Marvellous milliner Alva has revolution on her mind. Grieved by the Austrian influence on her native Venice, she’s joined the secretive Carbonari, smuggling maps and bullets in her wondrous hats in the hope of fomenting insurrection.

It’s an audacious concept, but then this is a deliciously audacious novel. There’s a plot to kidnap a princess, the walls of the city are covered in graffiti, there’s heartbreak and betrayal.

Lovric crams in a lovelorn poet, who wears a model of a galleon on his head, a charismatic villain with wooden fingers and a penchant for wrongdoing, a man-eating Habsburg banker’s daughter and a puffin, which finds itself at the centre of the action in 19th century Italy.

At the heart of this beguilingly beautiful book is the author Gustave Flaubert, who created Emma Bovary – once regarded as the most scandalous woman in literature. Shafak follows Flaubert from his childhood home in France to his travels in Cairo, Palestine and Beirut, revealing his thoughts and emotions as he journeys.

But his is not the only the perspective on offer. There are a chorus of characters –real and imagined – who influenced his writing, and whose accounts tilt the narrative of the great male artist in favour of the women in his life.

We hear from an indignant Emma – whose search for happiness led her into all kinds of trouble – his nursemaid, a tightrope walker, an infuriated lover, as ‘ordinary folk (are) rendered extraordinary’ and the forgotten and unheeded are given voice.

It’s 1420 and Eleanor Cobham – blonde, wildly ambitious and with a vicious streak that becomes increasingly apparent as this story unfurls – has inveigled her way into Westminster Palace and plunged into the heart of Plantagenet politicking.

Employed as lady in waiting to the remarkable Countess Jacqueline of Hainault, Eleanor watches as Jacqueline, forthright, resourceful and brave, enlists the help of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester (brother to Henry V), to reclaim her inheritance and stolen lands. Eleanor then sets her sights on him herself.

Gregory makes brilliant use of what historical material there is, recreating Eleanor’s treasonous queenly quest as a tale of ill wishing, courtly machinations and secretive rituals. She resorts to dark arts in her attempts to gain a husband and a throne and accepts the consequences of her actions with an unapologetic defiance.