"Maeve Binchy, "the grand story teller,"* returns with a cast of characters you will never forget when they all spend a winter week together on holiday at Stone House, a restful inn by the sea... Stoneyville is a small town on the coast of Ireland where all the families know each other. When Chicky decides to take an old decaying mansion, Stone House, and turn it into a restful place for a holiday by the sea, the town thinks she is crazy. She is helped...

Given the difficult task of building an underfunded clinic in an Irish community caught between the past and present, Dr. Clara Casey finds her task complicated by her problematic personal life, her colorful and diverse staff, and the difficult patients they serve.

A selection of short stories includes pieces spanning the author's career and features characters whose relationships with each other endure in the face of changing times, lost hopes, and new loves.

An evening class in Italian becomes a catalyst in the lives of its participants, students and teacher alike, as they come together, becoming absorbed in one another's lives and experiencing changing and growing relationships as their class culminates in a magical trip to Italy

While unmarried Maddy dreams of the man she loved and lost, Eddie yearns for the father who abandoned him, in a work that depicts the dreams and desires of the residents of Shancarrig