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Rebecca Perry

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9 min read

Our age bandAdult
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3.9 · 491 Amazon ratings
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May We Feed the King (Booker Prize Finalist) by Rebecca Perry front cover

Our review

May We Feed the King

May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry Review: A Dazzling Debut Bridging Past and Present

by Rebecca Perry

May We Feed the King is Rebecca Perry's debut novel, published by Transit Books, in which a reserved museum curator who reconstructs medieval rooms collides with the world of a reluctant monarch — a dual-timeline meditation on history, devotion, and what survives time. A finalist for the 2026 Booker Prize and winner of the 2026 Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize, it arrives as one of the most decorated debut novels of its year.

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Our age band: Adult

LuvemBooks Verdict

Best for

Readers who relish literary, dual-timeline historical fiction — in the vein of A. S. Byatt or Hilary Mantel — and who are drawn to novels that interrogate how history is constructed, preserved, and quietly distorted, sentence by careful sentence.

Worth it if

You welcome fiction that prizes intellectual provocation and poetic precision over plot momentum, and want a debut that genuinely unsettles assumptions about historical truth, memory, and what museums choose to keep or erase.

Skip if

You're looking for a propulsive, event-driven historical narrative — Perry's meditative, poet's pacing and deliberately witheld names and dates demand active patience that will frustrate readers expecting a conventional story arc.

The Guardian calls it "a highly wrought puzzle-box of a book which deliberately wrongfoots the reader at every turn," concluding it "richly rewards those who approach it with curiosity." The New York Times frames the curator as functioning "like a novelist" in her reconstruction of the past, while Bookmarks Reviews notes the novel is "a work of historical fiction that is about fiction, and storytelling." Publishers Weekly (via transitbooks.org and bookshop.org) awards it a starred review calling it "masterful."

“A highly wrought puzzle-box of a book which deliberately wrongfoots the reader at every turn — the intrigued will find it richly rewards curiosity.”

— The Guardian

“Like a novelist, the curator reconstructs a past whose narrator can never be certain what really happened.”

— The New York Times
Sources: The Guardian, The New York Times, Bookmarks Reviews, Transit Books, Bookshop.org, The Booker Prizes, Lonesome Reader, Books of Brilliance
3.9from 491 Amazon ratings— reader ratings, not a LuvemBooks score

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May We Feed the King is Rebecca Perry's Booker-shortlisted debut novel, weaving together a present-day museum curator's painstaking reconstruction of medieval rooms with the inner world of a reluctant medieval monarch — a dual-timeline meditation on history, devotion, and what time erases. Rooted in Perry's celebrated background as a poet, the prose operates at the level of the sentence rather than the chapter, earning praise from the Times Literary Supplement, The Observer, and the Booker Prize judges for its intellectual ambition and verbal texture. Readers who thrive on epistemologically rich, meditative literary fiction will find it a rare and rewarding debut; those seeking a plot-driven historical narrative may find its pace demanding.
Is it worth reading?
For readers drawn to literary fiction that takes history seriously as a philosophical problem — in the territory of A. S. Byatt or Hilary Mantel — May We Feed the King represents one of the most accomplished and decorated debuts of its year. Its Booker shortlisting and Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize win confirm the scale of critical attention it has attracted, and reviewers at the Times Literary Supplement and The Observer have praised both its construction and its intellectual ambition. The key caveat is pacing: Perry is a poet first, and the novel's pleasures are meditative rather than propulsive — readers who want a fast-moving historical plot may find the demands of its philosophical inquiry challenging.
Similar books
Readers who respond to May We Feed the King's meditative dual-timeline structure and its literary inquiry into history and time will find natural companions in several of the curated titles below. Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day shares its mood of restrained interiority and the weight of what is lost to time and devoted service; Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin similarly interweaves timelines and interrogates how stories — and history itself — are constructed and controlled. Olga Tokarczuk's Flights, like Perry's novel, resists conventional plot in favour of a fragmentary, essayistic meditation on movement, memory, and what connects us across time. Samantha Harvey's Orbital, another recent Booker Prize winner celebrated for its lyrical, contemplative prose, shares Perry's interest in perspective, impermanence, and the relationship between the human observer and the world being observed. Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose also works across time periods, using a present-day narrator's engagement with the past to raise questions about history, interpretation, and meaning.
Who should read this?
May We Feed the King is written for adult readers who bring patience and intellectual appetite to literary fiction — specifically those drawn to dual-timeline historical narratives with serious philosophical ambitions. Fans of A. S. Byatt, Hilary Mantel, and writers who treat history as a site of epistemological inquiry rather than scenic backdrop will be in the right territory. It is also a natural choice for readers of Booker Prize literary fiction who value prose that works at the level of the sentence and who welcome novels that genuinely unsettle received ideas about memory, curation, and historical truth. Readers who prioritise plot momentum and narrative drive over contemplative, essayistic fiction are likely to find the pacing a mismatch.
Has it won any awards?
May We Feed the King has received exceptional recognition for a debut novel. It was shortlisted for the 2026 Booker Prize, one of the most prestigious literary awards in the English-speaking world, and won the 2026 Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize. The Booker judges specifically praised its conceptual heft — its genuine intellectual challenge to the idea of a singular historical truth — marking it out as more than a conventional debut.
What does the novel say about history?
At its philosophical core, May We Feed the King is an interrogation of how history is made and who controls what survives. The Booker Prize judges highlighted the novel's challenge to the notion that there is ever "one universal historical truth," and noted its attention to bias and whitewashing in the historical records that endure. Perry uses the figure of the museum curator — whose job is literally to select, arrange, and present the past — as a lens for asking what museums preserve and what they quietly erase. The novel also asks what makes a king "Great" and what makes a life meaningful, treating these as questions of language and form as much as of fact.
Is this a good book club pick?
May We Feed the King is a strong book club choice for groups who enjoy discussion-driven literary fiction. Its central questions — whether history is ever truly a safe escape from the present, what makes a life meaningful, and who controls the shape of historical memory — are the kind of open-ended provocations that generate sustained debate. The dual-timeline structure gives groups two distinct narrative threads to compare and discuss, and the Booker Prize judges' framing of its intellectual stakes provides a ready-made critical vocabulary for the conversation. Groups that prefer propulsive, plot-centred reads may find the meditative pace less conducive to the kind of chapter-by-chapter momentum that drives some club choices.
Summarize this book

Summarize this book

May We Feed the King runs on two parallel timelines: in the present, a reserved museum curator reconstructs medieval rooms, arranging furniture, fabrics, and replica food — careful arrays of fake pies and pomegranates — to breathe life back into the past; in the historical strand, the novel inhabits the world of a reluctant medieval monarch, a king whom Perry describes as wearing "the face of a man who has been dropped in the middle of the ocean without warning." The publisher frames the novel as a meditation on what becomes lost over time and what devotion can reanimate, exploring two simultaneous kinds of resurrection: the curator's and the novelist's own. Beyond its dual narrative, the book mounts a genuine philosophical inquiry into how history is constructed, who controls its shape, and whether there is ever one universal historical truth — questions Perry pursues with the precision and verbal texture of a practised poet.

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Our Review

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A Booker-shortlisted debut that moves fluently between centuries, May We Feed the King announces Rebecca Perry as a novelist of rare and distinctive ambition.
May We Feed the King (Booker Prize Finalist) by Rebecca Perry front cover
May We Feed the King (Booker Prize Finalist) by Rebecca Perry front cover

What the Novel Actually Is

At its core, May We Feed the King runs on two parallel tracks. In the present-day strand, a reserved museum curator spends her days reconstructing the past — selecting and arranging furniture, fabrics, and replica food, including careful arrays of fake pies and pomegranates, to bring medieval rooms back to life.
In the historical strand, the novel enters the world of a reluctant medieval monarch, a king who, as one passage quoted by the Booker Prize judges captures it, "wears the face of a man who has been dropped in the middle of the ocean without warning." Perry weaves these threads into what the publisher describes as a searing meditation on what becomes lost over time and what devotion can reanimate — exploring, simultaneously, two kinds of resurrection: the curator's and the novelist's own.

Significance and Recognition

Perry is already an established poet — author of the collections Beauty/Beauty (Bloodaxe Books, 2015), which won the Michael Murphy Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize, and Stone Fruit — and her transition to long-form fiction has been met with exceptional recognition. May We Feed the King was shortlisted for the 2026 Booker Prize and won the 2026 Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize.
The Booker judges framed its central provocation as asking whether history is ever truly a safe place to escape the present, and whether the line between historical fiction and historical fact can hold. These are not modest questions for a first novel to take on, and the scale of critical attention suggests Perry took them seriously.

Craft and Strengths

Critical response to the novel's construction has been strong. The Times Literary Supplement described it as "a love story between the present and the past," noting how Perry brings "two kinds of resurrection" vividly to life through both the art of fiction and the art of curation.
The Observer wrote that Perry "stages a rich feast of images and ideas." The Booker Prize site notes that Perry "captures the players of the court and the chain of gossip so successfully it feels as though we are observing history as it plays out."
For a writer whose background is in poetry, this precision — the accumulation of observed detail in service of a larger argument about time and memory — appears to be one of the novel's defining qualities. One blurb from the Booker Prize materials calls it "sheer magic," urging readers to "let it bewitch you into roaming the King's inner chambers, fever burning in your heart."
The publisher characterises the novel as "laced with desire and longing" and as "a playful, stirring meditation on history and storytelling."

Thematic Ambition and Intellectual Stakes

Beyond its dual narrative, May We Feed the King is designed as a genuine inquiry into how history is constructed and who controls its shape. The Booker judges noted its challenge to the notion that there is ever "one universal historical truth," raising questions about bias and whitewashing in the records that survive.
The novel asks what makes a king "Great" and what makes a life meaningful — questions that, in the hands of a poet turned novelist, are as much about language and form as they are about the past. Perry's background in wordplay, highlighted by the Booker Prize materials, gives the novel a verbal texture that reviewers suggest runs throughout: the prose is purposeful, not merely decorative.
A blurb describes the thematic combination as "wonderfully enticing," woven together "with a delicacy of touch," and notes that the novel makes the "fragile boundary between the present and the past" impossible to ignore.

Who This Novel Is For

Readers drawn to dual-timeline historical fiction with literary ambitions — in the territory of, say, A. S. Byatt or Hilary Mantel — will find May We Feed the King a natural fit. Its pleasures are intellectual as much as narrative: Perry is interested in epistemology and loss as much as plot, and readers who want a propulsive page-turner may find its meditative pace demanding.
The novel's roots in poetry mean its rewards are often at the level of the sentence rather than the chapter. But for those who welcome fiction that genuinely unsettles received ideas — about history, about what museums preserve and what they quietly erase, about the relationship between the present and the medieval world it curates — this debut offers something uncommon.
As the Observer and TLS coverage confirms, it has already found serious readers; its Booker shortlisting ensures it will find many more.

Sources & Further Reading

The key facts and claims in this review are grounded in the retrieved, verified sources listed below.

  1. Cited in this review
  2. 1
    May We Feed the King - WikipediaHigh-authority source

    en.wikipedia.org

  3. 2
    Reading guide: May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry | The Booker Prizes

    thebookerprizes.com

  4. 3
    Book Marks reviews of May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry Book Marks

    bookmarks.reviews

  5. Further reading
  6. 4
    May We Feed the King: Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2026 | The Booker Prizes

    thebookerprizes.com

  7. 5
    May We Feed the King: The Booker-Shortlisted Medieval Novel Explained - Books of Brilliance

    booksofbrilliance.com

  8. 6
    May We Feed the King (Booker Prize Finalist) a book by Rebecca Perry - Bookshop.org US

    bookshop.org

  9. 7
    The Guardian

    The Guardian

  10. 8
    The New York Times

    The New York Times

  11. 9
    Transit Books

    Transit Books

  12. 10
    Lonesome Reader

    Lonesome Reader

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Rebecca Perry on May We Feed the King

Author Rebecca Perry discusses the craft, characters, and inspiration behind her novel May We Feed the King in an interview with Waterstones.

Uploaded by Waterstones, 2026 · Watch on YouTube ·

More from this interview on Rebecca Perry's page →

Childhood memory behind the book's fake grapes

Perry explains that only two aspects of the book originate directly from her own life, one being a childhood visit to a furniture showroom where squeezing a bowl of fake grapes made a lasting impression. She gave this transportive encounter with artificial fruit to her curator protagonist.

Writing fiction like poetry without structural plans

Perry says she avoided rigid plot outlines or character frameworks, letting the world develop organically in the spaces between ideas. She notes her novel-writing approach closely mirrors how she writes poetry, with details emerging through the process rather than premeditation.

Giving the King a cat for solace

Perry felt the gentle, reluctant monarch required private moments of solace away from the court to reveal his unvarnished self. While a cat provided the right companionship, she consciously avoided basing the animal on either of her own cats.

Leaving gaps for reader imagination to fill

Perry deliberately avoided over-explaining background details or resolving archival mysteries to respect the reader's role in the storytelling. She wanted readers to actively participate in assembling the narrative rather than having everything filled in for them.

Hilary Mantel as her ultimate dream reader

Perry listened repeatedly to Hilary Mantel's Reith Lectures while writing and names Mantel as her dream reader. She would have loved to hear Mantel's reaction, curious whether her loose historical approach would have fascinated or horrified the meticulous historical novelist.

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Books like May We Feed the King

Curated picks for readers who enjoyed May We Feed the King, with our reasoning for each match.

If you liked May We Feed the King

In our catalogue

The Remains of the Day

Kazuo Ishiguro

Both centre a devoted, inward character whose professional loyalty to an institution quietly crowds out their own life — restrained, devastating pay-off.

Stevens, a butler of exacting precision, and Perry's museum curator share the same core tension: a life given over to preserving something external at the cost of something internal. Ishiguro builds his novel through understatement and missed feeling, the same register Perry works in. Readers drawn to duty, historical atmosphere, and characters who only half-see themselves will find a natural home here.

In our catalogue

The Blind Assassin

Margaret Atwood

Dual timelines braided around history, family secrets, and loss: structurally and thematically a large-scale peer on this list.

In our catalogue

Flights

Olga Tokarczuk

Fragmented, essayistic meditation on preservation and what humans hand down across time — shares Perry's museum-minded curiosity about what survives.

In our catalogue

Angle of Repose

Wallace Stegner

A present-day narrator obsessively reconstructs a nineteenth-century life from archives — the same dual-timeline curatorial impulse, at novel-length scale.

In our catalogue

Orbital

Samantha Harvey

Booker Prize-winning meditation on observation, devotion, and what it means to witness something larger than yourself — quiet, precise, luminous.

Not your thing?

In our catalogue

Hotel Du Lac

Anita Brookner

If May We Feed the King's inward pace felt too slow: Brookner delivers the same quiet, reserved protagonist in a tighter, more propulsive frame without sacrificing intelligence.

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Booker Prize Final Days: May We Feed the King Surges in Betting Odds

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Nov 9, 2026

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