Our Lady of the Potatoes

'Our Lady of the Potatoes' is a brilliant re-examination of eighteenth-century France, seen through the eyes of Marie-Louise Murphy, an Irish adventuress who gets caught up in all the dramas of the age of enlightenment and revolution, becoming the mistress of Louis XV and narrowly escaping death at the hands of the revolutionaries in 1789. Part objet trouvé, part recycled history, part grotesque variation on a fairy-tale, 'Our Lady of the Potatoes' is a highly entertaining and vivid novel, a tour de force of historical story-telling, which more than confirms this talented writer's great promise.