The novel is set in contemporary Dublin and London, with most of the action in recognizable London locales, such as Piccadilly Square, Knightsbridge, St. Paul's, and the southbank area called Southwark. When Clare and Katie first arrive, they find themselves in vast Euston Station, where the boat train from Dublin lets them off just before the commuter rush begins. In Piccadilly, Katie has a misadventure with the police, who suspect her of soliciting when she is innocently just trying to ask directions. Later in the novel, when the girls try to find their mother in Maidenhead, the scene shifts briefly to the suburbs and the Victorian splendors of that geographical area.

But mostly the sights and sounds of London and its heterogeneous population fill the pages of the novel, as experienced by two youngsters literally just off the boat from Ireland.