'The Mirror and the Light' by Hilary Mantel

This is the final book in Hilary Mantel’s ‘Wolf Hall trilogy’.

This brilliant novel begins after the death of Anne Boleyn.  It's England, May 1536 and Anne Boleyn is dead, decapitated in the space of a heartbeat by a hired French executioner.  As her remains are bundled into oblivion, Thomas Cromwell breakfasts with the victors. The blacksmith's son from Putney emerges from the bloodbath as the second man in England and continues his climb to power and wealth, while his formidable master, Henry VIII, settles into short-lived happiness with his third queen, before she dies giving birth to the male heir he most craves. The author brings to a triumphant close the trilogy which began with ‘Wolf Hall’ and ‘Bring Up the Bodies’

Hilary Mantel is the author of seventeen books, including 'A Place of Greater Safety', 'Beyond Black',  'Giving Up the Ghost' and the short story collection 'The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher'.  This latest novel, 'The Mirror & the Light', won the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, while 'Wolf Hall' and 'Bring Up the Bodies' were both awarded the Man Booker Prize.  In 2014, she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. She sadly passed away aged seventy in 2022.

Reunited: The Great Bibles of Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell - For the first time in almost 500 years, the personal Bibles of King Henry VIII and his chief advisor, Thomas Cromwell, are being brought together in an exhibition at the National Library of Wales from 21st June 2025 – 22nd November 2025.