Light a Penny Candle is one of Binchy's best-known novels. In a contemporary review, Dennis Drabelle of The Washington Post wrote that although it is Binchy's first novel, "its narrative brio seems the work of a veteran". George Turner of The Age observed that the female characters were "strongly drawn" while the male characters were "moral weaklings all, with scarcely a redeeming feature, no doubt readily recognizable in a woman's world". Sherryl Connelly of the Akron Beacon Journal enthused, "Maeve Binchy has written a first novel that could be mistaken for life. The ordinariness of the book's characters, the accuracy of the telling and the honesty of its outcome pay homage to reality by making it readable. Eminently readable". Describing the novel as 542 pages of "good characterization, flowing dialogue and a realistic plot", a Santa Cruz Sentinel review augured that "This first effort ought to establish [Binchy's] credibility as a writer of extraordinary insight and craft".
