May We Feed the King: Winner of the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize

She is a curator, who spends her time dressing the rooms of historic buildings to bring them to life. A replica pie, half-eaten, perched on a small desk in the servant's quarters. A fruit bowl, filled with artificial apples, pomegranates and pears, with one piece missing. It should feel as though her subject has just left the room; the air should be alive with their energy. But in the great halls and lush private quarters of a medieval palace, she finds herself so transfixed by the reign of an almost-forgotten King that the edges of her life begin to blur. He is a reluctant ruler, rushed to the throne after the untimely deaths of his two older brothers. He has no hunger for power, and he resists the crown. But as winter turns to spring, whispers begin to fly around the court. Some say he is weak and will lead the country to ruin. Others call him a cuckhold, unable to satisfy his wife. And with the belief that the King is not fit for the throne, comes the idea that another might rule in his stead. May We Feed the King dances between a historical subject who resists the march of progress and a woman who turns to the past to hide from her present, to offer a beguiling meditation on history and storytelling: on what makes a King 'Great', and a life meaningful.