June Ahern

This was an excellent story. This book brings out just about every emotion you have. Cathy Jimmy and their five girls move to San Francisco after Cathy has another miscarriage and almost dies. Right from the very beginning I didn’t like Jimmy. He came across as selfish and disrespectful. I saw this in the hospital where Cathy was having her seventh child, another girl. The doctor wanted her to stay longer because she had a rough delivery and Jimmy didn’t care. He told her that her place was at home that the kids needed her there.
I felt like I was in Scotland feeling the tension between the Protestants and the Catholics. The father was very involved in his Catholicism, but I’m not sure the church would have considered him a good Catholic.

You could tell there was tension in the family from the beginning of the book. It was raised a notch when Cathy names this daughter June going against the wishes of naming her after a saint like she did with all of her other daughters.
June is special. She seems to know things ahead of time. She always knew when Helen was sick.. She also was the one who alerted the adults to Helen's inability to breath.

Once they move to America June is branded as being different. This causes all kinds of problems with her father. I thought her father was mean and cruel when he was in Scotland. Once he got to America I really detested him. He became no longer verbally abusive, but physically abusive to all of the girls. They all grew to hate him. It was obvious when you heard them talking about how to kill him.

June doesn’t fit in with the Catholic faith and gets kicked out of the Catholic school. When she accidentally catches her robe on fire and is severely burned her father has her locked in the psych ward. Want to know how this affected the family? Will Cathy finally stand up to her husband? You must read this book to find out.… (altro)