Becoming Finola [Paperback]

Suzanne Strempek Shea (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 15, 2004

In the latest novel from the award-winning author of Around Again, an American takes an unexpected trip to Ireland and finds the woman she was meant to become.

Newly unemployed, Sophie White has nothing better to do when her recently widowed best friend, Gina, invites her along on a much-needed, postcrisis getaway. When, after only one day in Ireland, Gina decides she should do her grieving back at home, she urges Sophie to remain and make the most of the summer in Booley, the tiny seaside village that was their destination.

A job offer accepted on a whim lands her in the village's craft shop, and in the position once held by Finola O'Flynn, a woman who'd swiftly left town a few years before. Sophie takes on Finola's job of creating beaded bracelets, but also takes over Finola's abandoned home, then Finola's left-behind wardrobe, and finally, after her own episode of lost love, Finola's discarded man, charismatic shop owner Liam. But could Sophie -- or anyone -- ever take over the legendary place that her predecessor still holds in the hearts of Booley?

Friend, confidante, and guru to all -- literally a lifesaver to some -- even in her absence Finola continues to captivate. Her myth manages to reenergize Sophie, who passes along the gift through bracelets she infuses with invented "powers" that make the wearers believe they have what it takes to face life's challenges. But is Sophie powerful enough to face a whopper of her own when Finola returns to Booley and to the life she deserted? Does Sophie have the magic to make room in one tiny village for two women who want the very same life?

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

After turning to memoir, most recently in Shelf Life [BKL My 1 04], Shea, whose novels include Around Again (2001), returns to fiction in another delightfully enchanting tale about the unorthodox ways dreams can come true. Sophie and Gina leave Massachusetts for the tiny Irish village of Booley on a whim, and, just as whimsically, Gina returns home after just one day. Sophie stays, captivated by Booley's charm and denizens, especially a woman who is no longer around. Finola O'Flynn, she of the shop that bears her name, skipped town without so much as a wave of her shillelagh, breaking her lover's heart and leaving scores of devoted villagers whose problems she solved in the lurch. As Sophie literally steps into Finola's shoes, she begins living Finola's life. So effortless is the transformation, Sophie is unwilling to relinquish her new identity--and new boyfriend--when the real Finola suddenly reappears. Shea's Sophie is a beguiling heroine, a plucky, lucky American minx who becomes the sort of Irish lass that would have made Maureen O'Hara proud. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Suzanne Strempek Shea, winner of the 2000 New England Book Award for Fiction, is the author of the novels Selling the Lite of Heaven; Hoopi Shoopi Donna; Lily of the Valley; and Around Again; and the memoirs Songs from a Lead-Lined Room: Notes -- High and Low -- From My Journey Through Breast Cancer and Radiation; and Shelf Life: Romance, Mystery, Drama, and Other Page-Turning Adventures from a Year in a Bookstore. She lives in Bondsville, Massachusetts.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Washington Square Press; Original edition (June 15, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743403770
• ISBN-13: 978-0743403771
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,560,379 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfectly Delightful, February 20, 2005

By 

Wendy Kaplan (Houston) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Becoming Finola (Paperback)

I just love discovering an author about whom I knew nothing, and finding a fresh new voice in the process! Suzanne Strempek Shea has written a wonderfully delightful quirky story that is so much fun, so fresh, so witty, that I am loathe to categorize it. It simply stands alone.

Sophie White, a nice, thirtysomething New Englander, agrees to accompany her newly widowed and terribly grieving best friend Gina to a remote village in Ireland, where Gina hopes she will regain her equilibrium and start to heal. The two women arrive at a charming cottage (prepaid by Gina) near the sea, prepare to unpack their myriad clothing and belongings (also bought by Gina) and stay until Gina feels better. But Gina takes off after less than 24 hours, and Sophie is left alone in this friendly, tiny village that is seemingly haunted.

Haunted, that is, by the very undead but very much revered and remembered Finola, who took off two years before with her German lover. Absolutely everybody in the village has a story about Finola, from her still lonely ex lover Liam, whom Sophie thinks looks like a young Eric Clapton, to the very "auld" Joe, whom Finola brought back to life and happiness by taking him for a long walk every day. Even the dog Pepsi owes his well-being to Finola, who rescued him from a wretched existence tied up in an uncaring yard.

Unwittingly, Sophie starts to model herself on this mythical woman, thinking, "What would Finola do?" And in this way, she gradually assumes Finola's life, from her jewelry-making in the craft store run by Liam, to taking Joe for walks, to living in the cottage that was apparently Finola's before she left--to wearing Finola's left-behind, perfect, clothes. Oh--and Sophie also takes over Liam, until like it or not, she feels she IS Finola.

The inevitable denoument is so tragicomic, but so full of wisdom, that it simply makes the book. I won't give away the ending, but in my mind, it was perfect.

I cannot wait to read everything Shea has written; where has she been all my life?

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wanting to Become Finola, too, November 4, 2004

By 

Writerin (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Becoming Finola (Paperback)

In this strikingly present novel, Shea dips you by the toe into the village life of Booley, Ireland. The reader easily finds herself becoming Sophie, the narrator. We are the outsider, suddenly immersed in this simplistic, artistic life into which Sophie metamorphosizes. From the first day, when she straightens the merchandise in Liam's shop out of impulsive need for order, Sophie finds a place where she belongs, a place she never knew she was looking for. Sophie becomes Finola: an artisan of beaded jewelry, onto which she endows virtues, assigned according to the charms strung onto them, assigned on a whim, on a wish. Hers is a world into which we all long to disapperar. Into another world, another country, another life. The magical bracelts, in a way, narrate the story, and leave you wishing that you, too, could BECOME FINOLA.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Captures the Escence of Travel after 9/11, January 13, 2006

By 

Trust Me "akairisb" (Baltimore, MD) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Becoming Finola (Paperback)

Suzanne Strempek Shea must have been gone to Ireland during the Spring of 2002, when Americans began to go back to Europe, once we felt flying was safe again. First we went to countries where English was the official language - Ireland being the closest to US soil. We liked to be able to get on one plane, either in Boston or Baltimore, and get off in Ireland 7 hours later. We were worried about the dollar to Euro exchange rate and preferred that it be one for one, so we wouldn't have to "do the math." Shea must have gone to some of the Irish villages I visited, as she describes them wonderfully.
Not that anyone needs an excuse to go to Ireland, but if you're looking for more reasons to go there, read this book first.