Goodbye to Maeve Binchy

Some people sneeze and make the news, others leave this world and nobody knows about it.

Maeve Binchy, my all-time favorite author, passed away on July 30, 2012, but it wasn’t until today (her birthday) that I learned of this sad passing.

Sad that I will never get to read anything from her hand again. Sad that her last novel, A Week in Winter, was indeed her last.

Whenever I visited a bookstore, the B section was always the first I visited, to see if Maeve Binchy has something new out. If she had, the search for a book was over. If she didn’t … well, then I moved on to one of my other favorite authors. People such as Erica James, Penny Vincenzi, Lesley Pearce, Marian Keyes, Sheila O’Flannagan or Joy Fielding.

With my newly purchased Maeve Binchy book I would seek out a quiet place. A bench in a park in summer, a comfortable chair in a coffee shop in winter. Sheer heaven that was.

I would read and read and read, oblivious to everything that went on around me. If someone were to ask me something, I would either not hear them, ignore them, or reluctantly leave the Irish countryside.

Binchy had a way of sucking you into the story, showing lush green country sides, quiet village living, or sharing the excitement of Dublin city life.

Her characters were never rich and powerful, they were ordinary people, living ordinary lives.

I’m quite sure that Binchy will be missed around the world and her fans will hanker for stories that due to the authors’ passing will never be written.