Set foot inside the Castle of Desires … then enter the sun-drenched valley of Pineville … where the creepy secretive servant Cornelius lurks around every corner of the mind … where the brutal charismatic Max muscles his way into everyone's lives…
'The Castle of Desires' is Neale Osborne's first novel for older readers, a double-bill of alternating stories:
One, an allegory about a magical castle that will bring the keyholder all he desires ~ wealth, knowledge, servants, lovers, leisure, power, and a military empire …
The second is a tale set in a cartoon studio in 1930s California, the era of early Hollywood and pioneering Disney animation. The narrative revolves around ten-year-old Jemima, and her 'family' of artists, whose seemingly idyllic existence is forever transformed by the arrival of a hired extra, Maximilian Richter - 'an earthquake of a man' who stirs up a storm of fears, vice and violence …
The characters move through a variety of scenes reflecting different film genres: gangster, noir, horror, home movie, musical, romance, and documentary - there's even a cartoon interlude - till the fictional stories of Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs, the myth of the Thunderbird, and the tale of 'The Castle of Desires' itself seem to bleed into the 'real world' with tragic consequences …