The many listeners enthralled by the earlier two volumes in Hilary
Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy will find all their expectations met in this
final installment... Here is a narrative achievement of the highest
order. -- AudioFile Magazine, Earphones Award winner
*This program is read by Ben Miles, who played Thomas Cromwell in the
Royal Shakespeare Company adaptation of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the
Bodies
*
*This program includes a bonus conversation between Ben Miles and
Hilary Mantel*
"If you cannot speak truth at a beheading, when can you speak it?"
With The Mirror & the Light, Hilary Mantel brings to a triumphant
close the trilogy she began with her peerless, Booker Prize-winning
novels, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. She traces the final
years of Thomas Cromwell, the boy from nowhere who climbs to the heights
of power, offering a defining portrait of predator and prey, of a
ferocious contest between present and past, between royal will and a
common man's vision: of a modern nation making itself through conflict,
passion and courage.
The story begins in May 1536: Anne Boleyn is dead, decapitated in the
space of a heartbeat by a hired French executioner. As her remains are
bundled into oblivion, Cromwell breakfasts with the victors. The
blacksmith's son from Putney emerges from the spring's bloodbath to
continue his climb to power and wealth, while his formidable master,
Henry VIII, settles to short-lived happiness with his third queen, Jane
Seymour.
Cromwell, a man with only his wits to rely on, has no great family to
back him, no private army. Despite rebellion at home, traitors plotting
abroad and the threat of invasion testing Henry's regime to the breaking
point, Cromwell's robust imagination sees a new country in the mirror of
the future. All of England lies at his feet, ripe for innovation and
religious reform. But as fortune's wheel turns, Cromwell's enemies are
gathering in the shadows. The inevitable question remains: how long can
anyone survive under Henry's cruel and capricious gaze?
Eagerly awaited and eight years in the making, The Mirror & the Light
completes Cromwell's journey from self-made man to one of the most
feared, influential figures of his time. Portrayed by Mantel with pathos
and terrific energy, Cromwell is as complex as he is unforgettable: a
politician and a fixer, a husband and a father, a man who both defied
and defined his age.
A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt and Company
Miles' familiarity with Mantel's portrayal of Cromwell pervades his
performance of The Mirror & the Light, which traces Cromwell's fall from
greatness, beginning with the aftermath of Anne Boleyn's beheading and
ending with his own.Miles' voice carries the power-hungry statesman's
monumental final act with ease and a delicate nuance, as only someone
with a deep understanding of the story could. - BookPage
Ben Miles -- Group Captain Peter Townsend in "The Crown" -- has, in
addition to narrating this final volume, taken on the massive task of
delivering "Wolf Hall" and "Bring up the Bodies," as well. He also
played Cromwell in the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of "Wolf
Hall Parts One & Two," and captures again the man's voice, its taint of
baseness, its ups and downs and quiet ruthlessness. -- Washington Post
