Klytia: A Story of Heidelberg Castle

Heidelberg, 1570. The castle looms over the Rhine valley as religious war simmers between Catholics and Protestants, and into this crucible of faith and politics steps young Felice Laurenzano, an ambitious artist whose brush promises to be his passport to the court's favor. But desire and devotion make treacherous companions when the Prince Frederic III demands loyalty to causes larger than any individual heart, and Felice finds his ambitions entangled with a love that could save him or destroy him. Hausrath paints the spring of Heidelberg in luxuriant detail, the bursting vitality of nature starkly juxtaposed against the stone weight of the castle and the weightier matters of doctrine dividing Europe. The clergy rage in theological debates while the court flutters with intrigue, and Felice must navigate both the studios of artists and the chambers of power to forge his destiny. This is historical fiction in the grand Victorian tradition: romantic, sweeping, unafraid to let love bloom in the shadow of the scaffold. For readers who crave the atmospheric romance of Walter Scott filtered through German romanticism, who want to feel the cobblestones beneath their feet and the stake's shadow on the horizon.