Erin's Child

Erin's Child by Shelagh Kelleys.

  This is the third of four books detailing the lives of the Feeney family in late 19th century York.
Patrick, his wife Thomasin and their descendants are now living in an affluent part of the city in
stark contrast to their life of squalor in the first of the series, A Long Way From Heaven. They have prospered against the odds, but life's tragedies are never far away.
   Their daughter, Erin, is widowed after a farming accident, she miscarries her second baby, and her daughter,Belle, has a deformed spine and refuses to speak.  She is regarded as mentally subnormal by the less caring, and Erin has to be restrained from being over protective.
    It's how the author describes how each character deals with life's ups and downs which make this book a must read.
    However it's not all doom and gloom, there is comedy too from Father Liam Kelly and thomasins father, William, a blunt Yorkshire man.
     You really care what life has in store for Patrick and his family. He's had to deal with prejudice since arriving in England to escape the Irish potato famine,  but he is a decent person to whom family is everything.
Anne Grierson