For years, more than three decades even, I have been engaged in conversations in the pub or over dinner with my friend Gerald Warner about the relative merits of the novels of Anthony Powell and Evelyn Waugh, with a side order of the work of Simon Raven. Which is better – the Dance to the Music of Time series or Waugh’s Sword of Honour trilogy? Sword of Honour in my view.
Surely someone with as much insight as Gerald into those great works should by now have written his own series of novels evoking lost history?
Well, I bring good news. Gerald Warner has written that novel and the first in a six part series has just been published by Marble Hill Publishing.
You can buy A Fateful Promise direct from the publishers here.
(Post and packaging is free.)
It is a magnificent literary achievement.
A Fateful Promise is the first of six. Books two, three and four are complete and ready to publish. Book five is almost there, and then book six will complete the series.
Gerald will be known to many of you from his writing in outlets including Reaction. Even when I disagree with him on some aspect of politics he is a master prose stylist.
Unfortunately, Gerald had a fall in the week of publication and has been in hospital, which interrupted his promotional efforts. More happily, a subsequent hip operation was a success.
I’m sure it will speed Gerald’s recovery if you buy a copy of his book.
The book has had the most fantastic reception already.
Andrew Roberts described it as: “Elegiac, evocative and beautifully written… A remarkable debut of a series that will undoubtedly be a landmark literary achievement.”
Julian Fellowes called it “an enthralling picture of a lost tribe… who had to keep faith in themselves, because nobody else cared. I found this book both informative and moving.”
Lady Antonia Fraser said: “I have just finished The Kinsella Chronicles Book One – can’t wait to read Book Two!”
Alexander McCall Smith said: “In A Fateful Promise Gerald Warner gives us the first volume in what promises to be a wonderful saga. His account of life in an Irish castle intrigues and entertains.”
