《纽约时报》****畅销书

随着《镜与光》的出版，希拉里•门特尔（Hilary Mantel）结束了“狼厅三部曲”。前两部是斩获了布克奖的《狼厅》和《提堂》。门特尔描写了克伦威尔最后四年的岁月。

1536年5月的英国，安妮•博林被刽子手斩首，随着她遗骨被国王逐渐忘却（但实际上仍如同鬼魅一样无处不在），托马斯•克伦威尔权力和财富也在攀升。亨利八世的第三任妻子简•西摩仿佛只是为了给他生一个男性继承人而来，经历短暂的幸福，然后像那个年代的很多女人一样，死于分娩。

克伦威尔没有后台，没有大家庭，也没有私人军队，只有他自己的智慧，和国王的倚仗。但他自己也明白那个朴素的道理，如果国王可以亲近自己，那也会亲近其他人。
The brilliant #1 New York Times bestseller

With The Mirror & the Light, Hilary Mantel brings to a triumphant close the trilogy she began with her peerless, Booker Prize-

winning novels, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. She traces the final years of Thomas Cromwell, the boy from nowhere who climbs to the heights of power, offering a defining portrait of predator and prey, of a ferocious contest between present and past, between royal will and a common man’s vision: of a modern nation making itself through conflict, passion and courage.

The story begins in May 1536: Anne Boleyn is dead, decapitated in the space of a heartbeat by a hired French executioner. As her remains are bundled into oblivion, Cromwell breakfasts with the victors. The blacksmith’s son from Putney emerges from the spring’s bloodbath to continue his climb to power and wealth, while his formidable master, Henry VIII, settles to short-lived happiness with his third queen, Jane Seymour.

Cromwell, a man with only his wits to rely on, has no great family to back him, no private army. Despite rebellion at home, traitors plotting abroad and the threat of invasion testing Henry’s regime to the breaking point, Cromwell’s robust imagination sees a new country in the mirror of the future. All of England lies at his feet, ripe for innovation and religious reform. But as fortune’s wheel turns, Cromwell’s enemies are gathering in the shadows. The inevitable question remains: how long can anyone survive under Henry’s cruel and capricious gaze?