Rose & Renzo

by Carolyn O'Brien

Manchester 1936

Fascism looms in Europe, and Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts are on the rise.

After the death of their father, two sisters arrive in Manchester’s vibrant ‘Little Italy’: creative misfit, Rose and her much older sister, Ivy. Fearing Rose’s impulsiveness, Ivy seeks to control Rose, forcing her to give up her cherished place at art school.

Frustrated and desperate to pursue her passion, Rose meets Renzo, a painter arrived from Europe. Their connection is instant and powerful. Yet as their feelings deepen, Renzo’s past in Mussolini’s Italy remains a mystery.

As Blackshirts march across the city, Rose is drawn to the fight against fascism, even as she’s compelled to face the devastating question: just which side is Renzo on?

Genres: Historical Fiction

320 pages, Paperback

Published May 14, 2026

About the author

Carolyn O’Brien was born in Manchester. She studied English at Cambridge University before qualifying as a solicitor. She now works part-time as a consultant lawyer as well as writing historical fiction. Her writing has a strong sense of the north-west of England and its radical past, as illustrated by her first novel THE SONG OF PETERLOO which was published to coincide with the bicentenary of the Peterloo Massacre. Her second novel ROSE & RENZO, published May 2026, is a 1930s love story set in the ‘Little Italy’ district of Manchester against the backdrop of rising fascism.

Carolyn lives near Manchester with her family.

Reviews

[Margo Laurie]

Currently Reading

Many thanks to Northodox Press for the review copy of 'Rose & Renzo' 💚📚 The setting is great - 1930s Manchester. Looking forward to learning a bit of history along with the story.

[Jules · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rose & Renzo is set in Manchester in 1936, where Rose is forced to move to "Little Italy" by her sister, Ivy, after the death of their parents. Rose must also give up on her dream of going to art school in order to work in an office to provide an additional income to provide for them both. There, she meets Freda, a Jewish girl, and begins to learn about the right wing activism taking place on her doorstep.

Rose also becomes friends with her Italian neighbours, much to the disgust of her sister, Ivy, who for some reason can't seem to see the good in anyone. Tensions between Rose and Ivy increase as Rose begins to fall for Italian, Renzo. And as hatred for the Jewish community continues, Rose is torn between knowing who to believe - her new Italian friends or her sister. The characters themselves are well developed. I loved Rose, Lil and Freda, in particular, but came to have little sympathy for Ivy, who was full of spite.

This is a beautifully written story, encapsulating lots of different themes. Rose and Renzo both have a passion for art and it forms the basis of their slowly emerging love story. The fascism angle is dealt with sensitively and, for someone like myself, who knew nothing of this part of Manchester's history, I found it very interesting and informative.

This is a very good historical fiction novel. I will always sing the praises of books set in the north, especially if written by northern based authors. I very much enjoyed it.

Thank you to the author and Northodox Press for sending me a proof.

[Rue Baldry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Through the compelling love story at the heart of this novel, O’Brien brings to life the “Little Italy” area of Manchester in the mid-1930s. Fascism was on the rise across Europe including, through Mosley, among the English working class. This is unfortunately resonant now.

Rose, the main character, is complex, sympathetic and realistic: sensitive but single-minded, determined and strong but trapped by her sister and their circumstances, intelligent but hampered by dyslexia, artistic, passionate and frustrated by her lack of power. I liked her a lot. Even when she was cowardly or selfish, her behaviour was understandable and her remorse touching.

Renzo is very much worthy of her feelings towards him, clearly the only person she meets with whom she can connect properly. His innate goodness is apparent even though his past is an intriguing mystery. All the secondary characters are also well drawn and multifaceted. I am particularly fond of Lil, Rose’s Mancunian-Italian neighbour, with her mixed dialect, kindness, aesthetic, and disruptive pet bird.

Descriptions are vivid, with lovely language and striking imagery, very much drawing on Rose’s sensitivity to and knowledge of art. Her own expression through drawing and painting develops within the art movements of the time, demonstrating her personal growth over the course of the novel. The dialogue is entertaining and realistic, with the flirting and arguments consistent with the setting, as well as engaging for a reader now. These interactions do a great job at showing how frustrating it must have been to be as restricted as young women were then, also the constraints of poverty and individual helplessness in the face of political oppression. But the novel also celebrates fighting back, passions and camaraderie, small pleasures, empathy, youth, kindness, overwhelming romantic love, the seizing of control over elements of our own lives and standing up for others.

The plot is propulsive, weaving historical events and individual dilemmas. The depth of research underpinning all this is apparent, with details gracefully woven with subtlety into the story and descriptions. I was immersed in the time and place, its poverty, festivals, food, warmth and injustices. Rose and Renzo is absorbing and addictive, conjuring a world and characters which have stayed with me long after reading it.

[Carolyn Kirby · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s ninety years since the Battle of Cable Street, one of dramatic backdrops in Carolyn O’Brien’s brilliant new novel, Rose and Renzo, but the political parallels between 1936 and 2026 are starkly drawn in this heartfelt and compelling coming-of-age story.

Passionate and rebellious, Rose Irvine has grown up pushing against the boundaries of conventional behaviour at her father’s vicarage in leafy Cheshire. After his death Rose and her older sister move to Manchester’s industrial heart taking a low-rent flat and monotonous office jobs in a cotton-mill. Ancoats is dominated by “the dirt-red of the factory and its towering chimney, the stream of workers, the cobbled yard,” but the area teems with life and is home to the city’s vibrant Italian community.

Still grieving for her parents, Rose yearns for love and artistic fulfilment. After an instant spark of attraction at an art gallery, these dreams become embodied in Renzo, an enigmatic but mesmerising visitor from Italy. Rose is smitten by the darkly handsome artist but troubled by Renzo’s apparent connections with the local Blackshirts. Renzo seems to be hiding something. Could that be an involvement back home with Mussolini’s fascists?

Rose is an exquisitely drawn character, a young woman veering between the self-consciousness of adolescence and a youthful boldness that drives her desire for an artistic life filled with creative and sexual freedom. Her fragility is perfectly encapsulated by her stunning bright green trouser suit which she only occasionally feels brave enough to wear.

The writing in Rose and Renzo is so good that you are thrust between the washing-lines in a sooty backyard or into a packed, flickering cinema or a cool and airy gallery where the thrill of surrealist art is opening new horizons for the future. Rose’s struggles immerse us in beautifully observed in the details of pre-war daily life; dolled-up factory girls on a night out linking arms across the pavement; housewives on their knees in unison as they scour their front steps with a donkey stone; a noisy procession around a statue of the Madonna in “a foaming sea of white lilies and gypsophilia.” Yet the story never allows us the confidence of hindsight. Attacks on the home of Rose’s Jewish friend, Freda prompt a question about whether Manchester is really any safer for Jews than Berlin, and in 1936 the answer was not entirely clear. At that point, the way political extremism would lead was no easier to predict than it is today.

Inspired by real lives of artists and idealists of the 1930s, Rose and Renzo is a gorgeous, heady dive into one young woman’s artistic, political and romantic awakening, as well as an intimate glimpse into the lost world of England’s industrial north.

[Helen_t_reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Manchester, 1936. Fascism looms in Europe, and Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts are on the rise.

After the death of their father, two sisters arrive in Manchester’s vibrant ‘Little Italy’: creative misfit, Rose, and her much older sister, Ivy. Fearful of Rose’s impulsiveness, Ivy seeks to control her, forcing her to give up her cherished place at art school.

Frustrated and desperate to pursue her passion, Rose meets Renzo, a painter arrived from Europe. Their connection is instant and powerful. Yet as their feelings deepen, Renzo’s past in Mussolini’s Italy remains a mystery.

As Blackshirts march across the city, Rose is drawn into the fight against fascism, even as she’s compelled to face the devastating question: just which side is Renzo on?


Thank you so much to Carolyn O'Brien and Northodox Press for my GIFTED Proof of Rose & Renzo which comes out on 14th May.

It is a well-written, enjoyable, fascinating blend of love story, and coming of age drama, set against a background of the rise of right wing fascism spreading across Britain and Europe, in the 1930s.

The main character is the somewhat sheltered, middle class, immature, naive, and self-centered Rose, having her eyes opened to poverty, city life, factory work, politics, art and love, the harsh realities of which are in contrast to her idealistic thoughts and conceptions about life.

Carolyn O'Brien's historical novel has clearly been meticulously researched, and her vivid descriptions create an incredibly strong sense of place. She paints a detailed picture of the working class Manchester suburb of Ancoats, known as Little Italy because of its large Italian population, and nearby Cheetham Hill with its Jewish community. An area filled with factories and mills, sooty air, back streets and yards.

Her characters are as equally well drawn as their surroundings. From the domineering Ivy, to the generous, kind and caring Zia Lil, to the Mosley-supporting Matteo, they are all completely believable and lifelike. I was very impressed by the way the author brilliantly depicts and develops Rose's character and the way she matures. We see her growing up before our eyes as the novel unfolds.

As well as a blossoming, love-at-first- sight relationship between Rose and Renzo, in which the reader quickly becomes invested, there is also a political story which looks at fascism and the politics of hatred. It is these aspects which have the power impact upon and affect their fledgling relationship, and add a really intense layer of threat and impending danger to the novel.

A compelling historical, political love story with a strong northern setting, which hooks you in from the first chapter, and is still frighteningly relevant in our modern world, over 90 after the events it portrays.

[Rachael Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carolyn O’Brien’s novel begins with a disturbing scene in Empoli Tuscany based on real events in 1921. Fascist squad violence or squadrismo was rife, and eighteen months later Mussolini would march on Rome. In one opening scene, the Italy of the time is thrust before our eyes.
We then go straight to Manchester and Ancoats and the heart of the city’s Little Italy where two sisters are making their new home. It initially feels a world away from what we have just witnessed. How can two things that feel so distant be so connected? This is exactly what the novel shows us. What was happening in Italy was starting to happen in Manchester too via Oswald Moseley’s blackshirts. Fascism and anti-semitism are here in Manchester too.
The book is essentially a love story between Rose and Renzo, the Italian guy she meets. We have the contrast between Rose and her sister Ivy, Rose with her fire and rebellion, and Ivy who is prepared to accept and refuse to see so she can continue to live her quiet life. Ivy is just as complicit in her own way. It’s also the story of a girl, Rose, who is growing up in the middle of all this and is taken from her comfortable existence in the countryside to the heart of a city where things are very much happening in a world that is unfamiliar. It’s the world of the northern industrial city, of factories and streets and houses and smog, all without the countryside to which she was accustomed, of poverty and working-class life, and Rose has to face up to it and get on with it. She’s also faced with the contrast between her own ideas of Italy that she’s seen in her mother’s art books and the Italy that she’s gradually learning about from the people she knows. Romantic visions are faced with reality in more ways than one. The book brings up some big questions, including those of family loyalties, and ultimately the question to which Rose seeks an answer: whose side are you really on?
What I also loved about O’Brien’s book were the details, the descriptions of Manchester life, of the food and of the meals that the Italians eat together, the attention to people’s attitudes and political views and the misunderstandings this can sometimes create. Never presume, ask and listen. These are powerful reminders for the world in which we find ourselves today. If you’re interested in twentieth century history and enjoy a good love story, this might just be the book for you.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25 stars. Set between the wars in the Ancoats district of Manchester, O’Brien’s second novel tells the story of Rose and older sister Ivy. The Irvine sisters move from their Cheshire vicarage to the area known as ‘Little Italy’ following the death of their father.

Rose, encouraged by her late mother, longs to study Art but pragmatic Ivy feels she needs to grow up, knuckle down and earn a living. Brought back to earth with a bump, Rose starts work in the office of the local factory where her sister has secured her a position.

Unsettling tales are surfacing in the newsreels of the rise of Fascism in Europe with Hitler and Mussolini. Meanwhile in Manchester, Oswald Mosley is gaining ground and BUF Blackshirts bring violence and hate to the streets. The economic slump, unemployment and deprivation in the North all play their part and stir up disillusionment.

The historical backdrop to this story feels alarmingly prescient. I do wonder if O’Brien’s choice of time period was a conscious political decision. What was it Mark Twain once said? ‘History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes’.

I enjoyed the inclusion of the Italian diaspora in this tale. The sisters’ neighbours are the Galletti family who run an ice cream cafe. Matriarch Liliana offers the pair a warm embrace and feeds them plates of pasta. I loved her character, her indomitable nature and her will to keep Italian traditions alive in this sooty Northern town with its unceasing rain.

There’s a love story at the heart of this tale, ridden with a sense of urgency and of outside forces conspiring to bring these two people together or pull them apart.

I loved the inclusion of familiar Manchester landmarks, eg the Whitworth Gallery, references to art and to Florence. I learned about the Empoli Massacre of 1921 and the Battle of Cable Street in 1936 which Rose herself becomes an active participant in.

Rose and Renzo is an enlightening and timely reminder of our history and the fact that, ‘Freedom and liberation are never-ending tasks’ - Umberto Eco. I enjoyed it.

Huge thanks to @northodoxpressofficial for my proof copy.

[Fran McBookface · Rating 4 out of 5]

I so enjoyed this story of politics and love set against the backdrop of industrial Manchester.

Rose and her sister Ivy leave village life behind and move to Manchesters Little Italy after the death of their father. The sisters are two very different characters. While Rose embraces her new life and the community there, Ivy remains uptight and standoffish warning Rose against involving herself with their neighbours. It’s when Rose starts to have a relationship with Renzo though that things really come to a head between the sisters.

Caroline writes beautifully. Whether describing the glorious Italian countryside or the grimy back streets of 1930s Manchester she conjures them effortlessly. The sense of community, struggle and friendship in those streets feels very real through some brilliant characters, not least Rose’s neighbour Lil and her Jewish friend Freda and the setting of Galettis cafe.

It’s a dramatic and compelling love story. Both Rose and Renzo are passionate and determined and both carry baggage from their past. You really are willing them to happiness and I liked that I couldn’t really guess where their story was going to go.

The background of the rise of fascism in the 1930s feels unfortunately all too relevant to what we see on the news today. As unsettling as it was, I enjoyed learning more about this period in history and the setting of working class, industrial Manchester was so well drawn.

A great amount of research is handled with a light touch to create a story that is wonderfully rich, beautifully paced, and will keep you turning the pages. Big recommend.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rose and Renzo is the best kind of historical fiction. The kind that grabs you at your core and never lets go, pulling you deep into the world of people who matter and whose story matters even more.

Set in Manchester in the 1930’s O’Brien’s story centres on sisters Rose and Ivy, making a new life for themselves after the death of their parents.

Rose, beguiling, wild, wilful and creative, is full of hope and ambition. She is on the brink of taking up her place at art school amongst the new wave of artists and thinkers. Rose is ready to change the world.

But Ivy, her much older blue stocking sister has other ideas.

Forced to work at the local mill in a job she hates Rose is thrust into a life she never wanted. Finding solace in the local Italian community, she is thrust into the political reality of the decade; the ugly realities of antisemitism and the growing tide of fascism. Through her relationship with painter Renzo she catches a glimpse of the future she so desperately wants, whilst also coming to understand that the world is changing. And the time is fast approaching when ordinary people will need to make a stand.

In Rose and Renzo O’Brien has created stunning novel, populated by characters that show an impressive emotional depth and complexity. O’ Brien’s plotting is immaculate; tense, engaging and always pulling the reader in and on.

In a modern day world that is changing before our eyes Rose and Renzo is the novel we need. A timely and much needed reminder to look, once again to the lessons of the past.
I cannot recommend it enough.

[Natalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rose & Renzo by Carolyn Obrien is an exquisite, outstanding 5 ⭐️ beautifully written  powerful love story set in the 1930's during turbulent and difficult times.
The story is centred around Rose and her meeting Renzo.Their instant connection and their love of art is strong.
But meeting at a time where sides are chosen yet also unclear comes with its difficulties.
Rose is finding herself in world where friendships are forming yet different beliefs are challenged. Families are divided with fierce loyalties protecting their own and distrust of others. Her friendship with Freda opens her eyes to others experiences and she finds herself drawn to the fight against facism.
Rose with her mothers words reminding her 'know you worth', her sister Ivy trying to control Roses future but is it through love or her own selfishness?
This story is full of raw emotion and unspoken words.  Rose is a wonderful character working life out, questioning everything in her own way but does she accept the opinions of others and life decisions made for her or is she brave enough to find out for herself and lead the life she wants to lead? Its an emotional story which at times I read with a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes.
No spoilers from me, trust me, you will keep turning the pages wanting to know.
I am a visual reader and the descriptive scene setting transported me right into to Roses world.
I felt I was there, it was so vivid, so beautifully written.The detail of all the history is an education.
Such a compelling, powerful and addictive story.
Loved It!  I highly recommend

[Lynda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well written and fascinating family drama set in Manchester in 1936; a love story with strong political overtones. Following the death of their father 36 year old Ivy Irvine and her 20 year old sister Rose have to move from their countryside vicarage home in Cheshire to live in a rundown flat in Manchester’s Little Italy.

Briefly, after moving Rose has to give up her dreams of attending art school to work in an office where she meets and becomes friends with a Jewish woman called Freda. She also makes friends with her Italian neighbours and when she meets artist Renzo she falls for him like a ton of bricks. But this is taking place against the background of fascism as Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists (BUF), known as Blackshirts, are moving into the city. However, the antifascist movement was strong and Rose is drawn to join them.

Rose and Ivy couldn’t be more unlike. Rose is initially a bit spoilt but she adapts to change and is a caring loving woman. Ivy seems very bitter and distant and eventually her spiteful nature gets between the sisters. I enjoyed all the historical drama and this has clearly been well researched. The sense of place around Manchester at this time is brilliantly captured, I can only imagine how difficult it must have been. We would be well advised to take note of this and the way things are moving in the world today! An entertaining and emotional read.

[CharlieJLZ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Based in Manchester, 1936. Fascism looms in Europe, and Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts are on the rise.

2 sisters move to Manchester’s vibrant ‘Little Italy’ after their farther passes. Ivy, is a strong-minded older sister, who worries deeply about her unworldly and free spirited sister Rose, amid the rising fascism.

Rose is desperate to break free from her controlling sister and the life Ivy protectively wants her to live. She finally meets Renzo, a painter from Italy and a connection sparks. Rose has been told by Ivy that her placement at Art School can no longer go ahead and she must work instead. Renzo is her connection to art, to escapism and so much more.

- Rose is a wonderfully complex character, and you can connect to her position throughout the story as it explores a coming of age tale amidst fascism and the uprising.

- This is an exquisitely written book. The masterful way the complexity of the characters emotions are addressed is poetic to read. The initial conversing between Rose & Renzo, whilst they innocently explore their friendship, will remain my favorite pages.

- It is a tense, rich, slow-burning historical fiction novel that reminds us to learn the lessons from our history.

Spectacular.

[Nicola Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rose and her older sister Ivy have to leave the vicarage where they grew up after their father dies. Motherless too, Ivy steps into the role, much to Rose’s discontent. She feels Ivy is holding her back and preventing her from fulfilling her dream of attending art school in Manchester. They move to Ancoats, to an area known as Little Italy, where Rose meets painter Renzo. They’re immediately drawn to each other but fascism is on the rise and Rose doesn’t know enough about Renzo’s past to be totally sure of where his loyalties lie.

Rose is a brilliantly drawn character who jumped off the page. I loved her individuality, her cropped hair and daring outfits (both rather outlandish for 1936 Manchester) and her desire to do the right thing. Renzo is passionate, principled and kind, and he made a good hero.

The tensions of the time around the fascist behaviour and the prejudice against the Jewish community are portrayed well and they provide a backdrop to what is essentially a burgeoning love story. What I perhaps enjoyed most of all was Rose’s introduction to a new way of gritty city living after a sheltered existence in a Cheshire vicarage, and the opening of her eyes to what is going on around her. Sense of place is strong and this is a well-written piece of historical fiction.

[Silver Star · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a captivating coming of age love story set in 1930s Manchester.

After the death of their parents, sisters Ivy & Rose have to leave their vicarage home and relocate to working class Manchester to start a new life. Right in the heart of little Italy, Rose’s eyes are opened by the rise of the black shirts, the plight of the Jewish community and falling in love with an Italian artist.

This book explored so many themes that resonate today with the rise of the right and the feelings of vulnerabilities in immigrant communities. I really loved Rose, her big artistic dreams and her personal and political awakening. She was a complex and passionate character and the found family element enriched the story with wonderful side characters like Lil and Freda. The often tense relationship she had with her sister also resonated and conveyed the restrictions society placed on single young women.
The author brought 1930s Manchester to life with immersive and comedic depictions and I enjoyed all the artistic movement details woven in.

Slow in parts but rich in detail. I enjoyed.

Thank you to the publishers for a free copy.

[Juliette Tomlinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read 'Rose and Renzo' in two sittings. As a historical novel, it also magically upholds drama, pace, and intrigue, as well as a wonderfully affecting love story at its heart. Only pages in, I had already assembled the streets of Ancoats in my mind, along with the inhabitants, houses, workplaces and the ever-changing skies of the city of Manchester.
Carolyn O'Brien writes with the reader always at the fore, knowing when to reveal a character's true intentions or pertinent foibles. Particularly, I loved how the symbiotic yet fractious relationship between the two sisters - Ivy and Rose - was drawn and sustained throughout the story. Their interactions are at once tender, complex, angry, funny and sad. Entirely authentic!
I would thoroughly recommend 'Rose and Renzo' to all sorts of readers; women, men, young people, those interested in art, politics, Manchester, period narratives and literary fiction. More simply put, I would recommend it to any who enjoys a startling good, moving and informing novel.

[Amanda Huggins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rose & Renzo is a captivating page-turner which drew me in from the very first chapter. This is historical fiction at its best, with gorgeous writing, a vivid sense of place, taut plotting, a compelling love story and relatable characters.

As well as portraying Rose and Renzo’s passionate relationship, Carolyn O’Brien’s second novel also explores the liberating power of art and evocatively depicts everyday life in working class Manchester in the 1930s – including the fight against the ugly rise of fascism.

A beautifully written and totally absorbing read.

(Thanks to Northodox Press for the ARC.)

[Wendy(Wendyreadsbooks) Robey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full of history, Rose and Renzo is a fascinating insight into life in the late 1930’s as fascism and Hitlers rise was forefront in people’s minds.
A love story first and foremost but with a dramatic backdrop. The relationship between Rose and Renzo is a complicated one as secrets and mistrust fill the air.
With a strained sibling relationship between Rose and Ivy, I struggled to connect with the elder sister as she continually ‘mothered’ Rose. Rose, however, was a wonderful character - impetuous and passionate- she was lost in an ever changing world trying to find her place.

[amalfi2001 · Rating 5 out of 5]

The importance of this wonderful love story shouldn’t be underestimated. Exquisitely written, it weaves a beautiful narrative with superb characterisation grounded in Manchester’s rich past. I couldn’t put the book down, drawn into a world on the brink of change with Fascism closer to home than we remember. It richly addresses these strong political themes through deeply drawn characters who reaffirm the importance of friendship, empathy and ultimately love and hope to get us through dark times.

[corin burnside · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having loved this author’s debut historical novel, Song of Peterloo, I was delighted to be given the chance to read Carolyn’s next book, Rose and Renzo.
A beautifully written, passionate love story, Rose and Renzo caught my heart from the first page. Multi culturalism, surrealism, and the fight against fascism in working class Manchester make for a fascinating backdrop to the central characters growing feelings for each other.
If you love history, a fast paced story and a liberal dash of romance, you will love this book.

[Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

https://substack.com/home/post/p-1936...

I initially reviewed this gorgeous novel on my Substack. It's a compelling love story set in 1930s Manchester with a background of growing political unrest and the threat of right-wing violence. I couldn't put it down.

Looking forward to the next northern novel from Carolyn.

Thank you for the review copy.

[Sarah Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully written love story that celebrates the redemptive power of art and creativity in the face of poverty and facism. And I could taste the ice-cream in Galletti's Cafe!