Goodbye Lily - Hardcover

As Lorne says her last goodbye to her beloved sister Lily, she wants only to close herself off from the world with her precious memories. But her Uncle Dennis, attending Lily's funeral, takes on the role of comforter, and uncle and niece begin to open their hearts and share their memories of Lily and their own early lives.

To Lorne, Lily was her best friend and protector from their cruel mother, Jenny, Dennis's half-sister. But to Dennis, Lily was his precious first niece, born in Calcutta when he was a teenager, then whisked away to England where Jenny and her young Irish husband were to begin their married life. As the memories come flooding back, Dennis recalls his childhood with Jenny, their wayward mother and his stern father, and Lorne gains an insight into the patterns of behaviour in the family. From love to loss, Dennis reveals a wealth of touching, personal stories as the power of grief sparks a tender, atmospheric heart to heart from one generation to the next.

Born in the fifties to an Indian mother and Irish father, Carole Patti Clarke was brought up in a small Lancashire village. She left school at fifteen, married at nineteen and had five children. Unfortunately the marriage failed and Carole took a variety of jobs, including working as a Butlins Red Coat, to support her children. In her first novel, I Wish You Weren't My Mummy (Book Guild, 2008), which was nominated for the MIND Book of the Year, she described her own difficult childhood with a mother who showed no maternal feelings towards her. This, her second book, again draws on her personal experiences and memories. Carole Patti Clarke lives in a small village near Chorley, Lancashire.