Sovereign (The Shardlake series, 3)

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Imagine reading a mystery book full of old scrolls and parchments of historical significance to fine a whole chunk of the book is missing! The King is determined to stamp out any remnants of the rebellion and to assure that His Church of England is the only Christian church extant. Shardlake barely has time to look at the documents before they are stolen again, but the little bit of knowledge he has gained puts his own life at risk.

As always with these books, it is long and slow, going deep into the way people lived in Henry’s England – both those at the top and those in the ranks below. With two mysteries to occupy his time, Shardlake begins his own investigation, though tries to keep the peace when the King arrives to celebrate with his subjects. And behind it all, an old enemy waits in the wings, ready to unleash a plot that will scar the world forever. Tras la caída de Thomas Cromwell el ímpetu de partido reformista se ha atenuado y corren las cabezas y las tripas tanto de papistas como de reformistas exaltados, sin embargo al rey se le presenta un problema interno importante y de difícil solución. I enjoyed reading about the preparations for the arrival of the Progress and what was involved in providing food, accommodation and other amenities for not just the king and queen, but also their entourage of hundreds of courtiers, attendants and servants.

That’s the one downside of the audiobooks – they don’t include the explanation Sansom usually gives as an end note, clarifying what is real and what he’s invented. I think it would expand the world for the readers and give them a taste of other royal dynasties and what else was going on in the world during the time of the Tudor dynasty in England. With such a remarkable cast of characters, Sansom had to put them through extremely difficult obstacles to test their limits and to give his readers a breathtaking look into the Tudor world.

Yet the book is over 550 pages and you have to have a desire to be immersed in Tudor life or it isn’t worth the effort. The dastardly Richard Rich, who I have always felt was a bit shady, but Sansom made me hate him even more. And the blend between the historical characters and the fictional ones is so seamless I often have to check who really existed and who didn’t. The Mary Rose - Henry VIII's warship, lost in 1545, recovered in 1982 and now on display in a dedicated museum in Portsmouth for everyone to visit all year round All purchases made help contribute to the preservation and conservation of the Mary Rose and the 19,000 objects that were recovered from the seabed. You feel like you are friends with the protagonist and his pals and you despise the nefarious villains that try to thwart the efforts of the heroes.Lest I make this sound like nothing but misery and torture – oh, I forgot to mention that, didn’t I? One of Shardlake’s tasks is to assure that a prisoner is not abused before he can be brought back to the Tower of London and interrogated by the King’s experts. York was chosen as the end of the adventure because it was the place where a conspiracy against the king was recently discovered and crushed. Sovereign is the third in CJ Sansom’s Shardlake mystery series set in Tudor England and I found it every bit as good as the first two. What is brilliant about Sansom’s series is that these historical figures are more background characters or they are villains.

This flowing effect gives a natural feel to the book and makes it very easy to read whilst keeping a level of tension all through.I love the idea that each book is numbered and limited, they're extra special because they're personalised with those sought-after signatures, and they are not on tip-in pages. This was God’s anointed on earth, Head of His Church, guardian of the souls of three million subjects, more than human in his glory.