Lawrence is only a child, but he's the man in his family. His little sister is still too young to understand. When their mother, paranoid that the kids father is stalking them, drives her young family through the night across the continent to Rome, what begins as an adventure ends in imprisonment and a desperate attempt finally to break free.

Told from the point of view of Lawrence, who is obsessed by the Roman Emperors and also by the stars, this profoundly moving novel shows how childhood innocence copes with adulthood come early, and how a boy's humour, protectiveness and intuitive understanding keeps a family from falling apart.