All the Beggars Riding

Lara Moorhouse is the central character and narrator of the story, around whom a harsh-reality of parental deceit unfolds, as she wakes up to her father's double-life in her early teenage years. Raised by her mother in a cramped flat in Earls Court alongside her younger brother, the family live in the shadows of Patrick Connolly, a successful plastic surgeon whose working life is split between the minor procedures of the wealthy in Harley Street to working on the victims of the Troubles in Belfast.

It is upon a family holiday to Spain when it dawns on Lara that all is not what it seems with her father. Upon her mother's death, Lara feels she is left with too many unanswered questions surrounding her past and sets out, with the help of an evening writing class, to document her mother's life. Initially fearful of fictionalising the truth, Lara finds that writing helps her to explore the emotions that surround her upbringing, and allows her to come to a sense of understanding.

Whilst writing in the narrative, Lucy Caldwell believably gets behind the thoughts and feelings of a woman who is coming to terms with her broken past. The level of detail interwoven in the story by Caldwell, with parallels of world-news items of the 1970s and 1980s era, means that it is often hard to separate truth from fiction as the story develops, but these flashbacks serve as allegorical reminders of youth angst as we are taken on a journey to discover how life can change.