A spicy Gothic Romance of family honour, royal scandal, orphaned children, second sight, and magick.
This Iron Race was ‘written’ in the 1860s in a world where industrialisation, and iron, were rapidly impacting the powers of the (mostly) women who practiced magic(k), a practice acknowledged but increasingly not accepted. The premise is that MacGregor’s attitude to magick caused his publishers to demand extensive re-writes, and 150 years later Nevil [Warbrook] has been employed to produce a more accurate-to-the-author’s-wishes new edition. During this process, Nevil is obliged to consider his own attitudes …
The complexity of the novel – there are dozens of characters, and some chapters introduce concepts and personalities we don’t see again for many pages – is brilliantly handled, as is the historical detail, both real and imagined. I absolutely love the depth of it, and heartily recommend it to anyone who loves books, writing, magic, intertextuality, footnotes …” Jack Bates, Goodreads review.
Obligations to family and nation and the pursuit of a higher calling collide in Sir Tamburlaine Bryce MacGregor’s multi-faceted Gothic tale of second-sight, disembodied souls, royal scandal, evictions and afflictions, wandering spirits, ambition and betrayal, orphaned children, seaweed, whisky, and murder.
The year 1864. Magick is no longer respected, displaced by a new world of iron and industry. Charles VII is king of Anglia and Scotland; France and Spain colonise the Americas; and Sir Tamburlaine Bryce MacGregor, Scotland’s foremost novelist, publishes the first book of This Iron Race. But alas, thanks to his publishers, it is only a shadow of the work MacGregor intended to write.
The year 2018. Middle-aged literary scholar Nevil Warbrook defends the reputation of Sir Tamburlaine Bryce MacGregor. Opposing him is Hendryk van Zelden, a conjuror-turned-psychic, who claims MacGregor practised witchcraft. This Iron Race is at the heart of their argument for van Zelden believes MacGregor intended nothing less than a handbook to magick.
Twelve conflicting narrative voices converge from the mid-nineteenth century to modern times in a world almost, but not quite, like our own in book one of This Iron Race.
For all lovers of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and novels about books and their authors.
A journey through doubt and redemption with a holy fool whose fate will change the world.
Imagine an almost archetypical boomer kind of guy, conservative as anything, who sets out to edit a book in order to prove the author was just as conservative as himself, only to find himself slowly but surely surrounded by subtle threats, by hints of magic, slipping further and further into something beyond his control, beyond his imagination, beyond his capabilities. Neville is the sort I probably wouldn’t know what to talk about with in real life, but reading about his struggles was strangely captivating.” Angelika Rust, Goodreads review.
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.
Intimations of Mortality describes Nevil’s first encounter with O’Brien, Hare & Drum’s mysterious and otherworldly proprietor, before a week tutoring at a Creative Havens writing retreat in Glastonbury ends in hospital. At home in Avebury he is a steadfast supporter of tradition at St James’s Church, Avebury, and celebrates Easter with a dawn procession. Publicity duties promoting This Iron Race do not go well and then a week at a health farm 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.
Nevil leaves behind a son, Gerald, who volunteers at a refuge in Sumatra for the rehabilitation of orphaned orangutans.
His present whereabouts are unknown.
Best damned writer I’ve had, Desmond Catterick, his agent
We are working on several lines of enquiry into Nevil Warbrook’s disappearance, Detective Inspector Plum
A bittersweet account of imminent human extinction
Hatton’s writing is great, and the premise (that the protagonist is the ‘last born human’, now in his late middle-age and almost completely alone – he lives by himself on a Greek island with his nearest neighbour two days away by boat) is a rather fascinating one. How would it feel to be the youngest living person, and to have been the youngest living human your whole life? How would society react to a situation where no more babies were born? It’s a sad and difficult scenario and the book could be depressing, but it’s not. After all, it’s only humanity that’s ending. It certainly makes you consider all kinds of things about loneliness and human connections. Some of the descriptions are beautiful. In places it’s sad, but overall I’d say surprisingly uplifting. Jack Bates, Goodreads review
Kit Zachariades is the last-born man and humanity’s time is nearly over. Grown old and living alone on a Greek island, Kit records his story for the benefit of an unseen and unknown audience. Certain of death, certain, too, that these are the last years of human existence, all he has are memories and a refusal to submit to the inevitable, until misfortune compels him to risk everything to keep a promise.
For readers of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, P D James’s Children of Men, Margaret Atwood’s dystopian fiction, and anyone who has ever contemplated their mortality or wondered how they would survive with only a robot and a parrot for company.
