Pack up your troubles - Anne Bennett

When eighteen-year-old Maeve Brannigan arrives in Birmingham in 1930, having left her family's small farm in County Donegal, she can't believe her luck when she meets and falls in love with the handsome Brendan Hogan. But as they settle into married life it soon becomes clear that Brendan is not the man she thought he was, and when Maeve falls pregnant with their first child she is exposed to a brutal and violent attack which is to set the pattern for the coming years. After one horrific spate of abuse, Maeve takes her children, Kevin and Grace, and flees to the farm in Donegal she was once so eager to escape. But it's not long before the close-knit Catholic community make it very clear that Maeve will never be accepted back into their society. Maeve is forced to return to the horrors of her marital home, but how much longer can she endure the torments of a man she has grown to hate?