The third novel in the compelling Shardlake series.
C J Sansom was educated at Birmingham University, where he took a BA and then a PhD in history. After practising as a solicitor, he became a full-time writer. His Shardlake series includes Dissolution, Dark Fire, Sovereign, Revelation, Heartstone and Lamentation. He lives in Sussex.
I have enjoyed C. J. Sansom's series of historical novels set in
Tudor England progressively more and more. Sovereign, following
Dissolution and Dark Fire, is the best so far . . . Sansom has the
perfect mixture of novelistic passion and historical detail.
*Sunday Telegraph Books of the Year*
Even if heart-pounding suspense and stomach-tightening tension were
all Sansom’s writing brought to the table, few would feel
short-changed. Added to these gifts is a superb approximation of
the crucible of fear, treachery and mistrust that was Tudor
England, and a memorably blood-swollen portrait of the ogreish
Henry’s inhumane kingship. A parchment-turner, and a regal one at
that.
*Sunday Times*
Not only a great detective novel but also a fabulous insight into
the historical happenings of the Tudor period, this book is an
absorbing read.
*Tesco Magazine*
A dazzling conspiracy theory novel of the Tudor age.
*Nottingham Evening Post*
Third volume of CJ Sansom’s deservedly popular Tudor detective
series . . . Between them, Sansom and Starkey have the 16th century
licked.
*Independent*
A brilliant evocation of tyranny in Tudor England.
*Literary Review*
A fine setting for crime fiction and CJ Sansom exploits it superbly
. . . Never mind the crime: this is a terrific novel.
*TLS*
I was enthralled by Sovereign by C. J. Sansom, a novel combining
detection with a brilliant description of Henry VIII’s spectacular
Progress to the North and its terrifying aftermath.
*Sunday Telegraph Books of the Year*
A master class in suspense...an age of political and religious
convulsion is conjured up with thrilling immediacy.
*Sunday Times*
Both marvellously exciting to read and a totally convincing
evocation of England in the reign of Henry VIII.
*Spectator, Books of the Year*
Sansom has a real knack for bringing the sights, sounds and smells
of Tudor times to life and his evocation of a time when your fate
could be decided on a whim and England was ruled by a bloated
monster make you very glad indeed that, fascinating as it is,
you'll never have to witness Shardlake's world first hand.
*Northern Echo*
Sansom brings the colours, sights and sounds of Tudor England
brilliantly into the imagination in this gripping historical
novel.
*Choice magazine*
The best detective story I’ve read since The Murder of Roger
Ackroyd . . . [a] devilishly ingenious whodunit . . . Sansom’s
description of the brutality of Tudor life is strong stuff, but he
is a master storyteller.
*Guardian*
Sansom is excellent on contemporary horrors. This is no
herbs-and-frocks version of Tudor England, but a remorseless
portrait of a violent, partly lawless country . . . You can lose
yourself in this world.
*Independent*
Dissolution by C J Sansom was an impressive start to a historical
fiction series featuring stubborn, admirable Tudor lawyer Matthew
Shardlake. Sovereign is the third outing, and this series just gets
better and better.
*Bookseller*
Don’t open this book if you have anything urgent pending. Its grip
is so compulsive that, until you reach its final page, you’ll have
to be almost physically prised away from it. The latest in CJ
Sansom’s increasingly thrilling series of 16th-century crime
mysteries, it pulls you like its predecessors, into a tortuous
world of Tudor terror.
*Sunday Times*
This is an atmospheric thriller where velvet and silk hide
putrescence, and beyond the grandeur of a Court lies a world where
people rot alive or choke in deep mud. Sansom does a nice line in
irony and savage humour, as well as the simple affections which
keep people going in nightmarish times.
*Time Out Book of the Week*
CJ Sansom’s new Matthew Shardlake adventure shows how far this
series has developed since his first book. Sovereign is bigger in
scope, more colourful, has a more complex plot and moves at a
faster pace . . . This is a compelling read, vividly capturing the
atmosphere of constant fear, as religious fervour and political
ambition are expressed in cruelty and corruption.
*Sunday Telegraph*
CJ Sansom’s books are arguably the best Tudor novels going
*Sunday Times*
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