May We Feed the King

The curator who narrates the present-day strand recreates historic interiors, laying out furniture, cloth and fake food so that each room seems only just abandoned. Commissioned to furnish the royal apartments of an old palace, the narrator grows fascinated by a king whom history has nearly forgotten, until the boundary between their two lives starts to dissolve. In the medieval strand that king never wanted to rule; he was rushed to the crown when his brothers died without warning. Courtiers whisper about whether he is fit to reign, and in the corridors a once unthinkable notion begins to spread, that the crown could pass to someone else. Nobody in either time is named, and no one speaks directly: words come to us half heard or passed on as rumour.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Genres

Historical (assigned by AI)

First published

2026

Author's age

40 when first published

ISBN

9781803513867 (Granta Books, United Kingdom)

9798893380620 (Transit Books, United States)

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Wikidata