RaveThe Los Angeles TimesMantel's version of these events is far more subtle and intricate than anything imagined by the writers of The Tudors. She is at her best when turning her penetrating novelistic gaze to history … Mantel's abilities to channel the life and lexicon of the past are nothing short of astonishing. She burrows down through the historical record to uncover the tiniest, most telling details, evoking the minutiae of history as vividly as its grand sweep. The dialogue is so convincing that she seems to have been, in another life, a stenographer taking notes in the taverns and palaces of Tudor England.
