Publisher's Synopsis
When council estate kid Caroline falls off her bike outside Mark's parents' terraced house, she unwittingly finds herself becoming part of a surrogate family : two parents still more-or-less happily married, a grandad, lots of pets and, best of all, Mark and Billy, one of whom she hopes to marry. It's light years away from her own home, a dingy flat with her numerous half-siblings and an unemployed mother.
But later in life it is Caroline who has prospects, having been to grammar school and then to university, whilst Mark is hanging out in pubs and wondering whether he can get away with not committing to his long-term girlfriend.
As the end of the twentieth-century approaches, what does the new millennium hold in store for these two? Will Caroline find love and a job worthy of her dreams? Will Mark do anything at all?
Written in Goffin's inimitable and witty style this is an impressive novel of social realism about life, aspirations and the ties that bind us to our homes despite everything.
