The Overbooked Bibliophile

My Rating:⭐⭐⭐⭐ “Close your eyes” In the year 1435, Samuel, the court jester of the prosperous European kingdom of Gora attempts to reconstruct the events that led to the fateful day in 1431 that the court storyteller Tycho and the cook Agnieszka fled the kingdom. Samuel takes us through the history of Gora and how it prospered and flourished under Pawel’s’ rule as well as the individual circumstances that led the characters – himself, Tycho, Agnieszka, Ahab the astronomer and Bishop Tonnelli to Gora and King Pawel who “was one of those strange few for whom the truth was more fantastic than the fiction”. King Pawel of Gora married his 19-year-old bride Kristina only to lose her in childbirth after five years of marriage leaving him with his children Princess Alexandra and Prince Krysztoff. Kristina’s death causes him to spiral into the depths of grief and madness, awaiting his beloved’s spirit, who is believed to haunt the premises of the castle, every night. Tycho the storyteller, Samu