Julian Rathbone Books

In 1994, the death of David Querubín in his villa in the Sierra Nevada marks the end of a musical era. Querubín was the last castrato soprano in the world, renowned for his powerful voice and performances of iconic roles from Monteverdi to Mozart. His legacy, however, is not meant to fade away. Petra von Stürm, his talented protégé, is chosen to inherit his musical heritage. Yet, what Querubín confides to the ambitious young woman in his final months extends beyond music. He shares stories of his life, his haunting nightmares, his idolized mother, and an inexplicable memory loss that shrouds everything before his fifteenth year and his castration. Taking matters into her own hands, Petra embarks on a quest to uncover Querubín's past. Her investigations lead her back to the time of the Spanish Civil War, revealing a terrible secret.

On the Sussex Downs in 1066, the psychotic William and his gang of European mercenaries began the process which fragmented a civilisation. Walt, the last of King Harold's bodyguard, the one who survived Hastings, wanders across Asia Minor in the company of Quint, an intellectual renegade monk. On the way he unfolds the events that led up to the battle which affected the destinies of every English man and woman. With rare skill, Rathbone vividly recreates a civilisation that stubbornly remains alive in the collective memory to this day, and so identifies the roots of the still-held belief that every English person is born free and should stay free. Tender romance, savage war, courtly intrigue and some wry humour combine to make THE LAST ENGLISH KING an exhilarating roller-coaster ride into our past.

Joseph Bosham, self-styled third Viscount of Bosham, with a half-English Catholic priest for a father and an Italian brothel-keeper in place of a mother, educated in mathematics, music and philosophy but with a gift for narrative and a natural bent for depravity, was born into the turbulent Europe of 1790 and settled in Spain, where gypsies, devil-worshippers and the remnants of the Inquisition fought for space with the great armies of Wellington and Napoleon. Seduced by the hectic glamour of battle at the age of eleven and tossed in its wake for the next fifteen years, little Jose survives as courier, pimp, linguist, mercenary and mascot to tell his poignant, comic, entertaining and tantalisingly unreliable tale.

England, 1460: The War of the Roses. Rival factions - Lancastrians and Yorkists - are hacking each other to death in a conflict that only the English could name after a beautifully-scented flower. It's not an ideal climate for tourists - but three exotic travellers from the Far East are not here for pleasure. They've come to find a missing kinsman. The English, however, are truly strange. Most of the indigenous population are of the cowed peasant variety whilst any noble who can't trace his ancestry to Norman Conquest isn't, really, an awfully nice chap. In between battles of the most astonishing brutality they convey respects instead of affection, make love strangely (and briefly) and amuse themselves by playing a game with an inflated bladder that is in everyway a war except it's called 'footie'. The Indians think they're mad. They also have this horrible suspicion that one day they will rule the world... A wonderfully offbeat take on medieval England at its most brutal and savage, KINGS OF ALBION snatches history, imbues it with the spirit of Rider Haggard and Joseph Conrad, turns it on its head, invites scintillating speculation and, best of all, renders it into a fabulously readable novel.

1460. Auf den britischen Inseln sind die Engländer bereits seit fünf Jahren damit beschäftigt, sich gegenseitig umzubringen. Anhänger Lancasters und Yorkisten ringen um die Thronfolge im Hause Plantagenet, und ein Ende ist nicht abzusehen. In dieses blutige Treiben mischt sich eine wunderliche Reisegesellschaft: Prinz Harihara, Gesandter des sagenhaften indischen Königreichs Vijayanagara, hat sich auf die weite Reise begeben, um seinen verschollenen Bruder Jehan zu suchen, der sich in 'Ingerlond' dem geheimnisvollen Orden der Brüder des freien Geistes angeschlossen haben soll. Mit viel Witz und Ironie erzählt Julian Rathbone vom Aufeinanderprallen der Kulturen – historisch genau, literarisch lebendig und immer wieder einfach saukomisch.

Román, odohrávajúci sa vo fiktívnej provincii, niekde pri pobreží Severného mora. Veľká chemická spoločnosť pripravuje veľkolepý projekt rozšírenia výroby, ktorý robí starosti ochrancom prírody a pre ktorý sa spoločnosť stáva terčom vyhrážok extremistickej organizácie, až napokon dôjde k únosu čelného predstaviteľa spoločnosti...