The touching and wonderfully engaging second novel from the author of CROCODILE SOUP. It is late December and fifteen year old Caris is trying to hang an angel on a Christmas tree in a terraced street in Newcastle upon Tyne. She is interrupted by the arrival of the police who have come to the house to announce that her mother, Louise, has been caught stealing shoes in a department store in town. Caris's father Mac, a taxi driver, struggles to keep the family together as Christmas looks set for disaster, especially when Louise's drunken, dishevelled mother moves in.