very popular with the local teacher.So with the opprtunity to go... Read review

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Advantages: An adoreable book, which really is impossible to put down
Disadvantages: The fact that the book has to end !!

...Published in 1985 by Arrow Books Limited, Echoes, by Maeve Binchy, to me is a powerful story of love, jealously, intrigue and secrets. It is set a small Irish coastal town, of fictional Castlebay. Although Binchy never tells us where exactly in Ireland Castlebay may be found, l got the distinct impression it was on the West Coast. The story begins in the 1950s with the two lead characters Clare O’Brien and David Power to be found on the beach at the caves. In particular they were at Echo cave, where superstition and local folk lore states that if you shout you desires in the right direction, and did it loud enough instead of an echo you would get an answer. Clare O’Brien is the youngest daughter of Agnes and Tom O’Brien. They are poor shop keepers who just about break even from trade during the summer season... Read review

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