Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel Wolf Hall is the first in the Thomas Cromwell trilogy and my first experience with Hilary Mantel. All I can say is WOW! What a powerhouse of a write! Mantel is a genius. This first book tells the story of Cromwell's rise from a poor, beaten child through his work as an assistant to Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in England, to his rise as King Henry VIII's right hand man. It is the story of a man who changes his life, who raises a family of mutual love, loses most of them, and decides he has nothing to lose, so he uses his intelligence, his ability to read people and to sway them in order to make something of himself. To give his remaining son a better life than he had with all of the possibilities open to the nobility. Along the way Cromwell makes those who thought they were above him worship the ground he walks on and puts them in a servile position. He also takes into his house and employ a collection of outcasts and downtrodden people who, because of h...