Reviews with content warning for Death - The Mirror & the Light

Wow. What an ideal book for me: emotional, powerful, and soul-cracking.

This is a spectacular trilogy. I found this the most powerful book in the series, and a worthy culmination of Thomas Cromwell, the blacksmith’s son turned king’s councilor. I’ve noticed some reviewers struggled with the pacing here, but to me this one bites harder than the first two books. And yet you need those first two, of course; they churn with the energy of a clever, cunning man’s rise to influence and wealth as the king’s fixer. There’s a similar, but dreadful reversing energy to his downfall.

What incredible luck that I saw/read Richard III right before this, as the period of history it deals with comes right before Henry VIII and informs many royal choices here. I never had a deeper understanding of Henry VIII, and this gives such amazing depths to his motivations, from his early worries about producing a male heir to his eventual transformation into a tyrant in this book. He becomes every bit the self-obsessed, vain, mercurial, and monstrous despot here he’s generally notorious for, but it was a wonderfully plotted descent through this trilogy. As always, I love that Mantel refuses to make Henry the main character, as much as he would demand to be. The prose is third person, but Cromwell is almost exclusively referred to as simply “he”, and unnamed.

This is such a packed story, and about so much more than Henry, even as he sucks the air from a room and the marrow from his chosen servants. It’s such a great grounding in the context of that period: the role of women, the political field in medieval Europe, work and class in a rigid aristocracy, and RELIGION. Cromwell was part of the early reform of a Christian Europe, trying to bring reform and greater equality to a nation under Catholicism at its most indulgent and corrupt.

I clearly can’t say enough good things about this series or this particular book. Thomas Cromwell as a character is so complex; you feel for him as he comes to his end, even though it’s through a trap he’s set for countless others before him. He’s not innocent or a hero, but he’s deeply empathetic and driven (only in part, truthfully) by worthy moral principle. This passage sums it up best, I think:

‘Henry believes—but I do not know how he can believe it—that you meant to wed [his daughter Mary] and then thrust him aside and become king yourself.’
‘That is ludicrous. How could he think that? How could I? How could I even imagine it? Where is my army?’
Rafe shrugs. ‘He is frightened of you, sir. You have outgrown him. You have gone beyond what any servant or subject should be.’
It is the cardinal over again, he thinks. Wolsey was broken not for his failures, but for his successes; not for any error, but for grievance stored up, about how great he had become.

Content Warnings

ainereads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

gwynsvan's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative reflective sad slow-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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caidyn's review against another edition

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reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.0

What a satisfying ending to this series.

Were there historical inaccuracies and liberties taken? Sure. Jane Rochford likely wasn't how she was portrayed in this series and there were things that never happened that were included in this. Cromwell also never for sure had an illegitimate child although Mantel talks about rumors that he did have one around the time his family died.

But I found this to be a very satisfying conclusion to this series. I loved reading it and how soothing it was to sink into, even though I knew the conclusion that we were going towards. Cromwell's inevitable demise. I honestly found the last couple chapters so poetic. And that last chapter with the execution? Amazing. It brought tears to my eyes.

All I can say was that there were pros and cons to this novel, but I, overall, found it completely worth it and can't wait to read the books altogether to see the whole character arc without gaps in between.

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