Publisher's Synopsis
From the author of The Shadow From the Deep comes a fantastical picaresque on food, dignity, and liberation...
A Cook in the Kingdom unfolds character by character. Each tale focuses on a different perspective orbiting House Fish and Bird, one of the most exalted kitchens of the Kingdom of the Sun. Upon the verge of change, the people of the Kingdom will either accept the world-shattering transformation, or be consumed by it.
Chef Tarak - a man of paradoxes. A gross, temperamental yet revered and honorary man who exists only to further his masterful craft.
Nantan - the kitchen's second cook. A man bound by the tyrannical laws of the invaders.
Chenoa - the master of wine. A woman who wishes to reconnect with her home and cut herself a prospective future.
Varham - the mysterious master. A gregarious man of mystery, beholden to strange rituals and an unchallenged privilege.
As obscenity and nobility collide, the Kingdom of the Sun remembers what it was and what it must become. A threat in the far west looms, the evil masters of the dummy government balk and squabble, and yet the men and women of the kitchen contend with their own habits of self-destruction.
A drunken mash-up of fantasy, historical fiction, comedy, tragedy, and food, A Cook in the Kingdom is a novel out of time, ageless and yet fittingly perfect for our troubled days.
