** spoiler alert ** 
 young Irish emigrant to US, doesn't take much crap, knuckles down and makes progress with job, education and love life - living the dream... returns to Ireland for after sisters death and doubts if she should return to US as new job and boyfriend and mother at home, until details of her life in US begin to leak back to home 
 simplistic on the surface level, with more depth as I get into it, but then a it seemed hollow overall - some childish prose, it felt like at times - kept getting falshbacks to Enid Blyton in some of the character description lines