“Two twists of smoke at a time of year too warm for cottage fires surprise us at first light, or they at least surprise those of us who’ve not been up to mischief in the dark. Our land is topped and tailed with flames. Beyond the frontier ditches of our fields and in the shelter of our woods, on common ground, where yesterday there wasn’t anyone who could give rise to smoke, some newcomers, by the lustre of an obliging reapers’ moon, have put up their hut -four rough and ready walls, a bit of roof- and lit the more outlying of these fires. Their fire is damp. They will have thrown on wet greenery in order to procure the blackest plume, and thereby not be missed by us. It rises in a column that hardly bends or thins until it clears the canopies. It says, New neighbours have arrived; they’ve built a place; they’ve laid a hearth; they know the custom and the law. This first smoke has given them the right to stay. We’ll see.”

Book Review:

Review by Jill I. Shtulman (JAN 15, 2014)

Jim Crace’s Harvest reads like a simple moral fable of a tiny and remote medieval English village, destroyed externally and internally by the conversion of farms into sheep pastures, but wait! There is far more to it than meets the eye.

Mr. Crace is particularly interested in pairings: everything comes in twos, right from the opening pages.. Two signals of smoke rise up: one signaling the arrival of new neighbors who are announcing their right to stay; the second, a blaze that indicates the master Kent’s dovecote is gone and his doves taken.

Both subplots radiate from these two twinned smoke signals. The stories, narrated by Walter – the manservant of Kent who was paired with him from the start by sharing the same milk – is both an insider and an outsider (yet another pairing). He is not of the village although he has become part of it.

Yet the kind Kent is soon paired with someone else: his pragmatic and heartless cousin, who has come to declare his right to the farm. He has plans for the peaceful agrarian village: “this village, far from everywhere, which has always been a place for horn, corn and trotter and little else, is destined to become a provisioner of wool.” The cousin arrives at a particularly fortuitous time: despite evidence to the contrary, the town has wrongly blamed and pillored the outsiders, an older and younger man, and has placed them in gruesome confinement. The woman who was with them has had her head shorn – much like the sheep to come – and is now in hiding, ready for revenge.

Mr. Crace writes like a dream. His prose is rich and rhapsodic. One example:

“The glinting spider’s thread will turn in a little while to glinting frost. It’s time for you to fill your pieces with fruit, because quite soon the winds will strip the livings from the trees and the thunder through the orchards to give the plums and apples there a rough and ready pruning, and you will have to wait indoors throughout the season of suspense while the weather roars and bends inside. “

Pure poetry.

And he pairs THAT – the beauty of his prose – with some substantial themes that resonate for today’s times our close-minded distrust and demonization of outsiders. Our disregard for the true “tillers of the land” in the pursuit of the almighty profit motivation. Our fall from innocence into mistrust and exile. A munificent harvest that reaps nothing but dollars.

“The plowing’s done. The seed is spread. The weather is reminding me that rain or shine, the earth abides, the land endures, the soil will persevere forever and a day. Its seed is pungent and high-seasoned. This is happiness,” Walter reflects. Magnificently evoked, unsettling, and at times painful to read as the village life implodes, Harvest is yet another testimony to Mr. Crace’s vast talents. For me, it is an undeniable 5-star novel.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 77 readers
PUBLISHER:	Vintage (September 20, 2013)
REVIEWER:	Jill I. Shtulman
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Jim Crace
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: The Pesthouse

Bibliography:

• Continent (1986) 
• Gift of Stones (1988)
• Arcadia (1992)
• Signals of Distress (1994)
• Quarantine (1997)  /
• Being Dead (1999)
• The Devil’s Larder (2001)
• Genesis (2003) (published as Six in UK)
• The Pesthouse (2007)
• All that Follows (2010)
• Harvest (February 2013)

“And this is your sin also, Fra Giordano Bruno. You are one of the most gifted young men I have encountered in all my years at San Domenico Maggiore, but your curiosity and your pride in your own cleverness prevent you from using your gifts to the glory of the Church. It is time the Father Inquisitor took the measure of you.”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowksy  (Mar 3, 2011)

S. J. Parris’s Heresy opens in 1576. A young Dominican monk named Giordano Bruno, who has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, is caught by his superiors reading forbidden books. He flees Italy and the Inquisitor, and is subsequently excommunicated by the Catholic Church. Eventually, he becomes a philosopher and a Doctor of Theology and plans to write a book “that would undo all the certainties not only of the Roman church but of the whole Christian religion.”

We next meet up with Bruno in 1583, under far different circumstances. After living from hand to mouth for years, he manages to become a favorite in the Court of King Henri III of France. When conditions in France threaten to become precarious, he joins his well-connected friend, Sir Philip Sydney, who is fiercely loyal to Queen Elizabeth I, on a trip to Oxford, England. While there, Bruno will engage in an academic disputation with John Underhill, rector of Lincoln College, but he is also surreptitiously carrying out an assignment on behalf of the queen’s personal secretary, Sir Francis Walsingham. Bruno has been commissioned to learn the identity of papists who practice their faith secretly. The queen fears that these ardent Catholics are converting others and may be plotting to overthrow her. Another reason for Bruno’s visit is his desire to find an ancient manuscript that might allow him “to glimpse what lies beyond the known cosmos.” He optimistically hopes that when he reveals certain underlying truths, all men will be considered divine and religious conflicts will disappear.

When Bruno reaches his destination, he does not find the peace that he craves. There are those who despise him as a foreigner and a Catholic, and he is shocked by a series of grisly murders that leave the Oxford community reeling. Heresy is a complex tale of intrigue in which so many lies are told that Bruno finds it difficult to know whom to trust. The rector asks him to investigate the killings at Oxford without publicizing his intentions; this proves to be a thorny and dangerous undertaking. Eventually, he uncovers explosive secrets that, if revealed, could lead to the shedding of more blood, including his own.

Parris provides a meticulous description of Oxford and its environs, showing how members of the academic hierarchy care more about themselves than they do about justice or human life. In addition, she ably captures the troubled atmosphere in England at a time when Elizabeth and her followers used a network of informers to identify and root out Catholic loyalists. The author demonstrates how religious fanaticism, coupled with unbridled ambition, leads to strife and horrific violence. Early in the book, Bruno recalls that, at the age of twelve, his father took him to view an execution. A man was burned at the stake because he defied the authority of the Pope. Bruno never forgot the horror of the prisoner’s intense suffering or “the cheering and exultation of the crowd when the heretic finally expired.”

Giordano Bruno is an intriguing hero, all the more so because he is flawed. Although he is thoughtful, open-minded, and is willing to risk his life to uncover a sadistic killer, Giordano does Walsingham’s bidding for financial gain and the prospect of future patronage. At its best, Heresy is a suspenseful, exciting, and enlightening work of historical fiction. However, it is also a bit too wordy (the book is padded with endless exposition), and towards its conclusion, the narrative descends into melodrama. Parris throws a romantic subplot, secret codes and ciphers, and a cache of hidden papers into the mix. The liveliest characters are the rebellious Sophia Underhill, a young woman with keen intelligence and wit to whom Bruno is attracted, an earless bookseller named Jenkes who projects an air of unmistakable menace, and a priest with a thirst for martyrdom. Although it could have been streamlined, Heresy is worth reading for its unflinching look at the terrible punishments that were meted out at a time when Protestants and Catholics were at each other’s throats.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 87 readers
PUBLISHER:	Anchor (February 1, 2011)
REVIEWER:	Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	S. J. Parris
EXTRAS:	Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Another 16th century mystery: Heartstone by C.J. Sansom

Bibliography:

• Heresy (June 2010)
• Prophecy (May 2011)

“‘We could have you dead in a minute,’ the voice continued. ‘Remember that and listen hard. You drop this case, you forget about it. There’s people who don’t want this matter taken further. Now tell me you understand.’ The pressure at my neck eased, though other hands still gripped my arms hard.
I coughed, managed to gasp a yes.
The hands released me, and I dropped to the muddy ground in a heap….”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky  (FEB 26, 2011)

In his latest Tudor mystery, Heartstone, C. J. Sansom embroils his hero, lawyer and do-gooder Matthew Shardlake, in several intrigues that take him away from London for a large part of the novel. It is 1545, and the profligate King Henry VIII is squeezing his subjects dry in order to wage an expensive military campaign against France. The king has ordered English currency devalued, levied heavy taxes, conscripted every able-bodied Englishman, and even hired foreign mercenaries to wage war against the enemy.

Matthew, who is forty-three and hunchbacked, has never married but is a respected member of Lincoln’s Inn, in the Court of Requests. However, he frequently puts aside his professional interests to get personally involved in other people’s business. For instance, he visits Ellen Fettiplace, a woman who has been in Bedlam for nineteen years and has grown attached to Shardlake. Although he has no romantic feelings for Ellen, he is determined to find out who placed her in the institution and why. In another matter, Queen Catherine Parr asks Matthew to look into the case of Hugh Curtey, a ward of Sir Nicholas Hobbey. There is some suspicion that Hugh has been wronged and Catherine wants Matthew to investigate the allegation.

Along with his intrepid assistant, Jack Barak, Matthew takes to the road, and a long road it is. Not only will he end up in Portsmouth, where Henry’s huge militia is preparing to defend the English coast from invasion, but he will also tangle with ruthless and greedy men who are willing to kill in order to keep their secrets hidden. Barak would rather stay in London with his pregnant wife, Tamasin; however, in order to avoid military service, he accompanies Shardlake. Matthew is highly intelligent, compassionate, prone to melancholy, stubborn, and a bit obsessive. Even when threatened with bodily harm, he refuses to abandon his inquiries.

Heartstone is fluid, informative, entertaining, and a marvel of research. The author’s period detail and descriptive writing are impressive. He provides maps and background information that add realism to this complex tale. We inhabit sixteenth century England and experience what life was like for royalty, gentlemen, farmers, merchants, and soldiers (they sometimes ate rotten food, lived in flea-infested quarters, and took orders from arrogant and abusive commanders). Their reward? To get “ripped apart and slaughtered in battle.” We get glimpses of the powerful weaponry on a gigantic warship. In addition, the author points out the widespread corruption and favoritism at every level of government, and how bitter the enmity was between the affluent and those who lived from hand to mouth.

Each character is scrupulously depicted. Ellen at times appears to be mad, but she has moments of great calm and lucidity. What terrible memories have left her terrified of leaving the institution? Nicholas Hobbey and his wife, Abigail, are obviously keeping something from Matthew, but can he learn what it is in time to help Hugh? Among the villains is a familiar face, Sir Richard Rich, who is back to give Matthew even more grief. Some may balk at the story’s length (over six hundred pages), but those who enjoy high-quality British historical fiction will continue to welcome each new installment in this splendid series.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 24 readers
PUBLISHER:	Viking Adult (January 20, 2011)
REVIEWER:	Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Wikipedia page on C.J. Sansom
EXTRAS:	Reading Guide and Excerpt – none available
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: Revelation Dark Fire

Bibliography:

Mathew Shardlake, hunchback lawyer, 16th Century:

• Dissolution (2003)
• Dark Fire (2004; January 2005 in US)
• Sovereign (February 2007)
• Revelation (February 2009)
• Heartstone (January 2011 in US)

Standalone:

• Winter in Madrid (January 2008)

“The sobs grow louder as she trips the outer latch and pushes open the door. She imagines a child caught in an endless tantrum, flailing across the bed or crouched, cornered like an animal. Instead her candle throws up a figure standing flat against the wall, shift sweat-sucked to her skin, hair plastered around her face. When glimpsed through the grille in church the girl had seemed too delicate for such a voice, but she is more substantial in the flesh, every sob fueled by a great lungful of air. The one she is reaching for now stops in her throat. What does she see in front of her, a jailer or a savior? Zuana can still feel the terror of those first days; the way each and every nun looked the same. When had she started to spot the differences under the cloth? How strange that she can no longer remember something she thought she would never forget.”

Book Review:

Review by Terez Rose (JUL 23, 2010)

In 16th-century Italy, a noblewoman of marriageable age had two choices: marriage and children, or reclusion to a convent. With the price of wedding dowries rising ever higher, most noble families could only afford to marry off one daughter. The rest, for a much-reduced dowry, went to the convent. But “not all went willingly,” author Sarah Dunant states in her preface, a deliciously ominous portent of the story to come.

Sacred Hearts is the third of Dunant’s Renaissance Italy trilogy, following bestsellers The Birth of Venus and In the Company of the Courtesan, and it does not disappoint. The year is 1570. Sixteen-year-old Serafina, previously considered the “marriageable” daughter, has been spirited off to the convent of Santa Caterina after forming an inappropriate attachment to her common-born music tutor. Suora Zuana, mild-mannered and scholarly, is the convent’s dispensary mistress who goes to tend to the hysterical, raging Serafina her first night. A friendship of sorts forms after the abbess assigns Serafina to work as Zuana’s assistant in the dispensary.

Serafina, in spite of Zuana’s friendly overtures, is determined to leave, to meet with the music tutor who promised he would come find her. She uses her peerless singing voice, as valuable to the convent as her dowry, as a method of communication with him in the church, from behind the iron grille that separates nuns from parishioners. Having thus far refused to sing, she now astounds all who hear her. As a convent is endowed by its wealthiest patrons when it can produce such sublime music, by singing so beautifully, Serafina has inadvertently sealed her own fate. No convent would ever allow such a songbird to leave.

Serafina’s resistance to her fate, Suora Zuana’s observations, the growing tensions, both inside and outside the convent walls, form the story’s core. From a lesser author, such a story, set entirely within the convent compound, no male characters to speak of, might prove limiting. But Dunant is a master at bringing the Renaissance era with all its glorious, malodorous, visceral details to life. Her genius, as with all good writing, lies in the language, the sensory description, the shadings of light against dark, culling passion and conflict from unlikely sources, imbuing the characters with life.

Sacred Hearts works also as a social commentary, exposing the mores, values, and hypocrisies of a society that puts such emphasis on religion and piety, only to twist it all to accommodate creature comforts. (The wealthy need only subsidize convents and its occupants so the nuns will pray for their souls and thus will all be saved.) It casts illumination on the plight of so many women of the time, shuttled to a convent as a convenience their family and not for any personal feelings of religious fervor. This is not always for the worst, however. Here within these walls, women are allowed to be musicians, writers, composers, nurses, pharmacists. In some ways these women are freer than they would be on the outside. But increasingly strict measures—distressing to some of the nuns and thrilling to the purists—are to come, in the aftermath of the Council of Trent. Music, literature, theatre, the culinary arts, weekly visits from family; the nuns stand to lose much of this.

Suora Umiliana, the novice mistress, is one who embraces and welcomes such measures. She believes only in the power of pain, penitence and prayer. Her followers include Suora Perseveranza, who wears a cinched leather belt studded with nails that pierce her flesh to yield an ecstasy of a different sort, depicted so brilliantly here:

“She keeps her gaze fixed on the wall ahead, where the guttering light picks out a carved wooden crucifix: Christ, young, alive, His muscles running through the grain as His body strains forward against the nails, His face etched in sorrow. She stares at Him, her own body trembling, tears wet on her cheeks, her eyes bright. Wood, iron, leather, flesh. Her world is contained in this moment. She is within His suffering; He is within hers. She is not alone. Pain has become pleasure. She presses the stud again and her breath comes out in a long satisfying growl, almost an animal sound, consumed and consuming.”

Abbess Madonna Chiara is another strong, outspoken character. As lead administrator of the convent, she holds a position of tremendous power and authority for a woman of her time, the sole negotiator with the outside world. Within the convent, conflicts and a challenge to her authority arise in the form of Suora Umiliana and her acolytes, striving for ever more piety and privation. Both Zuana and Serafina are cast in the middle of this tug-of-war, with far-reaching consequences that result in a most satisfying story conclusion.

Dunant refrains, wisely, from applying 21st century sensibilities to these characters and their personal definitions of sanctuary and happiness. Sometimes this felt a little claustrophobic to me—as did the thought of living my days out in a convent, being woken at 2am for the first of eight daily prayer sessions in a chilly, dark chapel. Perhaps I identified too closely with Serafina, trapped in this smaller world, craving the other one, suffocated by the odds of finding freedom. Yet this was a very real order of existence for a great deal of Renaissance women. And Dunant, as she does so well, has made me see these women of history in a new, unexpected light.

Sacred Hearts is an engrossing, enlightening read, sure to please fans of Dunant’s other Renaissance trilogy novels, and earn her some new readers as well.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 153 readers
PUBLISHER:	Random House Trade Paperbacks (April 13, 2010)
REVIEWER:	Terez Rose
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Sarah Dunant
EXTRAS:	Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: In the Company of the Courtesan

Bibliography:

• Snow Storms in a Hot Climate (1988)
• Transgressions (1997)
• Mapping the Edge (1999)

Renaissance novels:

• The Birth of Venus (2003)
• In the Company of the Courtesan (2006)
• Sacred Hearts (2009)
• Blood and Beauty: The Borgias (July 2013)

Hannah Wolf Crime Novels:

• Birth Marks (1991)
• Fatlands (1993)
• Under My Skin (1995)

With Peter Busby, writing as Peter Dunant:

• Exterminating Angels (1983)
• Intensive Care (1986)

“The fate of peoples is made like this, two men in small rooms. Forget the coronations, the conclaves of cardinals, the pomp and processions. This is how the world changes: a counter pushed across a table, a pen stroke that alters the force of a phrase, a woman’s sigh as she passes and leaves on the air a trail of orange flower or rose water; her hand pulling close the bed curtain, the discreet sigh of flesh against flesh. The king – lord of generalities – must learn now to labor over detail, led on by intelligent greed. As his prudent father’s son, he knows the families of England and what they have. He has registered their holdings in his head, down to the last watercourse and copse. Now the church’s assets are to come under his control, he needs to know their worth. The law of who owns what – the law generally – has accreted a parasitic complexity: it is like a barnacled hull, a roof slimy with moss. But there are lawyers enough, and how much ability does it require, to scrape away as you are directed. Englishmen may be superstitious, they may be afraid of the future, they may not know what England is; but the skills of adding and subtraction are not scarce. Westminster has a thousand scratching pens, but Henry will need, he thinks, new men, new structure, new thinking. Meanwhile, he, Cromwell, puts his commissioners on the road. ‘Valor ecclesiasticus.’ I will do it in six months, he says. Such an exercise has never been attempted before, it is true, but he has already done much that that no one else ever dreamed of.”

Book Review:

Review by Jana L. Perskie (NOV 23, 2009)

Ever since I can remember, I have been fascinated by English history, especially the period from the Wars of Roses to the English Reformation. Even the best of Hollywood cannot top this era for action, adventure, romance, intrigue and violence.

Please forgive the brief history lesson which follows, but Wolf Hall assumes a deep knowledge of English history that most people – except for those well schooled in English history – lack. I hope to be helpful in summarizing the background of this exceptional work of historical fiction.

The Wars of the Roses, were a series of dynastic civil wars between the rival houses of Lancaster, (the Tudors), and York, (the Plantagenets), for the throne of England. The Lancastrian symbol was the red rose – the Plantagenet’s, the white. The war ended with the victory of the Lancastrian Henry Tudor, King Henry VII, who founded the House of Tudor. His marriage to Elizabeth Plantagenet, (the white rose), and the eldest daughter of King Edward IV, penultimate king of the house of York, cemented the joining of the two houses. The third child of their political union was called Henry, who was to become King Henry VIII. That’s the background information for the setting of Hilary Mantel’s Man Booker Prize winning novel, Wolf Hall.

The time is 16th century Tudor England, (1527 to 1535), under the reign of King Henry VIII, at the beginning of the English Reformation. The Reformation was brought about by a series of events initiated when the Church of England first broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church. These events were, in part, associated with the wider process of the European Protestant Reformation, a religious and political movement which affected the practice of Christianity across most of Europe. Many factors contributed to the process: primarily the invention of Johann Gutenberg’s printing press – a device which would change the world.

The demand for books became huge as Europe began to come out of the medieval era into the Renaissance. This hunger for knowledge increased dramatically once the Printing Press was invented – knowledge and ideas that were not easily obtainable before, suddenly became accessible. As people became more prosperous and literate, those who could read Latin were able to read the Bible, and they began to rethink their faith in the Catholic Church. The Printing Press meant that people, like Martin Luther, could spread their word quickly and easily, resulting in the Reformation and other changes. By the year 1480 its impact was immediate among the literate classes. However, once the Bible was translated into English, it enabled printed materials to spread rapidly – people could no longer be kept in ignorance and darkness.

Before The Reformation only the clergy could own and interpret the Bible. It was illegal for laypeople to possess the Holy Book in many countries, including England. it was still forbidden to read a Bible if you weren’t a priest. The Church outlawed the printing of the Bible and certainly the sale of the Bible.

The Lollardy Movement in England began to grow. Lollardy was the political and religious movement of the Lollards from the mid-14th century to the English Reformation. The term Lollards refers to the followers of John Wycliffe, a prominent theologian who was dismissed from University of Oxford in 1381 for criticism of the traditional church, especially his doctrine on the Eucharist. Its demands were primarily for reform of Western Christianity. Lollards were persecuted in England as were the Jews and “false” converts in Spain during the Inquisition.

The above subjects are the heart of Wolf Hall‘s narrative.

I think the novel, including warts and flaws, is certainly worthy of the Booker Prize, although I have not read the short list. You might be disappointed if you are expecting the book to resemble the works of Philippa Gregory or Jean Plaidy, (and I am a huge fan of both writers), or to echo the themes of films like “Anne of a Thousand Days,” “A Man for All Seasons,” or the HBO Tudor mini series, (all terrific films). Wolf Hall is definitely NOT “historical fiction lite!”  From seemingly timeworn material, a fresh and finely wrought work has been written. It portrays an extraordinary portrait of a society in the throes of change, with Henry VIII at its helm and Thomas Cromwell as first mate….or perhaps, visa versa!! But make no mistake, this is not a novel of romance, nor obvious drama with great tension which builds toward an exciting climax.

Our protagonist is Thomas Cromwell, a man from extremely humble beginnings. The son of an abusive Putney blacksmith, Cromwell rises through life to become the chief minister of King Henry VIII. Intelligent and shrewd to begin with, he learned his street smarts after he ran away from home in his early adolescence, and survived by his wits alone. He spent years as a mercenary in France. Then he worked with bankers in Florence. He plied a trade for a time as a clothier, and then as a lawyer. Cromwell’s introduction to the life of the rich and powerful elite begins with his relationship with Cardinal Wolsey. Wolsey is a compelling and commanding figure – an English statesman and Cardinal of the Catholic Church. His eventual fall from such heady heights is due to his inability to provide Henry VIII with a Church-sanctioned divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Ironically, Wolsey’s fall from grace causes Cromwells fortune to rise.

The novel is told entirely from Cromwell’s point of view. Nothing important occurs unless he is either a witness or otherwise made aware of the circumstances.

In the 1520s England is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by another civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his twenty year marriage to Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn. Cromwell realizes that Henry, would remain Catholic if the Pope would just give him what he wants, a dispensation to marry Anne. But the Pope and most of Europe oppose him. Cromwell knows that the King can only be led to the Reformation through his desire for Anne Boleyn.

In many Tudor history accounts, Cromwell is disparaged, but here the author gives him a human face. He is constantly busy arranging all things to please “His Majesty,” even willing to give his life to win the king’s favor. Frequently, however, he labors to suit himself and his own desire for reform. He is a family man, yes – but he is also secretive, a bully and a charmer, both idealist and opportunistic, tireless, astute in reading people, and a consummate ambitious politician. He is a reformer but not a zealot. Cromwell helps Henry VIII with “The King’s Great Matter” – to break the opposition and, ultimately, make Henry the head of the Church of England and husband of Anne Boleyn. It is through Cromwell’s eyes that the reader watches the Tudor world unfold.

Wolf Hall is a most complex, deftly written, original novel – but it is long – over 500 pages – and it is certainly not a fast read. This is a book, both vivid and real, which should be read slowly and savored. It doesn’t deal with Henry’s romantic inclinations and indulgences, glamorous fetes and progresses, etc. It doesn’t even touch on Anne Boleyn’s beheading. The main theme here is how to obtain power and wield it. There is little heroism or idealism here.

“Listening to a disgruntled earl pontificate about ‘ancient rights,’ Cromwell wonders how he can explain real life to this clueless nobleman. ‘The world is not run from where he thinks. Not from his border fortresses, not even from Whitehall. The world is run from Antwerp, from Florence, from places he has never imagined . . . not from castle walls, but from countinghouses, not by the call of a bugle but by the click of the abacus.'”

Most surprising is Hilary Mantel’s revisionary take on such figures as Thomas Moore, usually viewed as a great scholar, Renaissance humanist, a violent opponent of the Reformation of Martin Luther, and a government official. For three years, toward the end of his life, he was Lord Chancellor. According to most accounts, Moore was a kind and sympathetic man, faithful to his family, his king and the Church. The author’s version of Moore, who was beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1886, and canonized on May 19, 1935, by Pope Pius XI, is one of a man obsessed with his religion, who wears hair shirts, flagellates himself, makes fun of his wife, has a nasty temperament, and delights in torturing anyone suspected of Lollardy. Those imprisoned in London’s tower fear his competence with the use of the rack and other such devices. And he delights in seeing “heretics” burn at the stake.

Other characters brought to life on the pages, include: Henry VIII and Thomas Cranmer.  Thomas Cranmer is a leader of the English Reformation who helps build a favorable case for Henry’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon, which results in the separation of the English Church from a union with the Holy See. Along with Thomas Cromwell, Cranmer supports the principle of Royal Supremacy, in which the king is considered sovereign over the Church within his realm. Those in secondary roles include Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk and Anne Boleyn’s uncle; Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk and husband to King Henry’s sister Mary; Anne Boleyn, (who is not a prominent figure here – she is just a prop in a much larger story); Mary Boleyn, (“The Other Boleyn Girl”), the French ambassador, and many more people, famous or otherwise.

What really bothers me about the narrative is that the author uses the pronoun “he” much too frequently but fails to mention the subject first. Therefore I found myself reading a page or two before discovering who “he” is. This is really disconcerting and takes away from the smooth flow of the prose and storyline. Otherwise, the writing, in the present tense, is excellent and often witty.

Honestly, I have no idea why the title is Wolf Hall, which is the seat of the Seymore clan. The name only appears once or twice in the book and is never visited. Jane Seymour, daughter of “Wolf Hall,” was Henry VIII’s 3rd wife who finally bore the man a legitimate son. I could postulate on the symbolism of the title…but in the end, I just advise English history lovers – all historical fiction fans – to grab a copy of Wolf Hall. It is well worth the time it takes to read it.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 1,362 readers
PUBLISHER:	Henry Holt and Co. (October 13, 2009)
REVIEWER:	Jana L. Perskie
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Wikipedia page on  Hilary Mantel
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	More historical fiction: The Justification of Johann Gutenberg by Black Morrison Portrait of an Unknown Woman by Vanora Bennett Dark Fire by C.J. Sansom Havoc, in Its Third Year by Ronan Bennett Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson

Bibliography:

• Every Day is Mother’s Day 1985)
• Vacant Possession (1986)
• Eight Months on Gahzzah Street 1988)
• Fludd (1989)
• A Place of Greater Safety (1992)
• A Change of Climate (1994)
• An Experiment in Love (1995)
• The Giant, O’Brien (1998)
• Learning to Talk (Short Stories) (2003)
• Beyond Black (2005)

John Macrae books:

• Wolf Hall (2009) 
• Bring Up the Bodies (2012)
• The Mirror and the Light

Nonfiction:

• Giving Up the Ghost: A Memoir (2003)

“We are in a mad and furious world, Matthew. Mundus furiosis  Each side railing against the other, preaching full of rage and hatred.  The radicals foretelling the end of the world.  To the conversion of some and the confusion of many.”

Book Review:

Reviewed by Eleanor Bukowsky (APR 16, 2009)

C. J. Sansom’s Revelation takes place in 1543, a tumultuous year in English history. Religious fanaticism is on the rise among Protestants and Catholics alike; Henry VIII, who is ailing, has been urging Lady Catherine Parr to become his sixth wife, but she is reluctant to accept his proposal; the chasm between rich and poor is huge, with filthy, starving, and often mentally ill beggars crowding the thoroughfares. The homeless are everywhere, and “most people simply looked away, made the sufferers invisible.” The sick often die in the streets, since there is no hospital care for the destitute.

In this, the fourth installment in Sansom’s splendid series, the narrator, forty-year old lawyer Matthew Shardlake, seems to have finally found peace of mind. Although he has a humpback that still attracts stares and the occasional taunt, Matthew has secured a good position as one of two barristers appointed to plead before the Court of Requests. He enjoys his work and makes enough money to pay a housekeeper, eat well, and dress in fine robes. Although he has no wife, he does have many loyal friends whom he values. Unfortunately, trouble is brewing, and Matthew’s equanimity is about to be shattered.

One of Shardlake’s closest friends is found brutally slaughtered in a public place. Since the victim had no enemies, the killing appears to be a random act of violence. Soon, however, the authorities discover that there have been other similar crimes. Matthew joins forces with Archbishop Cranmer and his inner circle to identify and apprehend a serial killer who uses the book of Revelation as a blueprint for torturing and murdering his victims. Adding to Matthew’s worries, he has a new and troubling client, Adam Kite, a seventeen-year-old who prays obsessively, rails loudly “with strange moans and shrieks” in public, and has been placed in Bedlam, the infamous asylum, on the Privy Council’s orders. Shardlake is also concerned about his loyal assistant, Jack Barak. Jack married the lovely Tamasin and all seemed well until they lost their baby at birth. Since then, the couple has been quarreling incessantly, and Barak spends more time at the pubs than he does with his lonely and depressed wife.

Sansom has immersed himself in the geography, sociology, culture, politics, and theology of London in the sixteenth century and his writing is the richer for it. Revelation is more than five hundred pages long, and the story unfolds gradually; but the patient reader will be compensated for his perseverance. Matthew Shardlake is a marvelous and original creation. Although he is not handsome or physically powerful, he has keen intelligence, insight, compassion, loyalty, and great inner strength. He repeatedly puts himself at risk to track a madman who is as clever as he is sadistic. Another appealing character is Matthew’s close friend, Dr. Guy Malton, an excellent physician who uses his knowledge of medicines, herbs, and human anatomy to alleviate his patients’ suffering. Matthew would be lost without Guy’s able assistance. The secondary characters are, as usual, beautifully portrayed, including Ellen, an agoraphobic who, while confined to Bedlam, takes care of her fellow inmates; Dorothy Elliard, a sweet-natured and attractive woman whom Matthew has loved for years; Archbishop Cranmer, a commanding figure who must weigh his actions carefully, lest he find himself incurring the King’s displeasure; and Piers, Guy’s apprentice and protégé, a bright and calculating boy whom Matthew distrusts.

Revelation is a well-researched and complex novel that brings an unsettled era in London to brilliant life; it is a suspenseful and exciting murder mystery with an explosive ending; and it is an unflinching look at the evils of racial, religious, and class prejudice. The plot may be too busy for those who like their books lean, but the author balances his many subplots and large cast with Dickensian flair. With its lively dialogue, evocative setting, detailed descriptive passages, and engrossing themes,Revelation is a rich and rewarding work of historical fiction that shows why C. J. Sansom has garnered such a devoted following.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 49  reviewers
PUBLISHER:	Viking Adult (February 2009)
REVIEWER:	Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Wkipedia page on C.J. Sansom
EXTRAS:	none
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: Dark Winter

Bibliography:

Mathew Shardlake, hunchback lawyer, 16th Century:

• Dissolution (2003)
• Dark Fire (2004; January 2005 in US)
• Sovereign (February 2007)
• Revelation (February 2009)
• Heartstone (January 2011 in US)

Standalone:

• Winter in Madrid (January 2008)