Amy Sackville

‘in Painter to the King Sackville has written not only by far the finest novel of its kind that I have ever read, but one of the finest historical novels of recent years’
— Sarah Perry, The Guardian

Known to readers for her novels The Still Point and Orkney, Amy Sackville is an exciting and sophisticated young writer. Her latest work, Painter to the King, allows the reader to see through the eyes of Diego Velázquez, the court artist of King Philip IV of Spain. Sackville’s examination of the monarch’s burdened life, the slow collapse of the court under its own excess, and the relationship between painter and king — each the other’s subject — is a dazzling, audacious read.