A very interesting book. At first I didn't like it much, maybe because I read it in a Portuguese translation, and I'm growing to dislike translations, they seem so faulty, I sometimes wonder if translations were better when I was young or if it's just I'm more aware of the faults since I got used to read in English. But then it grew on me as the plot unfold, and I came to like it very much. I like History and historical novels, and the Tudor period is very interesting. I particularly liked the way the Author conveyed great historical changes in a progressive, almost imperceptible way, like things do happen in reality - in this case, the ascension of Cromwell to power and the separation from Rome. I still find it a little hard to understand the long time it took for Henry VIII to have Anne Boleyn - how did he wait
years to take her to bed? Historical mysteries, I guess. I'm looking forward to read
Bring Up the Bodies, and I think I'll read it in English, then I'll have a notion of how Mantel's writing is really like.
