Hilary Mantel is back and the novelist has been receiving warm reviews for her latest book, Bring up the Bodies. It’s the sequel to the Man Booker Prize-winning novel Wolf Hall and the second of a planned trilogy on Thomas Cromwell, the son of a blacksmith who became Henry VIII’s chief minister. The book is set in 1535.

The Telegraph wrote:

Mantel herself once planned to be a politician, which perhaps explains her seeming indulgence of some of Cromwell’s more sickening acts – all essential to serve his king and to survive.

The New Yorker wrote:

Where much historical fiction gets entangled in the simulation of historical authenticity, Mantel bypasses those knots of concoction, and proceeds as if authenticity were magic rather than a science.

Signed copies of the novel are proving very popular – Bring up the Bodies is easily AbeBooks’ bestselling signed book during May.