Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel

Paperback: 407 pages
Genre: Historical fiction
Publisher: Henry Holt USA 2012
Source: Advance Readers Edition from Marketing and Promotions Manager in exchange for an unbiased review.
First Sentences: His children are falling from the sky. He watches from horseback, acres of England stretching behind him; they drop, gilt-winged, each with a blood filled gaze.
Favourite Quote: 'For once, Jane Seymour has a blush of colour in her cheeks; or perhaps it is reflected from her gown, the soft clear rose of quince jelly.'
Review Quote:  ‘Picks up the body parts where “Wolf Hall” left off … literary invention does not fail her: she's as deft and verbally adroit as ever’ Margaret Atwood, Guardian
My Opinion: It may be fiercer but I enjoyed it even more.

An important update I read about today is that Wolf Hall/ Bring Up the Bodies is to be made into a television drama. Read the article here

If you read my review of Wolf Hall you will already know that while I eventually found it engrossing it took me awhile to get into, it was not the case this time as I was immersed from page one. Hilary Mantel's chronicle of one of the most well known periods in English history is meticulously researched as is shown in the tremendous attention to details. Tudor England comes alive on the page, the places, the people, as her enthralling writing works its magic on this sad tale.

The story picks up where Wolf Hall finishes, having followed Cromwell rise from his humble beginnings to becoming the right hand man of Henry VIII and concerning his divorce from Katherine of Aragon and the fall of Thomas More. 'Bring Up The Bodies' the second in the trilogy covers a much shorter time period, just about nine months in fact from the autumn of 1535 to the following summer. Henry is tiring of Anne and Katherine is seriously ill, dying in isolation. The action is much fiercer and intense as England struggles with the politics and conspiracies that seem to surround the Tudor court, making it an unhappy and sinister place. His subjects do not like the thought of more change and are still hoping that Anne may produce an heir to the throne. In contrast to the court Cromwell's home life is depicted as a very happy and settled one.

Most of us know what happened in those final weeks of Anne Boleyn's life but it is none the less an enthralling telling of the tale, incredibly sad as none of her plans to save her marriage seem to be working. Her husband is bitter that she has failed to produce a son and she knows that he is considering Jane Seymour  as her replacement. She must have known what her fate was to be, but right to the end she seems to have faith that she will win Henry round, to what I am not sure.

The fall of the House of Boleyn as seen through the eyes of Thomas Cromwell, the man we learnt at school was Henry VIII's hatchet man, is seen as much more human than one would have ever expected. It may not be true of course, this is fiction after all, but it is history approached from an angle that is refreshingly different. For this reason alone I am very much looking forward to the final part of the trilogy to see where Hilary Mantel takes the character of Thomas Cromwell next.

Macmillan Audio sent me this link to an Audio Clip Bring Up The Bodies Audio Clip which may tempt you.


Hilary Mantel discusses 'Bring Up The Bodies' - Courtesy of YouTube

Author Profile

Hilary Mantel was born in Glossop, Derbyshire, England on 6 July 1952. She studied Law at the London School of Economics and Sheffield University. She was employed as a social worker, and lived in Botswana for five years, followed by four years in Saudi Arabia, before returning to Britain in the mid-1980s, where she still lives. In 1987 she was awarded the Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize for an article about Jeddah, and she was film critic for The Spectator from 1987 to 1991.  She is the author of nine previous novels, including A Change of Climate, A Place of Greater Safety, and Eight Months on Ghazzah Street. She has also written a memoir, Giving Up the Ghost. Winner of the Hawthornden Prize, she reviews for The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, and the London Review of Books.  Wolf Hall (2009) won the 2009 Man Booker Prize for Fiction, the sequel to which Bring Up The Bodies was published in May 2012.

Photo and Biographical Information is with thanks to the following sites. 

Goodreads Author Profile  
 Hilary Mantel -Wikipedia
 Amazon AuthorProfile 

 YouTube - Hilary Mantel - Bring Up The Bodies

If you would like to know more about the woman behind the writing, I recommend you check out this interesting interview published in her local paper earlier this year, The Globe and Mail

        Linking today with Literary Friday