Reviews

This is as good as Wolf Hall, but more psychologically brutal. All the characters go through a change of heart, or learn how fragil their existence in the royal court is, specially Cromwell. Who at the beginning is attending the affairs of the church, trying to find traitors and reinstitute monks of the old religion to the new, while scheming the French who want a piece of land from Milan and pretending to help so they don't unify with the Emperor, and other small matters that don't resolve. Meanwhile Henry doesn't want to admit that he's fallen out of love with Anne Boleyn (not being able to give a male heir), which Cromwell and other in confidence with the King knows, and he's looking to put the Seymours in court to gain advantage and have people to trust, having Jane Seymour as suitor for Henry, training her to somewhat manipulate some situations so the King notices her and more, to make it easier to get rid of Anne . All these doings and wants are going at the normal pace everybody is acostum to until Henry has an accident falling off his horse in a jousting tournament, everybody there thinking the King is dead, and in a scene that is intense beyond believe Cromwell sees his doom, the only one protecting him this far is Henry, everybody else hates him and he's told so. Henry waking up and with some days of rummination tells Cromwell to get rid of Anne with any means possible so they can kill her and anulle the marriage inside the jurisprudence of the English court. And Cromwell in this book has some people that he wants to get rid of for having insulted Wosley in a play years ago, and because they're an inconvinience to have around. So he becomes the real life Cromwell for the second half. He coerces, tortures, cheats, gaslights everybody that seems culpable of having had an affair with Anne while she was Queen and before. In real life apparently this is all Cromwell's invention, because, again, he was a monster, even though threre is no solid proof of this happening. But in this book it seems almost as if it all came about.

It is true. To maintain the stability of the realm: this is the compact a king makes with his people. If he cannot have a son of his own, he must find a heir, name him before his country falls into doubt and confusion, faction and conspiracy.

h_berry0410's review against another edition

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informative reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

n_ck's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective medium-paced

5.0

mrorpheus's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

shareen17's review against another edition

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5.0

I liked this even better than the first, probably because this time I was already familiar with the large cast of characters and her unique writing style. The writing is still perfection.

dsuzno's review against another edition

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3.0

It is probably worthy of 4 stars but reading the old style English and sorting through so many characters took away from my enjoyment.

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