“hidden in the background is the presence of something magical”

A must-read alongside the author’s acclaimed restoration of This Iron Race, Edenborough Review of Books

Born in 1957, Nevil Warbrook was the only son of the poet Thomas Warbrook. Author of The Deeper Well and The Wandering Minstrel he was a respected authority on Scottish literature and Sir Tamburlaine Bryce MacGregor. His most recent work was the restoration of MacGregor’s novel, This Iron Race, published by Hare & Drum and intended to debunk conjuror-turned-psychic Hendryk van Zelden’s claim that MacGregor was a sorcerer. Divorced, Nevil shared a house with two bad-tempered Persian cats in the Wiltshire village of Avebury, famous for its ancient stone circle, and was a much-loved member of the church and community. His present whereabouts are unknown.

Nevil leaves behind a son, Gerald, who volunteers at a refuge in Sumatra for the rehabilitation of orphaned orangutans.

Intimations of Mortality describes Nevil’s first encounter with O’Brien, Hare & Drum’s mysterious and otherworldly proprietor, before a week tutoring at a tutoring at writing retreat in Glastonbury ends in hospital. At home in Avebury he is a steadfast supporter of tradition at St James’s Church, and celebrates Easter with a dawn procession. Publicity duties promoting This Iron Race do not go well and a week at a wellness retreat in Malvern brings pain, unexpected reward, and a prophecy. Meanwhile, encounters with a spectral white horse come to a head during a second writing retreat at Uffington before dreadful news at St James’s leaves him questioning his mortality.

Best damned writer I’ve had, Desmond Catterick, his agent

We are working on several lines of enquiry into Nevil Warbrook’s disappearance but have no news to report, Detective Inspector Plum

It is hard to believe that magick was once near extinct in our land, its practices the matter of low fiction, its practitioners maligned and ridiculed. How times have changed. Magick is vibrant once more: over hill, over dale, thorough wood, thorough brier, over marsh, over moor, in every pearl upon a cowslip’s ear and in the seas about our island shore. Few foretold this renaissance, and even fewer could suspect the catalyst would be a half-forgotten nineteenth-century novel and a middle-aged Oxford scholar. The restoration of Sir Tamburlaine Bryce MacGregor’s This Iron Race was Nevil Warbrook’s finest and final achievement. To many, he is the Christ of our time; to others, a sinner condemned to hell. For certain, on a cold night in Edenborough he walked onto Arthur’s Seat and vanished.
Reluctant though he was, Nevil Warbrook touched all our lives, and his journals, published here for the first time, record his trials and ultimate sacrifice. Sister Ethelnyd, Iona Fellowship of Grace

Reviews

“Fascinating continuation of a very original self-published fantasy series. This is the second book, the first being This Iron Race: Book One, although you may not infer that at first glance from their titles or supposed authorship.”

“hidden in the background is the presence of something magical”

“in the end the sheer originality of the storyline, here and coupled with its predecessor, the very easy reading prose too, mean I have to give it 5*.”

“By turns dark and mysterious, then drily hilarious in the situations Nevil gets himself into, The Reluctant Ascent of Nevil Warbrook: In His Own Words Volume 1 – Intimations of Mortality is an easy and fulfilling read.”

Continuing from Intimations of Mortality, the second volume begins in Scotland with Nevil’s first encounter with the sinister one-eyed Merrowey, and an unsettling episode on Salamander Street in Leith. Closer to home, Boris goes missing in mysterious circumstances and boating on the Kennet and Avon Canal reviewing pubs embroils Nevil in a murder inquiry. Then a week in Pembrokeshire tutoring at a writing retreat with Eirish poet Bernadette Mulvey and the beautiful, yet troubled, Icelandic crime writer Elfa Jonsdottír ends with a night to remember. Finally, his new kilt from Beavers of Edenborough brings a revelation so surprising he cannot accept it is true.

But what has all this to do with Richard Wagner’s efforts to write the musical score for MacGregor’s operetta ‘Lays of Brigadoon’ and why does the disagreeable Merovius want to stop their collaboration?

He was a lovely, lovely man and I miss him dreadfully, Molly Poppins, Avebury

We are continuing our enquiries and believe the clue to his disappearance lies somewhere in his journals, Detective Inspector Plum

It is quite possible that we owe the recent resurgence in magickal phenomena entirely to Nevil Warbrook, however reluctant he may have been The Iona Fellowship of Grace

After the misadventures described in Blood & Water, in Mésaventures Françaises you might forgive Nevil for thinking life can only get better. But is he really giving up the restoration of This Iron Race? Not if talented young coven-goer Eurydice Glendale has anything to do with it.

At home dry rot threatens the bells of St James and is Nevil’s aged mother really receiving nightly visits from the ghost of the scandalous Lester Rookwood? Away from home, a writers’ retreat at Rocamadour in France finds ancient gods among the walnuts, and a return to Edenborough brings startling news concerning Arthur’s Seat. Finally, a day in Paris with the very Gallic actor Jean-Maxim Le Cocq ends with sore feet and a tragic loss under a motorised road-sweeper.

And how does all this connect with the 1929 kidnapping of actress and socialite Liberty Pearl?

Reviews

“delighted to re-read the description of what must be one of the most cursed canal boat trips ever imagined.”

“the author spices up this sedate storyline with occasional unexplained incidents, some fleeting, a couple very dramatic, the significance of which Warbrook seems rather slow to appreciate. But I think the reader easily sees that they are probably something to do with the well-hidden ‘magick’ in this alternate modern world and maybe connected to the classic book he’s editing which will restore some censored magical elements. What this might all lead up to can’t be guessed at the moment.”

“I enjoyed the read. It’s well written, a story that’s easy to get immersed in.”

“Not sure at present if there are follow ups intended to Warbrook’s life or the 19th century novel he’s reconstructing. But if so, I’m in.”