Our Lady of the Potatoes, by Duncan Sprott (Faber & Faber, £6.99 in UK)

An exotic creature these days, a historical novel - and this one is more exotic than most. Inspired by a Boucher painting, it tells the story of the rise and fall of Marie Louise Murphy, a courtesan of Irish descent who becomes the mistress of Louis XV and just about avoids being guillotined in 1789. Is it true? Is it false? Will you care, once you plunge into the opening sequence, in which a boatful of Wild Geese is pitched and tossed across the channel? You will not, for this is entertaining stuff, despite its dreary and misleading title. As the Murphys establish themselves in Paris the swirly, impressionistic style of those opening pages gives way to a no nonsense prose which, in its deceptively casual attention to detail, conveys a vivid impression both of life at Versailles and in rural France in the early months of the Revolution.