The Mirror & the Light
A Novel
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $37.49
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Ben Miles
-
By:
-
Hilary Mantel
About this listen
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.
The Telegraph (UK) Best Books of the Year - 2020
Minneapolis Star Tribune Holiday Book Recommendations - 2020
Time Magazine Best Books of the Year - 2020
An NPR Best Book of the Year - 2020
The Guardian (UK) Best Books of the Year - 2020
USA Today Best Books of the Year - 2020
The Times Literary Supplement Books of the Year - 2020
Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year - 2020
Man Booker Award - Nominee
New York Times Book Review Notable Books of the Year - 2020
A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt and Company
"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)
"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)
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2019 Hilary Mantel (P)2019 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
Wolf Hall
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Simon Slater
- Length: 24 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII's court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king's favor and ascend to the heights of political powerEngland in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn.
-
-
Divorced, beheaded, died...
- By Tim on 09-30-11
By: Hilary Mantel
-
A Place of Greater Safety
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 33 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1789, and three young provincials have come to Paris to make their way. Georges-Jacques Danton, an ambitious young lawyer, is energetic, pragmatic, debt-ridden - and hugely but erotically ugly. Maximilien Robespierre, also a lawyer, is slight, diligent, and terrified of violence. His dearest friend, Camille Desmoulins, is a conspirator and pamphleteer of genius. A charming gadfly, erratic and untrustworthy, bisexual and beautiful, Camille is obsessed by one woman and engaged to marry another, her daughter.
-
-
Disaster
- By Frank Dudley Berry Jr. on 08-01-13
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Thomas Cromwell
- The Untold Story of Henry VIII's Most Faithful Servant
- By: Tracy Borman
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 14 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thomas Cromwell has long been reviled as a Machiavellian schemer who stopped at nothing in his quest for power. As Henry VIII's right-hand man, Cromwell was the architect of the English Reformation, secured Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon and plotted the downfall of Anne Boleyn, and upon his arrest, was accused of trying to usurp the King himself. But here Tracy Borman reveals a different side of one of the most notorious figures in history.
-
-
narration is very well done & book is quite good
- By horoscopy on 02-18-15
By: Tracy Borman
-
The Princes in the Tower
- Solving History's Greatest Cold Case
- By: Philippa Langley
- Narrated by: Philippa Langley
- Length: 16 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Philippa Langley reveals the findings of a remarkable new research initiative: ‘The Missing Princes Project'. In the summer of 1483, Edward V (aged 12) and his brother Richard Duke of York (aged 9), disappeared from the Tower of London. For over 500 years, history has judged that they were murdered on the orders of their uncle Richard III. Following years of intensive research in UK, American and European archives, astonishing new archival discoveries have been uncovered that change what we know about the fate of the Princes in the Tower.
-
-
Narrator
- By The Rev. Craig on 12-07-23
By: Philippa Langley
-
The Iliad & The Odyssey
- By: Homer
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 28 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Little is known about the Ancient Greek oral poet Homer, the supposed 8th century BC author of the world-read Iliad and his later masterpiece, The Odyssey. These classic epics provided the basis for Greek education and culture throughout the classical age and formed the backbone of humane education through the birth of the Roman Empire and the spread of Christianity.
-
-
Worth the price, worth the time
- By Sam on 12-31-04
By: Homer
-
Henry VIII: King and Court
- By: Alison Weir
- Narrated by: Phyllida Nash
- Length: 25 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This magnificent biography of Henry VIII is set against the cultural, social and political background of his court - the most spectacular court ever seen in England - and the splendour of his many sumptuous palaces. An entertaining narrative packed with colourful description and a wealth of anecdotal evidence, but also a comprehensive analytical study of the development of both monarch and court during a crucial period in English history.
-
-
A concise focus with tremendous detail
- By kwdayboise (Kim Day) on 05-24-17
By: Alison Weir
-
Wolf Hall
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Simon Slater
- Length: 24 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII's court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king's favor and ascend to the heights of political powerEngland in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn.
-
-
Divorced, beheaded, died...
- By Tim on 09-30-11
By: Hilary Mantel
-
A Place of Greater Safety
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 33 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1789, and three young provincials have come to Paris to make their way. Georges-Jacques Danton, an ambitious young lawyer, is energetic, pragmatic, debt-ridden - and hugely but erotically ugly. Maximilien Robespierre, also a lawyer, is slight, diligent, and terrified of violence. His dearest friend, Camille Desmoulins, is a conspirator and pamphleteer of genius. A charming gadfly, erratic and untrustworthy, bisexual and beautiful, Camille is obsessed by one woman and engaged to marry another, her daughter.
-
-
Disaster
- By Frank Dudley Berry Jr. on 08-01-13
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Thomas Cromwell
- The Untold Story of Henry VIII's Most Faithful Servant
- By: Tracy Borman
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 14 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thomas Cromwell has long been reviled as a Machiavellian schemer who stopped at nothing in his quest for power. As Henry VIII's right-hand man, Cromwell was the architect of the English Reformation, secured Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon and plotted the downfall of Anne Boleyn, and upon his arrest, was accused of trying to usurp the King himself. But here Tracy Borman reveals a different side of one of the most notorious figures in history.
-
-
narration is very well done & book is quite good
- By horoscopy on 02-18-15
By: Tracy Borman
-
The Princes in the Tower
- Solving History's Greatest Cold Case
- By: Philippa Langley
- Narrated by: Philippa Langley
- Length: 16 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Philippa Langley reveals the findings of a remarkable new research initiative: ‘The Missing Princes Project'. In the summer of 1483, Edward V (aged 12) and his brother Richard Duke of York (aged 9), disappeared from the Tower of London. For over 500 years, history has judged that they were murdered on the orders of their uncle Richard III. Following years of intensive research in UK, American and European archives, astonishing new archival discoveries have been uncovered that change what we know about the fate of the Princes in the Tower.
-
-
Narrator
- By The Rev. Craig on 12-07-23
By: Philippa Langley
-
The Iliad & The Odyssey
- By: Homer
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 28 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Little is known about the Ancient Greek oral poet Homer, the supposed 8th century BC author of the world-read Iliad and his later masterpiece, The Odyssey. These classic epics provided the basis for Greek education and culture throughout the classical age and formed the backbone of humane education through the birth of the Roman Empire and the spread of Christianity.
-
-
Worth the price, worth the time
- By Sam on 12-31-04
By: Homer
-
Henry VIII: King and Court
- By: Alison Weir
- Narrated by: Phyllida Nash
- Length: 25 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This magnificent biography of Henry VIII is set against the cultural, social and political background of his court - the most spectacular court ever seen in England - and the splendour of his many sumptuous palaces. An entertaining narrative packed with colourful description and a wealth of anecdotal evidence, but also a comprehensive analytical study of the development of both monarch and court during a crucial period in English history.
-
-
A concise focus with tremendous detail
- By kwdayboise (Kim Day) on 05-24-17
By: Alison Weir
-
The King's Pleasure
- A Novel of Henry VIII
- By: Alison Weir
- Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor
- Length: 23 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The New York Times bestselling author of the Six Tudor Queens series explores the private side of the legendary king Henry VIII and his dramatic and violent reign in this extraordinary historical novel. Young Henry began his rule as a magnificent and chivalrous Renaissance prince who embodied every virtue. He had all the qualities to make a triumph of his rule, yet we remember only the violence. Henry famously broke with the Pope, founding the Church of England and launching a religious revolution that divided his kingdom. He beheaded two of his wives and cast aside two others.
-
-
Love this author
- By Amanda on 06-17-23
By: Alison Weir
-
Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I
- The Mother and Daughter Who Forever Changed British History
- By: Tracy Borman
- Narrated by: Tracy Borman
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Anne Boleyn may be best known for losing her head, but as Tudor expert Tracy Borman reveals in a book that recasts British history, her greatest legacy lies in the path-breaking reign of her daughter, Elizabeth.
-
-
Brimming with Inaccuracies
- By Marie A. on 06-20-23
By: Tracy Borman
-
The Autobiography of Henry VIII
- By: Margaret George
- Narrated by: David Case
- Length: 41 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Margaret George's novel brings into focus the larger-than-life King Henry VIII, monarch of prodigious appetites for wine, women, and song.
-
-
Perfection!
- By Amy M. Walts on 10-20-07
By: Margaret George
-
Henry VIII: Wolfman
- A Novel
- By: A.E. Moorat
- Narrated by: John McLain
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Five hundred years ago Henry VIII had a fearsome temper and bloodthirsty reputation to match; more beast than human, some might say. . .Henry the Eighth was the bloodiest king ever to have sat on the throne of England. This fast-paced, exciting, inventive, and just plain bloody retelling of his reign will bring to light the real man behind the myth. Be dragged back kicking and screaming five hundred years into Tudor England.
-
-
a werewolf book without romance.
- By Rikke on 01-28-15
By: A.E. Moorat
-
The Marriage Portrait
- A Novel
- By: Maggie O'Farrell
- Narrated by: Genevieve Gaunt, Maggie O'Farrell
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Florence, the 1550s. Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke, is comfortable with her obscure place in the palazzo: free to wonder at its treasures, observe its clandestine workings, and to devote herself to her own artistic pursuits. But when her older sister dies on the eve of her wedding, Lucrezia is thrust into the limelight: the duke is quick to request her hand in marriage, and her father just as quick to accept on her behalf. Having barely left girlhood behind, Lucrezia must make her way in a court whose customs are opaque and where her arrival is not universally welcomed.
-
-
If You Love Alternate Histories, Get This
- By Jim on 09-26-22
By: Maggie O'Farrell
-
Essex Dogs
- A Novel
- By: Dan Jones
- Narrated by: Ben Miles
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
July 1346. Ten men land on the beaches of Normandy. They call themselves the Essex Dogs: an unruly platoon of archers and men-at-arms led by a battle-scarred captain whose best days are behind him. The fight for the throne of the largest kingdom in Western Europe has begun. Heading ever deeper into enemy territory toward Crécy, this band of brothers knows they are off to fight a battle that will forge nations, and shape the very fabric of human lives. But first they must survive a bloody war in which rules are abandoned and chivalry itself is slaughtered.
-
-
Mixed feelings, but a wonderful first!
- By Matthew K. on 03-17-23
By: Dan Jones
-
Hunting the Falcon
- Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and the Marriage That Shook Europe
- By: John Guy, Julia Fox
- Narrated by: Stephanie Racine
- Length: 17 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hunting the Falcon is the story of how Henry VIII’s obsessive desire for Anne Boleyn changed him and his country forever. John Guy and Julia Fox, two of the most acclaimed and distinguished historians of this period, have joined forces to present Anne and Henry in startlingly new ways.
-
-
Superb book and superb narration!
- By Buffy Martin Tarbox on 11-01-23
By: John Guy, and others
-
The Lady of the Rivers
- By: Philippa Gregory
- Narrated by: Bianca Amato
- Length: 19 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jacquetta always has had the gift of second sight. As a child visiting her uncle, she met his prisoner, Joan of Arc, and saw her own power reflected in the young woman accused of witchcraft. They share the mystery of the tarot card of the wheel of fortune before Joan is taken to a horrific death. Jacquetta understands the danger for a woman who dares to dream. Jacquetta is married to the Duke of Bedford, English regent of France, and he introduces her to a mysterious world of learning and alchemy.
-
-
Philippa back on track
- By Bonnie-Ann on 11-26-11
By: Philippa Gregory
-
Musashi
- By: Eiji Yoshikawa, Charles S. Terry - translator
- Narrated by: Brian Nishii
- Length: 53 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The classic samurai novel about the real exploits of the most famous swordsman. Miyamoto Musashi becomes a reluctant hero to a host of people whose lives he has touched and by whom he has been touched. Inevitably, he has to pit his skill against the naked blade of his greatest rival.
-
-
Good Historical Novel
- By The Walking Dude on 08-11-19
By: Eiji Yoshikawa, and others
-
One Hundred Years of Solitude
- By: Gabriel García Márquez, Gregory Rabassa - translator
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the 20th century's enduring works, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a widely beloved and acclaimed novel known throughout the world and the ultimate achievement in a Nobel Prize-winning career. The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Rich and brilliant, it is a chronicle of life, death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the beautiful, ridiculous, and tawdry story of the Buendía family, one sees all of humanity, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo, one sees all of Latin America.
-
-
What in the heck happened?????
- By Melinda on 02-05-14
By: Gabriel García Márquez, and others
-
Don Quixote
- Translated by Edith Grossman
- By: Edith Grossman - translator, Miguel de Cervantes
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 39 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sixteenth-century Spanish gentleman Don Quixote, fed by his own delusional fantasies, takes to the road in search of chivalrous adventures. But his quest leads to more trouble than triumph. At once humorous, romantic, and sad, Don Quixote is a literary landmark. This fresh edition, by award-winning translator Edith Grossman, brings the tale to life as never before.
-
-
My Fourth Try at an Audible Quixote
- By James on 12-24-12
By: Edith Grossman - translator, and others
-
Love in the Time of Cholera
- By: Gabriel García Márquez
- Narrated by: Armando Durán
- Length: 15 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the Nobel Prize-winning author of One Hundred Years of Solitude comes a masterly evocation of an unrequited passion so strong that it binds two people's lives together for more than half a century. In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is devastated, but he is a romantic. As he rises in his business career, he whiles away the years in 622 affairs - yet he reserves his heart for Fermina. Her husband dies at last, and Florentino purposefully attends the funeral....
-
-
When love is sick
- By Vira on 09-02-13
Critic reviews
"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)
Featured Article: Best Book Trilogies to Listen to Right Now
Here's why good things come in threes! Everyone knows the famous expression "Three's a crowd!"—but that sentiment doesn't ring true when it comes to books. But what are the best trilogies of all time? With thousands of amazing trilogies out there, it's hard to narrow it down. We’ve compiled some book trilogies that represent the best of the best—and don’t worry about spoilers; we’ve only described the first book of the series in each entry.
Editor's Pick
Every event of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies has new meaning now
"I waited and waited for the final installment of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy about Thomas Cromwell; listeners, it’s here and it’s revelatory. We all know where Cromwell’s life is tending (you can’t "spoil" history), and so wise listeners will keep a hanky within reach. But the combination of Hilary Mantel’s immersion in Tudor England, and Ben Miles’s ability to become Cromwell (as seen in Wolf Hall on Broadway and the West End) is uniquely magical. (Inside baseball: she quoted Ben-Miles-as-Cromwell in the dialogue of the book!) The Mirror and the Light is 40 hours long...and ends too soon." —Christina H., Audible Editor
Related to this topic
-
A Vision of Light
- A Margaret of Ashbury Novel, Book 1
- By: Judith Merkle Riley
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 15 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Margaret of Ashbury wants to write her life story. However, like most women in 14th-century England, she is illiterate. Three clerics contemptuously decline to be Margaret’s scribe, and only the threat of starvation persuades Brother Gregory, a Carthusian friar with a mysterious past, to take on the task. As she narrates her life, we discover a woman of startling resourcefulness.
-
-
Old fashioned heroine
- By Margaret on 06-22-13
-
The Autobiography of Henry VIII
- By: Margaret George
- Narrated by: David Case
- Length: 41 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Margaret George's novel brings into focus the larger-than-life King Henry VIII, monarch of prodigious appetites for wine, women, and song.
-
-
Perfection!
- By Amy M. Walts on 10-20-07
By: Margaret George
-
Cathedral
- By: Ben Hopkins
- Narrated by: Malk Williams, Sophie Roberts
- Length: 19 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A sweeping story about obsession, mysticism, art and earthly desire. At the centre of this story is the Cathedral. Its design and construction in the 13th and 14th centuries in the fictional town of Hagenburg unites a vast array of unforgettable characters whose fortunes are inseparable from the shifting political factions and economic interests vying for supremacy. From the bishop to his treasurer, from local merchants to lowly stonecutters, the fate of everyone, both Gentile and Jew, is affected by the slow rise of Hagenburg’s cathedral.
-
-
Interesting description of life in the Middle Ages
- By leongork on 06-30-21
By: Ben Hopkins
-
The Memoirs of Mary, Queen of Scots
- By: Carolly Erickson
- Narrated by: Rebekah Germain
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born Queen of Scotland, married as a young girl to the invalid young King of France, Mary took the reins of the unruly kingdom of Scotland as a young widow and fought to keep her throne. A second marriage to her handsome but dissolute cousin Lord Darnley ended in murder and scandal, while a third marriage to the dashing, commanding Lord Bothwell, the love of her life, gave her joy but widened the scandal and surrounded her with enduring ill repute.
-
-
Fiction being the key word
- By Bonnie-Ann B on 09-25-09
By: Carolly Erickson
-
The Serpent Garden
- By: Judith Merkle Riley
- Narrated by: Alison Larkin
- Length: 18 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Susanna Dallet is the daughter of a Flemish painter and wife to a philandering husband, living in the court of Henry VIII. When her husband is murdered, Susanna is suddenly left with a household to provide for and nothing to her name. Her days of anonymity are over when Susanna finds that guild rules preventing women from working do not apply at the king’s court, and she manages to secure a position as a miniature-portrait painter. Before long, she has not only made a name for herself, she is close to those who surround Princess Mary. But even in this lofty company, Susanna is not safe....
-
-
DON'T FALL FOR THE PRINT VERSION AMAZON REVIEWS
- By The Louligan on 03-06-14
-
The Black Rose
- By: Thomas B. Costain
- Narrated by: David Case
- Length: 17 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Walter of Gurnie, bastard son of an English peer, is forced to flee from Oxford for his part in the university riots of 1273. Inspired by Friar Bacon, he determines to travel to China. With his friend Tristam, he fights his way to the heart of the fabulous Mongol Empire and returns famous, to find that he must choose between the first love he thought lost and the exotic flower that he found in the East.
-
-
Great Book
- By Jean on 03-09-13
-
A Vision of Light
- A Margaret of Ashbury Novel, Book 1
- By: Judith Merkle Riley
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 15 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Margaret of Ashbury wants to write her life story. However, like most women in 14th-century England, she is illiterate. Three clerics contemptuously decline to be Margaret’s scribe, and only the threat of starvation persuades Brother Gregory, a Carthusian friar with a mysterious past, to take on the task. As she narrates her life, we discover a woman of startling resourcefulness.
-
-
Old fashioned heroine
- By Margaret on 06-22-13
-
The Autobiography of Henry VIII
- By: Margaret George
- Narrated by: David Case
- Length: 41 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Margaret George's novel brings into focus the larger-than-life King Henry VIII, monarch of prodigious appetites for wine, women, and song.
-
-
Perfection!
- By Amy M. Walts on 10-20-07
By: Margaret George
-
Cathedral
- By: Ben Hopkins
- Narrated by: Malk Williams, Sophie Roberts
- Length: 19 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A sweeping story about obsession, mysticism, art and earthly desire. At the centre of this story is the Cathedral. Its design and construction in the 13th and 14th centuries in the fictional town of Hagenburg unites a vast array of unforgettable characters whose fortunes are inseparable from the shifting political factions and economic interests vying for supremacy. From the bishop to his treasurer, from local merchants to lowly stonecutters, the fate of everyone, both Gentile and Jew, is affected by the slow rise of Hagenburg’s cathedral.
-
-
Interesting description of life in the Middle Ages
- By leongork on 06-30-21
By: Ben Hopkins
-
The Memoirs of Mary, Queen of Scots
- By: Carolly Erickson
- Narrated by: Rebekah Germain
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born Queen of Scotland, married as a young girl to the invalid young King of France, Mary took the reins of the unruly kingdom of Scotland as a young widow and fought to keep her throne. A second marriage to her handsome but dissolute cousin Lord Darnley ended in murder and scandal, while a third marriage to the dashing, commanding Lord Bothwell, the love of her life, gave her joy but widened the scandal and surrounded her with enduring ill repute.
-
-
Fiction being the key word
- By Bonnie-Ann B on 09-25-09
By: Carolly Erickson
-
The Serpent Garden
- By: Judith Merkle Riley
- Narrated by: Alison Larkin
- Length: 18 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Susanna Dallet is the daughter of a Flemish painter and wife to a philandering husband, living in the court of Henry VIII. When her husband is murdered, Susanna is suddenly left with a household to provide for and nothing to her name. Her days of anonymity are over when Susanna finds that guild rules preventing women from working do not apply at the king’s court, and she manages to secure a position as a miniature-portrait painter. Before long, she has not only made a name for herself, she is close to those who surround Princess Mary. But even in this lofty company, Susanna is not safe....
-
-
DON'T FALL FOR THE PRINT VERSION AMAZON REVIEWS
- By The Louligan on 03-06-14
-
The Black Rose
- By: Thomas B. Costain
- Narrated by: David Case
- Length: 17 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Walter of Gurnie, bastard son of an English peer, is forced to flee from Oxford for his part in the university riots of 1273. Inspired by Friar Bacon, he determines to travel to China. With his friend Tristam, he fights his way to the heart of the fabulous Mongol Empire and returns famous, to find that he must choose between the first love he thought lost and the exotic flower that he found in the East.
-
-
Great Book
- By Jean on 03-09-13
-
The Rose of York
- Love and War
- By: Sandra Worth
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in Malory's England during the Wars of the Roses, this acclaimed winner of a remarkable nine awards tells the true story of two star-crossed lovers - Richard of Gloucester and Lady Anne Neville - before they become King and Queen of England. A stirring tale of romance and intrigue.
-
-
Marvelous.
- By Cinders on 11-07-13
By: Sandra Worth
-
In the Name of the Family
- A Novel
- By: Sarah Dunant
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1502, and Rodrigo Borgia, a self-confessed womanizer and master of political corruption, is now on the papal throne as Alexander VI. His daughter Lucrezia, age 22 - already three times married and a pawn in her father's plans - is discovering her own power. And then there is his son Cesare Borgia, brilliant, ruthless, and increasingly unstable; it is his relationship with Machiavelli that gives the Florentine diplomat a master class in the dark arts of power and politics.
-
-
One of the best historical fiction novels
- By GrandmaNurseHeather on 04-13-17
By: Sarah Dunant
-
The Iron King
- The Accursed Kings, Book 1
- By: Maurice Druon
- Narrated by: Peter Joyce
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the publishers that brought you A Game of Thrones comes the series that inspired George R.R. Martin’s epic work. France became a great nation under Philip the Fair - but it was a greatness achieved at the expense of her people, for his was a reign characterised by violence, the scandalous adulteries of his daughters-in-law, and the triumph of royal authority.
-
-
Historical Goodie
- By Syd Young on 08-03-13
By: Maurice Druon
-
The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn
- By: Robin Maxwell
- Narrated by: Suzan Crowley
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Robin Maxwell’s debut novel introduces Anne Boleyn and her daughter, Elizabeth: one was queen for a thousand days, the other for more than 40 years. Both were passionate, headstrong women, loved and hated by Henry VIII. At the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign, her mother’s private diary is given to her by a mysterious lady. In reading it, the young ruler - herself embroiled in a dangerous love affair - discovers a great deal about her much maligned mother.
-
-
One of the Best Tudor Novels Availalbe
- By Bonnie-Ann on 03-02-13
By: Robin Maxwell
-
Isabella: Braveheart of France
- By: Colin Falconer
- Narrated by: Anne Johnstonbrown
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
12-year-old Isabella, a French princess marries the King of England - only to discover he has a terrible secret. Ten long years later she is in utter despair - does she submit to a lifetime of solitude and a spiritual death - or seize her destiny and take the throne of England for herself? Isabella is just twelve years old when she marries Edward II of England. For the young princess it is love at first sight - but Edward has a terrible secret that threatens to tear their marriage - and England apart.
-
-
A Bizarre "Reader's Digest" Version of History...
- By Sara on 01-06-15
By: Colin Falconer
-
A Dangerous Inheritance
- By: Alison Weir
- Narrated by: Maggie Mash
- Length: 25 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Historian and New York Times best-selling author Alison Weir is acclaimed for her absorbing works about the infamous House of York and House of Tudor lines. In A Dangerous Inheritance, Weir uses her wealth of knowledge to craft a compelling novel about two women, living 70 years apart, who are linked through the mysterious disappearance of King Richard III's nephews, Edward V and Richard of Shrewsbury - also known as the Princes in the Tower.
-
-
Not Weir's Best
- By Joshua on 01-08-13
By: Alison Weir
-
The Town House
- By: Norah Lofts
- Narrated by: Juliet Prague, Martyn Read
- Length: 17 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"It was in the first week of October in the year 1391 that I first came face to face with the man who owned me… the man whose lightest word was to us, his villeins, weightier than the King’s law or the edicts of our Holy Father…” So began the story of Martin Reed - a serf whose resentment of the automatic rule of his feudal lord finally flared into open defiance.
-
-
Another winner by Norah Lofts
- By Bird Lady 147 on 10-03-17
By: Norah Lofts
-
Royal Mistress
- By: Anne Easter Smith
- Narrated by: Heather Wilds
- Length: 15 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jane Lambert, the quick-witted and alluring daughter of a silk merchant, is twenty-two and still unmarried. When Jane’s father finally finds her a match, she’s married off to the dull, older silk merchant William Shore. Marriage doesn’t stop Jane from flirtation, however, and when the king’s chamberlain, Will Hastings, comes to her husband’s shop, Will knows King Edward will find her irresistible.
-
-
All history, no romance!
- By Erin on 07-05-13
-
The Canterbury Tales: A Retelling
- By: Peter Ackroyd
- Narrated by: Keith Moore, Toby Leonard Moore, Colin McPhillamy, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Author Peter Ackroyd has won the Somerset Maugham Award, the Whitbread Novel of the Year, and the Guardian Fiction Prize, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Based on Geoffrey Chaucer’s immortal work, this retelling of The Canterbury Tales follows a party of travelers as they tell stories amongst themselves about love and chivalry, saints and legends, travel and adventure. Through allegory, satire, and humor, the tales help pass the time during their journey.
-
-
WOW
- By Mitchell Drimmer on 02-25-15
By: Peter Ackroyd
-
The Nicholas Feast
- Gil Cunningham Mysteries
- By: Pat McIntosh
- Narrated by: Andrew Watson
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Glasgow, 1492: Gil Cunningham remarked later that if he had known he would find a corpse in the university coalhouse, he would never have gone to the Arts Faculty feast. In this mysterious adventure Gil Cunningham returns to his old university for the Nicholas Feast, where he and his colleagues are entertained by a play presented by some of the students. One of the actors, William Irvine, is later found murdered and Gil, assisted by Alys, begins to disentangle a complex web of espionage and blackmail involving William's tutors and fellow students.
-
-
Language
- By km on 05-30-23
By: Pat McIntosh
-
First of the Tudors
- By: Joanna Hickson
- Narrated by: Tom Clegg, Non Haf
- Length: 14 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jasper Tudor, son of Queen Catherine and her second husband, Owen Tudor, has grown up far from the intrigue of the royal court. But after he and his brother Edmund are summoned to London, their half brother, King Henry VI, takes a keen interest in their future. Bestowing earldoms on them both, Henry also gives them the wardship of the young heiress Margaret Beaufort. Although she is still a child, Jasper becomes devoted to her and is devastated when Henry arranges her betrothal to Edmund.
-
-
War of the Roses, Again
- By Laurel on 03-27-17
By: Joanna Hickson
-
The Dragon Waiting
- By: John M. Ford
- Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
- Length: 13 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a snowbound inn high in the Alps, four people meet who will alter fate. A noble Byzantine mercenary.... A female Florentine physician.... An ageless Welsh wizard.... And Sforza, the uncanny duke. Together they will wage an intrigue-filled campaign against the might of Byzantium to secure the English throne for Richard, Duke of Gloucester - and make him Richard III.
-
-
Read not listen.
- By Anna Marie on 08-08-21
By: John M. Ford
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Wolf Hall
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Simon Slater
- Length: 24 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII's court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king's favor and ascend to the heights of political powerEngland in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn.
-
-
Divorced, beheaded, died...
- By Tim on 09-30-11
By: Hilary Mantel
-
A Place of Greater Safety
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 33 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1789, and three young provincials have come to Paris to make their way. Georges-Jacques Danton, an ambitious young lawyer, is energetic, pragmatic, debt-ridden - and hugely but erotically ugly. Maximilien Robespierre, also a lawyer, is slight, diligent, and terrified of violence. His dearest friend, Camille Desmoulins, is a conspirator and pamphleteer of genius. A charming gadfly, erratic and untrustworthy, bisexual and beautiful, Camille is obsessed by one woman and engaged to marry another, her daughter.
-
-
Disaster
- By Frank Dudley Berry Jr. on 08-01-13
By: Hilary Mantel
-
A Change of Climate
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Sandra Duncan
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ralph and Anna Eldred are an exemplary couple, devoting themselves to doing good. 30 years ago as missionaries in Africa, the worst that could happen did. Shattered by their encounter with inexplicable evil, they returned to England, never to speak of it again. But when Ralph falls into an affair, Anna finds no forgiveness in her heart, and 30 years of repressed rage and grief explode, destroying not only a marriage but also their love, their faith, and everything they thought they were.
-
-
Beautifully written
- By Patricia S. on 10-11-15
By: Hilary Mantel
-
A Memoir of My Former Self
- A Life in Writing
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Anne Enright, Aurora Dawson-Hunte, Ben Miles, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In addition to her celebrated career as a novelist, Hilary Mantel contributed for years to newspapers and journals, unspooling stories from her own life and illuminating the world as she found it. “Ink is a generative fluid,” she explains. “If you don’t mean your words to breed consequences, don’t write at all.” A Memoir of My Former Self collects the finest of this writing over four decades.
-
-
The writing. I would read the phone directory if Mantel wrote it. wonderful collection.
- By Anonymous User on 09-22-24
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Fludd
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Gordon Griffin
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One dark and stormy night in 1956, a stranger named Fludd mysteriously turns up in the dismal village of Fetherhoughton. He is the curate sent by the bishop to assist Father Angwin - or is he? In the most unlikely of places, a superstitious town that understands little of romance or sentimentality, where bad blood between neighbors is ancient and impenetrable, miracles begin to bloom. Fludd becomes lover, gravedigger, and savior, transforming his dull office into a golden regency of decision, unashamed sensation, and unprecedented action.
-
-
Small, tight irreverant novel that wryly inverts
- By Darwin8u on 07-21-13
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Learning to Talk
- Stories
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck, Jane Collingwood, Patrick Moy
- Length: 3 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the wake of Hilary Mantel’s brilliant conclusion to her award-winning Wolf Hall Trilogy, this collection of loosely autobiographical stories locates the transforming moments of a haunted childhood. Sharp and funny, these drawn-from-life stories begin in the 1950s in an insular northern village “scoured by bitter winds and rough gossip tongues.” For the child narrator, the only way to survive is to get up, get on, get out.
-
-
Stories only Hilary Mantel could write
- By BG on 04-26-23
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Wolf Hall
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Simon Slater
- Length: 24 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII's court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king's favor and ascend to the heights of political powerEngland in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn.
-
-
Divorced, beheaded, died...
- By Tim on 09-30-11
By: Hilary Mantel
-
A Place of Greater Safety
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 33 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1789, and three young provincials have come to Paris to make their way. Georges-Jacques Danton, an ambitious young lawyer, is energetic, pragmatic, debt-ridden - and hugely but erotically ugly. Maximilien Robespierre, also a lawyer, is slight, diligent, and terrified of violence. His dearest friend, Camille Desmoulins, is a conspirator and pamphleteer of genius. A charming gadfly, erratic and untrustworthy, bisexual and beautiful, Camille is obsessed by one woman and engaged to marry another, her daughter.
-
-
Disaster
- By Frank Dudley Berry Jr. on 08-01-13
By: Hilary Mantel
-
A Change of Climate
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Sandra Duncan
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ralph and Anna Eldred are an exemplary couple, devoting themselves to doing good. 30 years ago as missionaries in Africa, the worst that could happen did. Shattered by their encounter with inexplicable evil, they returned to England, never to speak of it again. But when Ralph falls into an affair, Anna finds no forgiveness in her heart, and 30 years of repressed rage and grief explode, destroying not only a marriage but also their love, their faith, and everything they thought they were.
-
-
Beautifully written
- By Patricia S. on 10-11-15
By: Hilary Mantel
-
A Memoir of My Former Self
- A Life in Writing
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Anne Enright, Aurora Dawson-Hunte, Ben Miles, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In addition to her celebrated career as a novelist, Hilary Mantel contributed for years to newspapers and journals, unspooling stories from her own life and illuminating the world as she found it. “Ink is a generative fluid,” she explains. “If you don’t mean your words to breed consequences, don’t write at all.” A Memoir of My Former Self collects the finest of this writing over four decades.
-
-
The writing. I would read the phone directory if Mantel wrote it. wonderful collection.
- By Anonymous User on 09-22-24
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Fludd
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Gordon Griffin
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One dark and stormy night in 1956, a stranger named Fludd mysteriously turns up in the dismal village of Fetherhoughton. He is the curate sent by the bishop to assist Father Angwin - or is he? In the most unlikely of places, a superstitious town that understands little of romance or sentimentality, where bad blood between neighbors is ancient and impenetrable, miracles begin to bloom. Fludd becomes lover, gravedigger, and savior, transforming his dull office into a golden regency of decision, unashamed sensation, and unprecedented action.
-
-
Small, tight irreverant novel that wryly inverts
- By Darwin8u on 07-21-13
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Learning to Talk
- Stories
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck, Jane Collingwood, Patrick Moy
- Length: 3 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the wake of Hilary Mantel’s brilliant conclusion to her award-winning Wolf Hall Trilogy, this collection of loosely autobiographical stories locates the transforming moments of a haunted childhood. Sharp and funny, these drawn-from-life stories begin in the 1950s in an insular northern village “scoured by bitter winds and rough gossip tongues.” For the child narrator, the only way to survive is to get up, get on, get out.
-
-
Stories only Hilary Mantel could write
- By BG on 04-26-23
By: Hilary Mantel
-
The Woman on the Orient Express
- By: Lindsay Jayne Ashford
- Narrated by: Justine Eyre
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hoping to make a clean break from a fractured marriage, Agatha Christie boards the Orient Express in disguise. But unlike her famous detective Hercule Poirot, she can't neatly unravel the mysteries she encounters on this fateful journey. Her cabinmate Katharine Keeling's first marriage ended in tragedy, propelling her toward a second relationship mired in deceit. Nancy Nelson - newly married but carrying another man's child - is desperate to conceal the pregnancy and teeters on the brink of utter despair.
-
-
Biographical fiction
- By RueRue on 11-26-16
-
Boleyn Traitor
- A Novel
- By: Philippa Gregory
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Her words sent two queens to the scaffold. Her secrets shaped a kingdom. But her true story was hidden. Until now.
By: Philippa Gregory
-
The Giant, O'Brien
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Patrick Moy
- Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
London, 1782: center of science and commerce, home to the newly rich and the desperately poor. In the midst of it all is the Giant, O'Brien, a freak of nature, a man of song and story who trusts in myths, fairies, miracles, and little people. He has come from Ireland to exhibit his size for money. O'Brien's opposite is a man of science, the famed anatomist John Hunter, who lusts after the Giant's corpse as a medical curiosity, a boon to the advancement of scientific knowledge.
-
-
Brilliant, terrifying, relevant
- By Amelia Saul on 07-14-23
By: Hilary Mantel
-
A Town Like Alice
- By: Nevil Shute
- Narrated by: Robin Bailey
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jean Paget is just twenty years old and working in Malaya when the Japanese invasion begins. When she is captured she joins a group of other European women and children whom the Japanese force to march for miles through the jungle. While on the march, the group run into some Australian prisoners, one of whom, Joe Harman, helps them steal some food, and is horrifically punished by the Japanese as a result.
-
-
An all time favorite I have read many times...
- By Peyton on 03-16-10
By: Nevil Shute
-
Miss Benson's Beetle
- A Novel
- By: Rachel Joyce
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1950. London is still reeling from World War II, and Margery Benson, a schoolteacher and spinster, is trying to get through life, surviving on scraps. One day, she reaches her breaking point, abandoning her job and small existence to set out on an expedition to the other side of the world in search of her childhood obsession: an insect that may or may not exist - the golden beetle of New Caledonia. When she advertises for an assistant to accompany her, the woman she ends up with is the last person she had in mind.
-
-
A well-written panorama of human tragedy
- By Film Fan on 07-03-21
By: Rachel Joyce
-
An Experiment in Love
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Jane Collingwood
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Carmel McBain is the only child of working-class Irish-Catholic parents. Her mother aspires to something more for her than what life in their depressed mill town has to offer, determined that Carmel slip through England's rigid social barriers. And so, early on, she pushes Carmel, first to gain a scholarship to the local convent school, then to sit the exams for a place at London University. It sets her on a lonely journey that will take her as far as possible from where she began, uprooting her from the ties of class and place, of family and faith, and ultimately from her own self.
-
-
Great Sixties Proto Feminist Lit
- By A reader on 11-06-20
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Thomas Cromwell
- The Untold Story of Henry VIII's Most Faithful Servant
- By: Tracy Borman
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 14 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thomas Cromwell has long been reviled as a Machiavellian schemer who stopped at nothing in his quest for power. As Henry VIII's right-hand man, Cromwell was the architect of the English Reformation, secured Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon and plotted the downfall of Anne Boleyn, and upon his arrest, was accused of trying to usurp the King himself. But here Tracy Borman reveals a different side of one of the most notorious figures in history.
-
-
narration is very well done & book is quite good
- By horoscopy on 02-18-15
By: Tracy Borman
-
Hilary Mantel: Beyond Black and More
- A BBC Radio Drama Collection
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Hilary Mantel, Alison Steadman, Rosie Cavaliero, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 7 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the 21st century's most celebrated authors, Hilary Mantel won the Booker Prize twice: for 2009's Wolf Hall, the first in her phenomenally successful Thomas Cromwell trilogy, and its 2012 sequel Bring Up the Bodies. The third novel in the series, 2020's The Mirror and the Light, won the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. This collection includes three of her best works of contemporary fiction, ranging from the Gothic to the blackly comic.
-
-
Finally made it to the end
- By anonymous D on 10-06-23
By: Hilary Mantel
-
The Secret Bride
- In the Court of Henry VIII, Book 1
- By: Diane Haeger
- Narrated by: Polly Lee
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mary Tudor, the headstrong younger sister of the ruthless King Henry VII, has always been her brother's favorite—but now she is also an important political bargaining chip. When she is promised to the elderly, ailing King Louis of France, a heartbroken Mary accepts her fate, but not before extracting a promise from her brother: When the old king dies, her next marriage shall be solely of her choosing. For Mary has a forbidden passion, and is determined, through her own cunning, courage, and boldness, to forge her own destiny.
-
-
Childish
- By ocmsrzr on 08-25-24
By: Diane Haeger
-
The Valley of Amazement
- By: Amy Tan
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu, Joyce Bean, Amy Tan
- Length: 24 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Shanghai, 1912. Violet Minturn is the privileged daughter of the American madam of the city's most exclusive courtesan house. But when the Ching dynasty is overturned, Violet is separated from her mother in a cruel act of chicanery and forced to become a "virgin courtesan." Half-Chinese and half-American, Violet grapples with her place in the worlds of East and West - until she is able to merge her two halves, empowering her to become a shrewd courtesan who excels in the business of seduction and illusion, though she still struggles to understand who she is.
-
-
Just could NOT get past the ugliness
- By Pamela J on 11-25-13
By: Amy Tan
-
The Weight of Lies
- A Novel
- By: Emily Carpenter
- Narrated by: Kate Orsini
- Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Reformed party girl Meg Ashley leads a life of privilege, thanks to a bestselling horror novel her mother wrote decades ago. But Meg knows that the glow of their very public life hides a darker reality of lies, manipulation, and the heartbreak of her own solitary childhood. Desperate to break free of her mother, Meg accepts a proposal to write a scandalous, tell-all memoir.
-
-
Wow. That was pretty bad.
- By Meg on 07-21-17
By: Emily Carpenter
-
If I Had Your Face
- A Novel
- By: Frances Cha
- Narrated by: Frances Cha, Sue Jean Kim, Ruthie Ann Miles, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If I Had Your Face is a riveting debut novel set in contemporary Seoul, South Korea, about four young women making their way in a world defined by impossible standards of beauty, after-hours room salons catering to wealthy men, ruthless social hierarchies, and K-pop mania. Together, their stories tell a gripping tale at once unfamiliar and unmistakably universal, in which their tentative friendships may turn out to be the thing that ultimately saves them.
-
-
incredibly enlightening
- By Barbara S on 01-01-21
By: Frances Cha
What listeners say about The Mirror & the Light
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 06-01-20
Cromwell comes alive
I listened to the first two books in this trilogy and anxiously awaited the third. Put off by some of the reviews of Ben Miles’ narration, I started out reading the book but it was slow going. I decided to go ahead and get the Ben Miles version and I’m glad I did.
Aside from his mispronunciation, or possibly correct pronunciation, of Wroithsley, I found his reading to be excellent. I did hear a little Michael Caine in Cromwell now and then, but Cromwell was not born a posh toff and Miles’ accent was not grating. The voices of each character had sometimes very subtle differences yet I could distinguish between them, an amazing achievement.
The book itself was, of course, masterful. Mantel brings to life a time and place in history and breathes life into the people who lived them.
This recording includes a dialog between Ben Miles and the author, and it was interesting to hear their comments. I highly recommend this recording.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Judith M. McLean
- 06-22-20
GENIUS WRITING AND OUTSTANDING NARRATION
It has been a long time since I have enjoyed any book and narration so much! Hilary Mantel is nothing short of a genius at writing dialogue and putting herself in the place of Thomas Cromwell. The narrator as well does a profound job. The listener is immersed in the culture, time, and political intrigues of the court of Henry the VIII. A Tudor masterpiece about a common man turned Lord Chancelor and Earl of Essex.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Katie
- 03-23-20
A masterpiece
Just as beatiful as the first two. As expected, a satisfying end to a trilogy.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Rena
- 04-02-20
Captivating but too long
The official critics said it. The book is excellent overall with a wonderful narrator but it is several hours too long—too much about food and clothes, too many minor characters and too much violence. Worth it to be sure but get out your patience.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Fog
- 04-17-20
Brilliant as ever!
Mantel smashes it again. I now want to go back to the beginning of the trilogy all over again.
Ben Miles is masterful as narrator. Thank you all for this recording!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- K.L.
- 05-02-20
Bittersweet
I knew this ending was coming, but Mantel still kept it interesting. I also thought the narration was excellent.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 11-06-21
Hard to get into, but worth the effort
This book was very difficult for me to get into. I initially found my mind wandering and confused by the myriad of characters that came and went. Eventually, I realized that part of the problem (for me) was the slowness of the narration combined with the complexity of the story. I found that if I listened at 1.5 x that it held my attention more and the story flowed better. That said, I appreciated having experienced this book, which was written from a point of view that I had not previously considered for this time period.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- SUE
- 07-23-20
Interesting, but too long
I totally enjoyed the first two books, but this one was too slow moving for me. Too much fill detail.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- molech6
- 10-07-21
Magnificent
This was possibly the best trilogy I've ever had the pleasure to experience, both the writing and performance. Pure brilliance on both parts.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- CalicoCat
- 10-05-21
Magnificent - Riveting - and stunning narration
As told here, the saga of Cromwell absolutely transported me to 16thC England. When I finished I was drained and nearly paralyzed with wonder.... I just had to sit, absorb, and take time to come up for air.
The narration could not have been finer. Absolutely mesmerizing.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!