Hannah Rothschild

"For more than 700 years, the vast, rambling Trelawney Castle in Cornwall--turrets, follies, a room for every day of the year, four miles of corridors and 500,000 acres--was the magnificent and grand "three dimensional calling card" of the Earls of Trelawney. By 2008, it is in a complete state of ruin due to the dulled ambition and the financial ineptitude of the twenty-four earls, two world wars, the Wall Street crash, and inheritance taxes. Still: the heir to all of it, Kitto, his wife Jane, their three children, their dog, Kitto's ancient parents, and his aunt Tuffy Scott, an entomologist who studies fleas, all manage to live there and keep it going. Three women dominate the story: Jane; Kitto's sister, the spinster, Blaze, who left Trelawney and made a killing in finance in London, and the wildly beautiful, seductive, and long-ago banished Anastasia whose 19 year old daughter, Ayesha-- a complete replica of her mother--arrives unannounced at Trelawney. When Ayesha marries very well and buys the house to avenge her mother's memory, she makes Blaze's plan to save Trelawney completely unnecessary. But both Blaze and Jane are about to discover that the house itself is really only a very small part of what keeps the family together"--

House of Trelawney

"Annie McMorrow, 31 and not recovered from the end of her long-term relationship, is an assistant to film producer Carlo Spinetti and then to his chilling wife Rebecca Winkleman Spinetti whose father started Winkleman Fine Art in Curzon St. Annie has spent her meagre savings on a dusty painting from a junk shop to give to her new, unsuitable, boyfriend who never shows up for his birthday dinner. The painting now hers, talks, but only to us. Shrewd, spoiled, charming, world weary and cynical, he comments perceptively on Annie, and the modern world and tells tales about his previous owners: Louis XV, Voltaire, Catherine the Great among others. The story unfolds through this voice and many others--unexpected, entertaining, and strangely authentic. Annie will have her apartment ransacked and be pursued by dealers, buyers and an auctioneer in an attempt to get back the painting. With The Improbability of Love, Rothschild has spun a dazzling tale--both irreverant and entertainng--of a many-layered, devious world where, in the end, love triumphs"--

The Improbability of Love

A PEOPLE BEST NEW BOOK • An outlandish comedy of morals and manners about a highborn British family of outrageous characters, by the acclaimed author of The Improbability of Love and House of Trelawney • “A joy to read.”—Vogue “High Time delves once again into the aristocratic antics of the Trelawney family… Another thrilling portrait of the perils of great privilege.” —Town & Country Eight years have passed and in 2016 many things have changed for the eccentric Trelawney family. In the months leading up to the Brexit referendum, Ayesha, the beautiful, young secret daughter of the late Enyon Trelawney, has married the much older thuggish banker Tomlinson Sleet with whom she has a young daughter, Stella. Ayesha is busy restoring the once broken-down Trelawney Castle in Cornwall, which Sleet has bought, to its former glory, as well as studying art at the Courtauld in London. The elderly Countess Clarissa—still ensconced on the property—the host of a camp television show, is about to head into a disastrous marriage. Lady Jane has separated from the hopeless Trelawney heir Kitto, who is crazier than ever, and found an enlightened woman to keep her company abroad. Sleet is becoming increasingly difficult, distracted by the seductive and ruthless bitcoin goddess Zamora, but Kitto’s sister Blaze and her husband, Joshua, will support Ayesha’s clever plan as she discovers shocking secrets, takes action, and brings the family together. Biting and satirical, but also poignant and moving, High Time is a delicious story of madness, mayhem, and mischief run amok.

A novel

High Time

»Ein hinreißender Kunstkrimi mit Lovestory« B. Z. am Sonntag Annie ist auf der Suche nach einem Geschenk. In einem Londoner Trödelladen kauft die junge Köchin ein verstaubtes Gemälde für ihren neuen Freund und wird dann doch abends von ihm sitzen gelassen. Das unscheinbare Bild aber bleibt und stellt ihr ganzes Leben auf den Kopf, denn es scheint viel mehr wert zu sein, als sie ursprünglich dachte. Schon bald sind schwerreiche russische Oligarchen, die Gattin eines Ölscheichs und ein Gangster-Rapper hinter Annies Zufallsfund her. Als die junge Frau auch noch ins Visier einer skrupellosen Kunsthändlerfamilie gerät, scheint sie alles zu verlieren – und findet ganz unerwartet eine neue Liebe ...

Roman

Die Launenhaftigkeit der Liebe

Improbability of Love

A Trelawney-ház

'One of the wittiest writers around' Good Housekeeping'The perfect summer read: mischievous and delicious. I devoured it in one go.' Miranda Cowley Heller, author of The Paper Palace'Something Nancy Mitford and Jilly Cooper might have cooked up' The TimesWHEN THE STAKES ARE HIGH, HOW LOW WILL YOU GO?Ayesha Scott has a perfect life. Home is an art-filled Cornish castle with her stratospherically wealthy, titled husband and their beloved daughter. But behind every realised dream lurks an unexploded nightmare and in the course of one day Ayesha discovers that she will be penniless, homeless and powerless unless she can outwit the international mafia, infiltrate the world of high finance and make backstreet deals with the shadiest members of the art world.Hurt and betrayed, she's determined to fight for herself and her daughter - but can she do it without enlisting the help of her beloved, deeply eccentric but estranged family?Sharp escapist fiction, High Time is a novel about high stakes and high jinx set in the world of high art and high finance.'Convulsively comic (and) sharply satiric' Publishers Weekly'Reads like a thrilling fairground ride version of Downton Abbey' The Independent Chosen by The Irish Times and Tatler as a fiction highlight for 2023

High Stakes and High Jinx in the World of Art and Finance

House of Trelawney by Hannah Rothschild

978-1526600646, 1526600641, 9781526600646

Luis López-Lago

978-1101872574, 1101872578, 9781101872574

House of Trelawney & The Improbability of Love By Hannah Rothschild 2 Books Collection Set

Finalist for the Baileys Women's Prize Annie McDee, thirty-one, lives in a shabby London flat, works as a chef, and is struggling to get by. Reeling from a sudden breakup, she’s taken on an unsuitable new lover and finds herself rummaging through a secondhand shop to buy him a birthday gift. A dusty, anonymous old painting catches her eye. After spending her meager savings on the artwork, Annie prepares an exquisite birthday dinner for two—only to be stood up. The painting becomes hers, and Annie begins to suspect that it may be more valuable than she’d thought. Soon she finds herself pursued by parties who would do anything to possess her picture: an exiled Russian oligarch, an avaricious sheikha, an unscrupulous art dealer. In her search for the painting’s identity, Annie will unwittingly discover some of the darkest secrets of European history—and the possibility of falling in love again.

A Novel

Beautiful, romantic and spirited, Pannonica, known as Nica, named after her father’s favorite moth, was born in 1913 to extraordinary, eccentric privilege and a storied history. The Rothschild family had, in only five generations, risen from the ghetto in Frankfurt to stately homes in England. As a child, Nica took her daily walks, dressed in white, with her two sisters and governess around the parkland of the vast house at Tring, Hertfordshire, among kangaroos, giant tortoises, emus and zebras, all part of the exotic menagerie collected by her uncle Walter. As a debutante, she was taught to fly by a saxophonist and introduced to jazz by her brother Victor; she married Baron Jules de Koenigswarter, settled in a château in France and had five children. When World War II broke out, Nica and her five children narrowly escaped back to England, but soon after, she set out to find her husband who was fighting with the Free French Army in Africa, where she helped the war effort by being a decoder, a driver and organizing supplies and equipment. In the early 1950s Nica heard “’Round Midnight” by the jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk and, as if under a powerful spell, abandoned her marriage and moved to New York to find him. She devoted herself to helping Monk and other musicians: she bailed them out of jail, paid their bills, took them to the hospital, even drove them to their gigs, and her convertible Bentley could always be seen parked outside downtown clubs or up in Harlem. Charlie Parker would notoriously die in her apartment in the Stanhope Hotel. But it was Monk who was the love of her life and whom she cared for until his death in 1982. Hannah Rothschild has drawn on archival material and her own interviews in this quest to find out who her great-aunt really was and how she fit into a family that, although passionate about music and entomology, was reactionary in always favoring men over women. Part musical odyssey, part love story, The Baroness is a fascinating portrait of a modern figure ahead of her time who dared to live as she wanted, finally, at the very center of New York’s jazz scene.

The Search for Nica, the Rebellious Rothschild

The Baroness

Casa Trelawney

A Rothschild by birth and a Baroness by marriage, beautiful, spirited Pannonica - known as Nica - seemed to have it all: children, a handsome husband and a trust fund. But in the early 1950s she heard a piece by the jazz legend Thelonious Monk. The music overtook her like a magic spell, and she abandoned her marriage to go and find him. Arriving in New York, Nica was shunned by society but accepted by the musicians. They gave her friendship; she gave them material and emotional support. Her convertible Bentley was a familiar sight outside the clubs and she drank whisky from a hip flask disguised as a Bible. Her notoriety was sealed when drug-addicted saxophonist Charlie Parker died in her apartment. But her real love was reserved for Monk, whom she cared for until his death in 1982. The Baroness traces Nica's extraordinary, thrilling journey - from England's stately homes to the battlefields of Africa, passing under the shadow of the Holocaust, and finally to the creative ferment of the New York jazz scene. Hannah Rothschild's search to solve the mystery of her rebellious great aunt draws on their long friendship and years of meticulous research and interviews. It is part musical odyssey, part dazzling love story.

Hannah Rothschild

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