Five Leaves Publications

Book details

Forty years after Rosehill won the Guardian fiction award Carol Lake wrote a set of new stories to accompany the original set.

These linked short stories paint a haunting picture of Britain's inner city in the 1980s, where the bleak facts of disadvantage are combated by the spirit of those most affected. Neighbours offer joy and consolation; hopes and dreams retain their fragile hold.

“... Carol Lake isn't just visiting; she writes these stories with urgency and artifice but without pretentiousness. For a first book this is a remarkable achievement; here is a natural writer if ever I read one.” – Guardian

“Rosehill is well worth attending to: a documentary which is informed by a distinctive imagination.” – London Review of Books

“... outstanding for its wit and zest, and its empathy with the immigrant, the underprivileged and the unemployed” – New Statesman

About the Author

Carol Lake left secondary modern school at fifteen, and worked as a GPO telephonist and in a bookshop. Her period as a telephonist gave rise to Switchboard Operators, which was televised as the comedy drama The Hello Girls. Her time working in a bookshop in the 1960s produced Winter at the Bookshop, under the name Sylvia Riley, which is published by Five Leaves and re-issued with Rosehill. The author lives in Derby, the setting for the Rosehill stories.