England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. The quest for the king's freedom destroys his adviser, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell is a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people and a demon of energy: he is also a consummate politician, hardened by his personal losses, implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?
Reviews
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Simon Slater's inspired narration of this year's Booker Prize novel, set in the court of Henry VIII, is on every count one of this year's outstanding audiobooks. The story of Henry's endeavors to exchange Queen Catherine for Anne Boleyn is hardly new, but Mantel's account stands out for her graceful and textured prose, vivid depictions of the historical scene, and focus on the man in the background of the story, Thomas Cromwell. Slater conveys lowly characters and the grandees of court, church, and law with equal ease and authority. Especially memorable is his rendering of Cardinal Wolsey, a comic portrait that is at the same time poignant and deeply tragic. Memorable, too, are the detailed depictions of life in the 1520s, which Slater makes all too actual and close at hand. D.A.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine
About the Author
Hilary Mantel is the author of nine previous novels, including A Change of Climate, A Place of Greater Safety, and Eight Months on Ghazzah Street. She has also written a memoir, Giving Up the Ghost. Winner of the Hawthornden Prize, she reviews for The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, and the London Review of Books. She lives in England.
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