Religion, power, politics, money and sex - key elements of human life - are all on full display in Hilary Mantel's Booker Prize winning novel. With judicious helpings of period detail, she presents an appealing portrait of Thomas Cromwell, the man who managed to free King Henry VIII from the Catholic Church and his first Queen, Katherine of Aragon, allowing Henry to enter into a second marriage to Anne Boleyn.

Whether or not a reader is familiar with the reign and times of Henry VIII, the story itself can be followed effortlessly, aided by the Table of Contents, Cast of Characters and Tudor Family Tree provided. Henry himself appears not only as a king who brought about vast changes in English history but also as a man of his times, influenced by the Renaissance, Martin Luther's Reformation and humanist philosophy, then called The New Learning. Henry's conviction that he must ...