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  This is a great book, and I haven't enjoyed reading anything this much since I finished A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles.  It's so good that I wanted to start recommending it to people before I had even got to the end, and when I take it back to the library, I will be sorely tempted to point it out to another reader so they don't miss out.  It's exactly the kind of book I wish I could write myself. It begins in 1919 in a large county house in Dorset where we meet three year old Cristabel wandering around in the woodland surrounding her house.  She is hiding from her nanny her time until her new mother arrives, and she knows that will be soon, as all the uniformed members of staff are assembled outside to welcome home the master of the house with his young bride. Cristabel doesn't remember her real mother, as she died on the day Cristabel was born, but the new mother will soon become the lady of the house and one of the maids has suggested that soon there may ...

  Forgive the state of the cover on this much borrowed library book, but it should be no surprise to find it in this condition as it's almost too heavy to hold.  There are almost 900 pages to wade through, and it took me the full three weeks of library loan time to get through it, but it was certainly worth it. This is the third and last of the books Mantel wrote on the life of Thomas Cromwell, and begins at the time of the execution of Henry VIII's second wife Anne Boleyn, and runs through to the King's divorce from his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves.  All through that period, Thomas Cromwell continued to rise through the ranks of parliament and the royal court until he became so great he was even seen as a threat to Henry's throne.  After five hundred years, it is hardly a spoiler to say that things didn't end well for him and the book ends as Cromwell is executed for treason. Hilary Mantel conveys every detail of life in the court of Henry VIII, and although many of...