This book follows the story of cathy and eammon, from when they were kids to adults and how thier life changes so much over that time but they still end up linked together. Cathy and Eammon were always there for each other as kids and young teenagers, however when eammons dad has enough of cathys mum who is a prosititute ( or dock dolly, usually sleeping with foreign sailors and robbing thier money). He packs up and moves with his new woman. Eammons dad seems to genuinely care for cathy. However after eamonn snr leaves, cathys mum brings home random men every night, and one tries to attack cathy which ends with him being killed, following this incident, cathys mum ends up locked up and cathy ends up been thrown into an horrendous care home where many of the girls are usually abused. Cathy and a girl she has made friends with manage to escape and Cathy finds herself in soho where she is taken in by the kind desrae who is a transexual man. Eamonn gets involved with a ganstas daughther and ends up killing her so eamonn has to flee, eamonn senior manages to get them on a boat to new york. Over time as thier lives evolve, thier paths cross many times however although they have strong feelings for each other, the relationship between them feels as though its doomed. I couldnt put the book down however the book changes scenes each chapter between what is happening in cathys life in london, to eamonns life in new york and i did feel that eamonns life in new york did feature alot of stories just to fill the pages. Yet I did read the book within a week and a half so it must have been good.