I particularly liked Shardlake's horror in being transported to the Tower of London and the satisfying way threads were drawn together at the end of the novel. Which was the advantage of the first, Dissolution: one clear plot, one place, one murderer, locked in the Scarnsea Monastery. If you do want to know how I feel about each book, I have included links to each of the reviews down below. Sansom is the bestselling author of the acclaimed Shardlake series, the Spanish Civil War thriller Winter in Madrid and the number one bestseller Dominion.

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. By the time we get to the end much is already known and CJ Sansom is left with just one more part of the puzzle to reveal then to prepare the way for the next book. 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. 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.I reckon each one gets better than the one before – the most recent one was my book of the year last year. A period of war, religious upheaval and social unrest is brought vividly to life and Shardlake is an eminently sympathetic guide to his times. Regardless, this is a superior series and the writing and plotting are top drawer and will make you see 16th century England when you close your eyes. From scenic descriptions to the more gruesome accounts of horrific events, Sansom takes us on a trip to the past that we do not want to leave. 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.

He has expanded Shardlake’s world outside of London to show that England was not all united for the Tudors. Dodging death on numerous occasions, Shardlake begins to wonder if the murderer has a determination that will not be sated and seeks to reveal a stunning truth about the legitimacy of the Tudor line.We hereby give notice that we do not practice law, nothing in this book should be taken as advice, do your own due diligence, everything written is our opinion and we’re exercising our right to free speech. 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. Following the uncovering of a plot against his throne in Yorkshire, King Henry VIII has set out on a spectacular Progress to the North to overawe his rebellious subjects there.

However, once Shardlake left York and got onto the boat things moved along at a much quicker pace and the story picked back up again and then I couldn’t put the book down till I had finished it. In addition, we learn a lot more about Shardlake’s relationship to his father and his growing up in the countryside.For a majority of the novel our protagonist, hunchback lawyer Matthew Shardlake, is out of his home turf (London) and this allows the novel to give lots of interesting details about a royal progress, the rebellions in the north of England after the split with Catholicism, and just the difficulties of travel in general in the 1500s.

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. Sovereign is the 3rd book in the series (there are currently five) and follows after Dissolution and Dark Fire.They smell of betrayal and dynastical forgery; they suggest that the current Tudor line is completely invalid due to Henry’s maternal grandfather (Edward IV) being a bastard born of a low born archer rather than the offspring of Richard Duke of York.