What happens when your extraordinary gift becomes your salvation—and your curse?
Join debut novelist Catherine Kurtz as she presents Feast, a sumptuous historical novel brimming with intrigue and sensory wonder—a dark fairytale for readers who love Jessie Burton, Elizabeth Macneal, and Bridget Collins.
In the soot-streaked alleys of 19th-century London, Minha is a girl unlike any other—born with an extraordinary gift: an overwhelming, all-consuming sense of taste. Desperate to escape a life of poverty, she crosses the sea to France, chasing the shimmer of a better future.
At Château de Bellefalaise, a grand estate with fairytale turrets perched above a sleepy village, Minha's talent is discovered when she detects poison in a dish about to be served to the château's master, Duc Nicolas. For the first time in her life, her strange ability becomes her salvation—and her curse.
Appointed the Duc's personal poison-taster, she is confined to her tasting room and forced to live in the chateau's shadows. With each dish, she enters a world of glittering porcelain and gilded secrets, where danger simmers beneath every course...
But when she loses her miraculous gift and suspicion coils through the corridors, Minha must confront a terrifying truth: without her gift, who is she—and what remains of the life she's fought so hard to build?
An evening exploring how extraordinary senses can become both gift and curse, the intoxicating sensory world of 19th-century France, and how Catherine brings her unique background as both painter and food writer to create this vivid, delicious historical thriller.
"A novel to savour, bursting with rich delights." Laura Wilkinson

The ‘stream and book’ package includes a unique ticket for the stream, and a copy of Feast (RRP £20) deliverable to any UK address.
The event will initially be broadcast on 25 June at 6.30pm UK time. It will be available to view up to two weeks after the event has ended and can be accessed Worldwide. If you live in a time zone that does not suit the initial broadcast time you can watch it at any point after the initial showing for two weeks.
If you have any questions, please email [email protected].