Merivel further captures the king's favour with his comical antics, and the king comes to affectionately call him his Fool, which delights Merivel, as being in the king's favour and among his friends is a privilege he revels in. Introduced by his father, a glovemaker to the King, Young Meviel, a student in medicine, meets Charles II for the first time and immediately falls under his spell, so that when King Charles asks Merivel to save one of his dying dogs (his beloved spaniels of course), Merivel jumps at the chance to be part of the inner circle of Whitehall Palace and successfully cures the dog, mainly by doing nothing. All the events take place over the course of approximately one year, and it's a year filled to the brim with events for Merivel in the England of the Restoration. The story is set in the England of 1665 and is told as a first person account by one Robert Merivel, who relates the events as they are happening, probably in the form of a personal journal. From the first words, I'm willing to follow her wherever she wants to take me. There's a certain quality about Tremain's writing, or about the way she tells her stories, or about the characters she creates or all of these put together, which I find very exciting. My first book by Rose Tremain, which was among my favourites of 2013, was Music & Silence. As far as expectations go, they were pretty high, as this novel first came to my attention because it had been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and I had read very positive reviews for it, so it had been on my wishlist for a long time. This was my third five-star read out of 71 books read so far this year I don't hand out that rating very easily, and when I do, it's because the book has surpassed any expectation I may have had, made me want to start again right from the beginning as soon as I'd finished it, and opened up a universe which was somehow magical to me.

Restoration tremain