Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel

"Lock Cromwell in a deep dungeon in the morning," says Thomas More, "and when you return in the evening, he will be sitting on soft cushions eating larks' tongues, and all the jailers will owe him money." England in the 1520s is on the brink of disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, civil war could destroy the country.

Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and take Anne Boleyn as his wife. The Pope and most of Europe oppose this. The quest to secure the king's freedom brings about the downfall of his advisor—the brilliantly intelligent Cardinal Wolsey—and leaves England in a power vacuum and a political impasse. Into this deadlock steps Thomas Cromwell—the son of a brutal blacksmith, a political genius, a briber, a tyrant, and a charmer who, in his rise to power, has defied every rule of a rigid society and is preparing to break even more. He rises above personal grief—the loss of his young family and his beloved mentor Wolsey—and skillfully carves out a path in a court where man is a wolf to man. Pitting himself against Parliament, political factions, and papal authority, he is ready to reshape England according to his own will and that of Henry.

In her unique style, Hilary Mantel paints a picture of a society in flux, caught in a whirlwind of change, where people fight passionately and bravely—or resign themselves to their fate. Teeming with characters and packed with incident, *Wolf Hall* conjures up an era when personal and political destinies were separated by a hair’s breadth—a time when success brought limitless power, yet a single misstep meant death.

Hilary Mantel has written eleven books, including *A Place of Greater Safety*, *Giving Up the Ghost*, and the recently published *Beyond Black*, which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize in 2006. *Wolf Hall* won her the Man Booker Prize in 2009.