The lady and the unicorn - Tracy Chevalier

'Enormously enjoyable' Evening Standard

'Charming' The Times

'What would you have me paint instead of a battle, Madame?'
Genevive de Nanterre's eyes gleamed.
'A unicorn.'

Keen to demonstrate his new-found favour with the King, rising nobleman Jean le Viste commissions six tapestries to adorn the walls of his chteau. He expects soldiers and bloody battlefields. But artist Nicolas des Innocents instead designs a seductive world of women, unicorns and flowers, using as his muses Le Viste's wife Genevive and ripe young daughter Claude.

In Belgium, as his designs spring to life under the weavers' fingers, Nicolas is inspired once more - by the master weaver's daughter Alinor and her mother Christine. They too will be captured by his threads.