This is the sequel to Mantel's award-winning novel, Wolf Hall, and continues the story of Thomas Cromwell, "Master Secretary" to Henry VIII. In Wolf Hall Cromwell is the man responsible for unwinding the fetters of Henry's first marriage to Catherine of Aragon, so that he can wed Anne Boleyn.
In this book Henry has tired of Anne and her rapacious family and longs for a new marriage with Jane Seymour, so once more Cromwell must remake the world to Henry's specifications.
What fascinates the reader of this often told tale is the portrait of Thomas Cromwell that emerges. In most of the fiction and nonfiction written about Henry VIII, Thomas Cromwell is a minor character, is a more or less competent schemer lurking in the background who accumulates riches and power by pandering to the King's appetites.
Mantel presents a much more complex and nuanced personality, a man caught between the good ends he hopes to achieve for the kingdom and for his family, and the increasingly sordid means he must adopt to achieve them in the face of a despotic king and a court mired in intrigue and corruption.
A third volume is promised, no doubt continuing the tale with Jane Seymour's brief tenure as the new "queen that is." Well researched, beautifully imagined, and finely written; historical fiction at its best.
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