Filled with pathos and humour, Parcels in the Post is both a memoir of a loving household and snapshot of the fostering system in Ireland, from someone at the very heart of it all.

It's the early 1980s, and Fiona and her family have recently moved back from England to the family farm in Mayo. Fiona's huge-hearted mum decides to take in foster children, short term, through the local social services. It's a decision that will change all their lives. Over the next decade, a procession of faces passes through the house; every face, every child, has their own story, and each story claims a little piece of Fiona's heart. Some stay a few weeks; some months, and then years.

Through Fiona's eyes, we meet tiny Gerard, lost in his babygro; toddler Bea, whose mama calls from London every week for hugs and kisses; and baby Blue, whose social worker brings him to visit his mother in hospital. Then there are the sisters, Bernadette, who is all fizz, and Máiread, who cries all the time. Slowly, we learn the story of the sisters and the trauma that lives in their heads from the dark home they come from. Máiread ultimately stays with Fiona's family until she is grown up.

We also hear of the chaotic system through which all these children, as well as Fiona and her family, must pass, where a judge's cold decision can alter a child's life, for better or worse, where emergency placements can break up siblings, where the foster family are often left in the dark and with little back-up.