Bring Up the Bodies

Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2012 Winner of Costa Book of the Year 2012 Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2013 ‘The finest piece of historical fiction I have ever read… A staggering achievement.’ - The Sunday Telegraph The things you think are the disasters in your life are not the disasters really. Almost anything can be turned around: out of every ditch, a path, if you can only see it. After winning the Man Booker Prize in 2009 for Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel made history in 2012, seizing a historic second win for Bring Up the Bodies, making her the first British author and the first woman to be awarded two Man Booker Prizes. Continuing where Wolf Hall left off, Bring Up the Bodies is the electrifying second chapter in Mantel’s fictional life of Thomas Cromwell: the Wolf Hall Trilogy. It is summer, 1535. Thomas Cromwell has risen far from his beginnings as the son of a Putney Blacksmith, to become Chief Minister to the capricious king, Henry VIII. Having secured the king’s release from his first marriage, Cromwell’s fortunes have risen with the ascendancy of Anne Boleyn but as Anne’s fortunes fade, he is forced to steer a dangerous path to protect both the nation and his own position as he serves the king’s desire for a new queen: Jane Seymour. And, as Cromwell manoeuvres himself ever-closer to Henry, memories surface and his own plans – long in the making - come to a thrilling and terrifying fruition, for vengeance is a dish best served cold.