The winning title for that is endlessly debated in Facebook reading groups, but having just completed my third (fourth?) reread, I can say that this is the one for me. It’s hard to synopsize Scarlet Feather, because there’s so much going on all at once in different arenas, but I’ll give it a shot.

Cathy Scarlet and Tom Feather met and became fast and eternal friends in catering school; both of them have had the unwavering aspiration to start a catering company together. Not a restaurant, but rather a company that cooks for large functions and intimate dinner parties alike and delivers (and sometimes serves) the food to whatever venue is required. The story begins on New Year’s Eve; Cathy is catering a party for her harridan of a mother-in-law, while Tom is out walking the streets trying to cool down after a jealous outburst when he saw his girlfriend on the dance floor with a drunken, handsy party goer. Tom happens upon a “premises” that would be perfect for their business, while Cathy encounters her husband’s niece and nephew, the twins Maud and Simon, at the NYE party. This evening kicks off the book.

Cathy is married to Neil, the son of Hannah and Jock Mitchell. Cathy’s mother, Lizzie Scarlet, used to clean for Hannah and bring Cathy along with her when Cathy was small, so the fact that Cathy has wedded the son of the snobbish Hannah is a big deal. Lizzie’s husband/Cathy’s father Muttie is a sweet man whose “bad back” has kept him from doing any meaningful work in his life but hasn’t prevented his frequenting the local bookie’s and spending every penny he can scrounge on the horse races. Neil is a barrister with big ideals to help people with immigration problems and find solutions for the homeless, and is constantly on call to deal with important issues.

Tom is involved with the beautiful Marcella, who aspires to be a model while working as a manicurist at Hayward’s, the big department store. She spends her off hours working out and attending any function where she has a chance of getting her picture taken and into the society pages in the newspaper, all to advance her dream career.

Maud and Simon are the young children of Jock Mitchell’s brother, Kenneth, and his wife Kay; Kenneth travels quite a bit with his friends, while Kay has a drinking problem, and their elder son, Walter, isn’t, shall we say, a responsible individual, so when the twins find themselves alone in the house on New Year’s Eve, they decamp to their uncle’s and become a problem that has to be solved by anyone willing to take it on. This turns out to be Cathy and Neil, aided by Lizzie and Muttie.

The feature that makes Scarlet Feather the one for me is Binchy’s treatment of the characters and how she shows their interactions, changes and growth. Specifically:

• Tom and Cathy and their passionate aspirations. I love a story about people who are determined in every way to do whatever they set their hearts on, and won’t be deterred. And the contrast between what they were doing and the lofty heights to which Cathy’s husband Neil aspired was a good reminder that yes, there are more important things in the world than running a small business, but the truth is, you never know what is your role in life, and how it will impact those around you. So it’s best to be focused on being impactful from whatever position in which you find yourself.
  
• Maud and Simon, the nine-year-old twins who are tossed from pillar to post throughout this story. There needs to be more emphasis on and exposure (in fiction and in life) of the plight of children who are not wanted by their biological family but who may be badly wanted by the many caregivers who step up to help them when they’re in need, as was also noted in the history between two other characters in the book. Also, the twins are so hilariously written, it’s a joy every time they appear on the page.

The one thing that irritates me about Binchy’s books, because it feels like simple laziness, is her insistence on using the same five surnames (and many of the same given names too!) for every character in every book she wrote. Scarlet and Feather were the anomalies in this one, for obvious reasons (had to have a title and a name for the catering company), but the rest are a small assortment of Ryans, Flynns, Daleys, Hayes, and Nolans, without an O’this or an O’that to be found, and I swear there is a girl named Orla in every book but it’s never the same girl. Since Irish monnikers run to two pages on the internet, a little more imagination in the naming would have been good. But that’s just pickiness—I really do enjoy her books to an extraordinary degree. You might, as well!