It is always with some trepidation you start a whopping great doorstep of a book. It becomes even harder when you have to wade through a character glossary and family trees. The first thoughts are that this is historical and it has something to do with Henry VIII. Beyond that you try to keep an open mind because you want to come to the book fresh.
The opening chapter does help because it takes you straight into a hideous scene of parental abuse that quite simply is not what you expect. A period drama done in the style of Scum. But once you get past that it seems t be about developing the character of Tom Cromwell jumping ahead by a couple of decades to take him into a position of influence in the world alongside Henry’s court.
But what goes up can come down and it appears as you get 50 or so pages in that Cromwell is about to lose some of his position as his mentor Cardinal Wolsey gets on the wrong side of the King.
More to come in a bit…
