In "Quentins," by Maeve Binchy, readers are introduced to young Ella Brady, the only child of a staid couple and the apple of their eye. She grows up amidst the friends and neighbours of her section of Dublin, which is also home to the highly-regarded restaurant, Quentins. When Ella grows up and falls in love with a married man, she is only at the beginning of her troubles, which she learns when the married man , a financial adviser, runs off with the life savings of many, many people - including Ella's parents. She subsequently begins working for an aspiring filmmaker, who wants to show the world a changing Ireland through the lens of one business, Quentins itself, and thus becomes involved with all the people there - Brenda and Patrick Brennan, the hostess and chef respectively, Quentin himself, various staff members, Cathy Scarlet and Tom Feather, and of course, the ubiquitous Mitchell twins, Maud and Simon.... How the stories of each of these people intertwine and react with each other is the heart of the story, and as always, Maeve Binchy carries it off in her gentle and touching prose. I read this immediately after reading "Scarlet Feather," while I was on vacation in California, and I have discovered that Binchy's books are excellent reads when traveling because you can put them down and pick them up again casually, without losing any of the numerous threads with which she weaves her stories. Recommended.
