Despite rebellion at home, traitors plotting abroad and the threat of invasion testing Henry's regime to breaking point, Cromwell's robust imagination sees a new country in the mirror of the future. Cromwell is a man with only his wits to rely on he has no great family to back him, no private army. The blacksmith's son from Putney emerges from the spring's bloodbath to continue his climb to power and wealth, while his formidable master, Henry VIII, settles to short-lived happiness with his third queen, Jane Seymour. As her remains are bundled into oblivion, Thomas Cromwell breakfasts with the victors. Anne Boleyn is dead, decapitated in the space of a heartbeat by a hired French executioner. A Guardian Book of the Year * A Times Book of the Year * A Daily Telegraph Book of the Year 'A masterpiece' Guardian 'It is a book not read, but lived' Telegraph 'Her Cromwell novels are, for my money, the greatest English novels of this century' Observer 'If you cannot speak truth at a beheading, when can you speak it?' England, May 1536. Mantel brings the Tudor court magnificently to life in this dazzling masterpiece of a novel.Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2020 Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2020 The long-awaited sequel to Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, the stunning conclusion to Hilary Mantel's Man Booker Prize-winning Wolf Hall trilogy. The third book traces the final years of Thomas Cromwell, the blacksmith’s son from Putney who rose to become Henry VIII’s feared right-hand man and fixer.

The Mirror and the Light brings to a close the series Mantel began with Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, both of which won the Booker Prize. “This book has been the greatest challenge of my writing life, and the most rewarding I hope and trust my readers will find it has been worth it.” Those were Hilary Mantel’s words before the publication of the third part of her Wolf Hall trilogy and there’s no doubt about it – it was definitely worth it. The final book, The Mirror and the Light, in the ambitious body of work was released to acclaim in 2020.

A fictional account of Thomas Cromwell’s rise to power in the Tudor court of Henry VIII, the Wolf Hall trilogy has sold more than five million copies globally and has been translated into 41 languages.

Wolf hall the mirror and the light