Lawrence Norfolk is back in the UK, tired but happy, after a busy and rewarding tour of Germany. The trip began with Lawrence reading to bustling venues in Munich and Lüneburg. On the train to Cologne he was amiably accosted in the dining car by a reader avidly making his way through Lawrence's entire backlist. Scheduled for his stay in Cologne was a reading aboard the Literature Schiff, a floating (and entirely sold-out) venue. Lawrence arrived to find a queue of 550 fans lining the pier. Their wait was rewarded with a rousing reading, which earned Lawrence a five minute-plus standing ovation and ended a very successful tour on a fine note.

JOHN SATURNALL'S FEAST is published by Knaus in Germany, Bloomsbury in the UK, Grove Atlantic in the US and many other translated editions.

Praise for JOHN SATURNALL'S FEAST:

'Dense in research and intellectual ambition…Norfolk's novels have always expanded their readers' vocabularies, and JOHN SATURNALL'S FEAST is no exception…What may come across as a novel indicting Protestantism's suppression of fun, sex and good food (it's Protestant groups who smash up the manor and lay waste to its subterranean kitchens where Saturnall finesses his culinary skills; it's civil war that destroys his supply lines and thwarts his surreptitious affair with Lucretia), is really a broader exploration of control.' -- Stuart Jeffries, The Guardian'

'Norfolk, the author of ornate period novels, here uses his talent for detail to evoke the life of a cook of a seventeenth century British manor.' -- The New Yorker

'Imaginative, quietly intricate and very well put together. All its strands are made to converge or mirror one another in a way that warms your heart.' -- Jonathan McAloon, The Spectator

'A feast... A groaning table laden with delicious and carefully made sweets... Those happy to gobble up Norfolk's delectable fantasies of marchpane and spun sugar are in for a treat.' -- Diane Purkiss, The Independent