The international bestseller and scandalous love story that inspired  A Royal Affair,  with rights sold in 25 countries.   The Royal Physician's Visit magnificently recasts the dramatic era of Danish history when Johann Friedrich Struensee -- court physician to mad young King Christian -- stepped through an aperture in history and became the holder of absolute power in Denmark. His is a gripping tale of power, sex, love, and the life of the mind, and it is superbly rendered here by Sweden's most acclaimed writer. A charismatic German doctor and brilliant intellectual, Struensee used his influence to introduce hundreds of reforms in Denmark in the 1760s and had a tender and erotic affair with Queen Caroline Mathilde, who was unsatisfied by her unstable, childlike husband. And yet, his ambitions ultimately led to tragedy. This novel, perfect for book clubs, is a compelling look into the intrigues of an Enlightenment court and the life of a singular man. *Starred Review* As the 1760s became the 1770s, there was a revolution in Denmark, though the monarchy remained in place. The turnabout took place at the king's elbow, as a German, Johann Friedrich Struensee, the royal physician, issued 632 decrees in King Christian VII's name. Struensee's ability to do this was greatly enhanced by the fact that the king was deranged as the result of severe handling, including daily corporal punishment throughout his childhood, by the aristocrats who actually ran Denmark. But Struensee's was only a paper revolution, and when he fell in love with the teenage queen, the youngest sister of England's George III, his fate was sealed. Overthrown by a cabal led by the puritanical professor-turned-bureaucrat Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Struensee was publicly executed in 1772. The queen was divorced and exiled, and Guldberg became Christian's manager and Denmark's prime minister. Enquist explosively expands this parenthesis in Danish history into an ironized romantic tragedy of a very high order, one that fills the reader with horror and pity on every page. The Swedish novelist's method is to begin 10 years after Struensee's fall, then retrace the "Struensee era," as it came to be called, by probing the characters of four principal players--Christian, Guldberg, Struensee, and Queen Caroline Mathilde--each of whose perspectives, even the king's, he makes intelligible and occasionally even sympathetic. A towering achievement. Ray Olson Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved "Realized with a vividness and subtlety that place the book in the front ranks of contemporary literary fiction." -- The New York Times Book Review "An extraordinarily elegant and gorgeous novel." -- Los Angeles Times "An enthralling fable of the temptations of power--and a surprisingly poignant love story." -- Time Per Olov Enquist is the Swedish journalist, playwright, and novelist. The Royal Physician's Visit received the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, the August Prize, and the Nelly Sachs Prize, and was shortlisted for the IMPAC literary award. Tiina Nunnally has translated work by Astrid Lindgren, Henning Mankell, and Peter Hoeg, among others.