Sovereign (The Shardlake series, 3)

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Both marvellously exciting to read and a totally convincing evocation of England in the reign of Henry VIII. * Spectator, Books of the Year * Craig, Amanda (20 August 2006). "Sovereign by C J Sansom". The Independent . Retrieved 13 October 2023.

I have enjoyed C. J. Sansom's series of historical novels set in Tudor England progressively more and more. Sovereign, following Dissolution and Dark Fire, is the best so far . . . Sansom has the perfect mixture of novelistic passion and historical detail. Resumiendo, libro espléndido, quizá lo más flojo es el desarrollo de la intriga, no tiene mucho margen y es bastante previsible, pero es lo suficientemente solvente para mantener las 5 estrellas, porque, vuelvo a repetir, el marco histórico y la ambientación es de 10. Set in the autumn of 1541, the novel describes fictional events surrounding Henry VIII's 'Progress' to the North (a state visit accompanied by the royal court and its attendants, the purpose of which was to accept the formal surrender from those who had rebelled during the Pilgrimage of Grace). Most of the novel is set in York though events in London and on the return journey via Hull are also depicted. I need more stars! How did it take me this long to discover CJ Sansom? I'm not sure, but I am grateful for this book showing up in a local used book store and catching my eye. A group read of Dissolution got me started on this series, and the rest, as they say, is history. There’s more than one kind of mystery at play in this adaptation of CJ Sansom’s historical crime novel. The scene opens not on Matthew Shardlake, Sansom’s lawyer-detective protagonist, but on a centuries-old local theatrical tradition: the York Mystery Plays, performed on wagons by city guildswomen. Until, that is, Henry VIII arrives, putting an end to this much-loved ritual.I was enthralled by Sovereign by C. J. Sansom, a novel combining detection with a brilliant description of Henry VIII's spectacular Progress to the North and its terrifying aftermath. -- P.D. James * Sunday Telegraph Books of the Year * SOVEREIGN, the third book (out of seven) in the Matthew Shardlake Tudor mystery series, is a good read, but the mystery the text centers on is not as strong as the first two in the series. As with its predecessors, author C.J. Sansom take a historical event and weaves a fictional plotline/mystery into events that feels like a plausible explanation for things that really happened. In this text the historical event the mystery is integrated into is Henry VIII’s Great Progress to York in 1541 and the subsequent downfall of Queen Catherine Howard. By the end of the novel, Shardlake has been able to satisfactorily tie up the plot’s many loose ends, with the possible exception of Tamasin. He hasn’t been able to penetrate her character or quite understand her motives. Do you think Tamasin is a potential threat to Barak or Shardlake? Does Shardlake, as Barak claims, simply not understand women? No me gustaría terminar sin destacar la ambientación. Sansom busca con su narración ofrecernos una atmosfera de un York deprimido y en decadencia, lo que unido a la caza de brujas que el rey y sus partidarios llevaban a cabo tras la desvinculación de la iglesia católica, nos hace aproximarnos a la angustia y la incertidumbre que debía de vivir la gente en aquel intrincado momento. Replace Watson with a street-wise, well connected tough guy while deleting all hints of “bromantic tension” between the two;

Not only a great detective novel but also a fabulous insight into the historical happenings of the Tudor period, this book is an absorbing read. * Tesco Magazine * Nominated for the 2003 Crime Writers' Association (CWA) John Creasey Memorial Dagger, for first books by previously unpublished writers. It was also nominated for the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Dagger in the same year. [7]Having said that, this is a thoroughly enjoyable mystery novel, suitably labyrinthine in its plot, as was so typical of the goings-on in the court of Henry VIII. Of course, since this novel touches on the relationship between Henry VIII and Catherine Howard, Sansom had to include a way for Shardlake to meet these two, as well as confront figures like Lady Rochford, Culpepper, Dereham, and of course Sir Richard Rich. The way he does this is ingenious. Sansom’s attention to details of the Progress is nothing short of extraordinary. Compared to the first two books, this one is much darker as you are unsure how Shardlake and Barak will ever get out of their dangerous situations, but that is what makes it so remarkable. Ellen Fettiplace – a woman who came originally from a small town in Sussex, she had been living in Bedlam, a lunatic asylum in London, for nearly two decades The tragedy is that fundamentalism is not interested in the real problems of real people outside the charmed circle of believers, and is frequently quite happy to envisage those outside the circle being brutally destroyed, as is the case with the “End-timers” in modern Protestant fundamentalism. Islamic terrorism goes a (very large) step further, actively destroying people identified as enemies and heretics. Both groups, however, believe that the world is divided between those who have true doctrine and those who do not, and the latter do not matter except so far as some may be converted. That’s my take. The third in the Matthew Shardlake series takes us to York , in the midst of Henry VIII's brutal supression of Northern England known as the Progress.

The King's Progress to the North after the Rebellion. Poor Kitty Howard! Once again, Post- Anne Boleyn Britain and the era of religious reform has an atmosphere eerily similar to our own time. Culture wars, fanatics, opportunists,mad conspiracy theories, dangerous tyrants; The Mouldwarp.I’d rather her than Henry VIII as the British monarch (I’m an Aussie, and we’re still part of the Commonwealth), but I look forward to reading more of Matthew Shardlake’s adventures with that unpredictable, dangerous ruler.

Tercer libro de la saga y aunque ya venía avisado, me ha sorprendido de forma grata saber que mantiene el nivel con respecto al anterior. Cierto es que la quinta estrella es raspada, pero no menos cierto es que lo he disfrutado mucho y se las merece. A. I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t read Ford. I must. The problem with Catherine Howard is that there is very little evidence about her, but my reading is that she was young, highly sexed, and politically naïve. She was a political pawn and her execution was a tragedy.The character of Matthew Shardlake is so skillfully developed that I have to remind myself that he is a fictional character. With his placement as legal council just lowly enough that the reader gets a view of common people and just high enough that he is called upon by Archbishop Cranmer, Shardlake finds himself swept up in intrigue between northern rebels and the tyrannical Henry VIII.