Lily Goodwillie is a troubled twelve-year-old girl, who lives with her mother, Millie, and her father, Willie. She struggles to cope with the rejection and emotional abuse of her mother, who works as a dominatrix. Lily smokes, drinks and uses solvents that offer her an escape from this life. In the end nothing helps and she ends up committing a horrific act that has long term consequences for her and the society in which she lives. The book is set in a tough fictional Scottish town. It's the early eighties, John Lennon has just been shot. The punk scene is still evident, though the Jam are going underground and Margaret Thatcher is in power. Elizabeth O'Neill writes in dialect and describes the horror of a mother's emotional neglect, mental and sexual abuse, and its traumatic effect on a twelve-year-old girl.