Readers uninitiated into the quotidian charms of Binchy's popular world (The Glass Lake) may find it offputting that Signora, who by many standards has masochistically mismanaged her own affairs, should prove a beacon to others. The stage is thus set for La Signora to work her magic, drawing out the secrets and the romance in her students' lives. He recruits Nora, whose repatriation to Ireland is precipitated by the death of her longtime married Sicilian lover, to teach Italian language and culture. After being passed over for the principal's job he desperately wants, underappreciated teacher Aidan Dunne is offered, as a pacifier, the job of spearheading a program of adult education classes.

rights: Century Publishing translation rights: Christine Green.A banker with a spendthrift girlfriend a studious teenager with an overprotective older sister a thug looking to go straight while needing a place to stash illegal goods-the lives of these and many other Dubliners are touched by Signora, nee Nora O'Donoghue, whose adult education class, ''Introduction to Italian,'' becomes a lesson in what it means to be alive, in Binchy's richly satisfying new novel. 50,000 first printing Literary Guild alternate first serial to Cosmopolitan paperback rights to Dell U.K.

Sharply drawn, memorable characters and a convincing picture of a small Irish community bring freshness and zest to a familiar tale. As a wealthy, new-fledged doctor, David easily resumes his privileged position, but Clare is trapped between her mother-in-law's cold fury and the town's unease. Although David returns her love, their devotion is sorely tested when they are forced to marry and return home. There, her steps falter when she enters into an ardent affair with David Power, the son of Castlebay's only doctor and another willing exile.

Hard work and the guidance of an irreverent, caring schoolteacher bring the resolute scholar to a college in Dublin. The youngest daughter of a shopkeeper whose meagre living depends on summer trade, Clare O'Brien is determined to move beyond her present circumstances. The bracing sea air brings little pleasure to the year-round residents of Castlebay, a village on the coast of Ireland, where class lines are strictly observed and morals publicly monitored.

Echoes binchy novel