My novel-in-progress, All The Hollow Places, focuses on the last day in the life of explorer and political officer, Gertrude Bell. Gertrude Bell’s legacy is a complex one and it intersects with a contemporary need to reexamine what it means to be English in the light of empire and imperialism. How do we address the past with open eyes in a way that changes our present and our future? Information and curiosity are the central parts of this examination and these ways of writing the past in fiction demand different things of the narrative. I see my work as a conversation with other books, with other voices and hopefully with readers. The traditional teleological, conflict-driven, three act structure might not be best placed to deliver this conversational, multi-perspective approach. You’ll have to wait and see if you agree.
My previous fiction, has focused around something I have called the unpalatable. It is a form of literature interested in exploring the limits and base realities of human behaviour and existence, refusing to settle with conventional attitudes to the ‘real’, and often creating feelings of discomfort, disgust or shock in the reader. The unpalatable isn’t straightforward horror, or speculative fiction, magical realism or slipstream, but it shares many of their aspects.
This may sound lofty, but really, I’m as interested in how we live with social inequality (a desire to get rid of the homeless man sleeping in our stairwell) as I am in how much of the monster is in all of us.
‘Dark, perverse, convincing and compassionate – Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone.’s Home is an extremely strong first novel.’ Toby Litt
‘Before you know it, Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone’s acutely observed characters get under your skin and you’re living their lives. Home is magnetic, claustrophobic and chilling – an exceptional novel that will disturb and provoke me for a long time to come’ Joseph D’Lacey
Steve’s wife, Fran, is dying. In her wisdom Fran suggests that Steve take a job as caretaker at the local care home, where he can forget his heartache in hard work. Alexa, the hard-edged manager, makes it clear that the caretaker must on no account enter the basement, and at first Steve keeps his head down and quietly goes about his duties. But as Fran’s condition worsens and his relationship with his only son becomes more distant, Steve begins to uncover dark secrets at his workplace. As Steve grows closer to Milos, the young male nurse, he makes a shocking discovery that he cannot put out of his mind. It inspires him to play detective – with disastrous consequences.
Home is a dark, suspenseful yet moving story that poses important questions about how we deal with the old and what it means to be forgotten.
The novel is illustrated with images by the artist Katherine Jones @ 2008. The image above is @ Katherine Jones 2008.
Home was published by Red Button Publishing but is now available direct from amazon. You can read an interview with me about the novel on the Red Button Blog. There is also an interview with me on brilliant This Is Horror. See below for links to reviews:
Very excited about this one by JosephD’Lacey
Keri O’Shea for Brutal as Hell
Review by Tracy Sinclair for Byte the Book
Great review on For Readings Addicts
My short short story collection Glitches is published by Acorn Books in ebook and paperback. 
Recurring nightmares, breast-feeding professors, choking children and late-night intruders populate my first story collection. Rich in dysfunction, madness and menace, Glitches reveals the dark underworld that lies beneath, and sometimes pierces, the façade of modern bourgeois society.
‘Lattin-Rawstrone probes the unpalatable with an expert finger. This diverse selection of stories is bound together by a seam of dark disturbance. Rarely has the veneer of polite, middle-class life appeared thinner.’ Paul Blaney
Other Short Pieces
My story, ‘Convivial’ was performed by Liars League in October 2022. You can see the performance and read it here.
I won Byte The Book’s monthly short story competition, Byte Shorts in 2019 and you can read my entry here.
The Other Stories Podcast recorded my story ‘A Jackdaw Calls’. You can hear it here.