From the author ofThe Gustav Sonata

The wonderful new historical novel set in seventeenth-century England from Rose Tremain, author ofRestoration(shortlisted for the Booker Prize),The Road Home(winner of the Orange Prize) andTrespass(a Richard&Judy pick).Merivelhas been called wonderfully entertaining (GuardianBooks of the Year) and an unadulterated delight (Independent) and has been shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.

The gaudy years of the Restoration are long gone and Robert Merivel, physician and courtier to King Charles II, sets off for the French court in search of a fresh start. But royal life at the Palace of Versailles all glitter in front and squalor behind leaves him in despair, until a chance encounter with the seductive Madame de Flamanville, allows him to dream of a different future.

But will that future ever be his? Summoned home urgently to attend to the ailing King, Merivel finds his loyalty and skill tested to their limits.

Over a million Rose Tremain books sold

A writer of exceptional talent ... Tremain is a writer who understands every emotionIndependent I

There are few writers out there with the dexterity or emotional intelligence to rival that of the great Rose TremainIrish Times

Tremain has the painterly genius of an Old Master, and she uses it to stunning effectThe Times

Rose Tremain is one of the very finest British novelists Salman Rushdie

Tremain is a writer of exemplary vision and particularity. The fictional world is rendered with extraordinary vividness Marcel Theroux,Guardian

Rose Tremains novels and short stories have been published in thirty countries and have won several awards, including the Orange Prize (The Road Home), the Dylan Thomas Award(The Colonel's Daughter and Other Stories),the Whitbread Novel of the Year (Music&Silence) and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize (Sacred Country). Her most recent novel,The Gustav Sonata, was aSunday TimesTop Ten Bestseller. It won the National Jewish Book Award in the US, the South Bank Sky Arts Award in the UK and was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award. Rose Tremain was made a CBE in 2007. She lives in Norfolk and London with the biographer, Richard Holmes.

www.rosetremain.co.uk