Mary Toft; or, The Rabbit Queen

Palmer is a novelist with an abundance of things to say … Luckily, he also has the chops and eloquence to make those things sing. - NPR

Wonderful! The kind of novel that you want to read and then discuss with other readers. But then Dexter Palmer is a writer like Hilary Mantel or Kate Atkinson, able to move between genres and time periods, by virtue of the almost supernatural sympathy he is able to invoke for his characters and the sense of the worlds they inhabit. - Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble

The Rabbit Queen is provoking in ways that reach well beyond the premise, anticipating as it does our own ‘world of ash,’ with all its spectacle, factionalism, and noise. It is vividly composed and audaciously imagined, filled with characters who do battle against a world that perceives them as strange - or who, conversely, assume strangeness as a mask in order to induce the world to see them at all. It is yet another wonder in Dexter Palmer’s cabinet of wonders - Kevin Brockmeier, author of The Brief History of the Dead

Like the historical fiction of Hillary Mantel or Caryl Phillips, Palmer does not shy away from the depravity of the past, particularly the violent desires of London’s elite. Expertly utilizing an actual bizarre historical event to explore faith, reason, and the foundations of our current economic system, this exhaustively researched and dexterously constructed novel is another triumph to add to Palmer’s incredibly diverse corpus of works - Booklist review (starred)

Palmer spins a cracking tale that, despite its disconcerting subject, is piquantly cheerful and compassionate … With empathy and imagination, Palmer explores the master/apprentice relationship, first love and first rivalry, spite and kindness: conjuring a world to raise a wry smile … Palmer is paying Mary the compliment of complexity … She is a woman whose story, both happily and unhappily, is rather more than the sum of its rabbit parts. - Katharine Grant, The New York Times Book Review