| Sovereign (Shardlake) | 
 enlarge | Author: C.j. Sansom
Publisher: Pan Books
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy New: £5.00
You Save: £2.99 (37%)
New (28) Used (53) from £0.41
Avg. Customer Rating:  67 reviews
Sales Rank: 315
Media: Paperback
Edition: New edition
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.1 x 1.8
ISBN: 0330436082
EAN: 9780330436083
ASIN: 0330436082
Publication Date: March 16, 2007
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
 Time Machines DO Exist November 12, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
When I purchased this book I did so as a gamble and Oh boy did it pay off! I can't remember how long it's been since I felt I was a bystander watching everything unfold and loving every minute of it. I am going to buy everything this author writes..................
A little too detailed October 20, 2007
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
It's an interesting installment in the further adventures of Matthew Shardlake, hunchback and lawyer. This happens in 1541, during King Henry VIII's progress through the North of England to overawe and subjugate his rebellious subjects. There is much for them to rebel over, the poor are crippled by heavy taxes and the rich are benefiting from the dissolution of the monasteries. Catherine Howard is Henry's current wife and things are starting to get a little rocky.
Matthew Shardlake is in York for two purposes. The first is to process some local legal work for the king and the second is on a mission from Archbishop Cranmer to ensure that a certain prisoner survives to questioning and his almost certain execution.
He stumbles on the death of a stained glass artisan and this sets in play a series of events that lead to several attempts at his life. To survive he has to discover what the conspiracy is, but knowledge can also be dangerous.
It's just that bit too detailed. Some of the assumptions and language are a little too modern, but that could be excused for legibility. There are few modern readers who would be able to get through a full novel of Tudor English. I found myself losing track of the events because of the detail but the detail added hugely to the sense of place of the novel. By the end I was happy to have read it but left with some sense that it could have been tighter.
Meaty historical whodunnit. Best Shardlake story yet October 17, 2007
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
The Matthew Shardlake series is set in Tudor England, a time of religious upheaval and intrigue. The first two books in the series are good (Dark Fire is the weaker of the two), but this is by far the best.
Sovereign is a well-plotted, highly detailed whodunnit which follows Henry VIII's royal tour to the 'heathen' northlands, where rebellion was barely supressed. Our hero is a hunchback lawyer, once a keen reformer but now dismayed by the corruption he sees in the new system (which was supposed to do away with all that). As ever, Shardlake longs for a quiet life, but he gets entangled with matters of state and political intrigue. He soon knows secrets which people would kill (him!) for...
Although this is a dense, thick novel which took me a while to read, it's not full of unwarranted padding and puff like so many. Instead it's a very well realised tapestry of Tudor England, with a convincing, complicated plot and genuinely interesting characters. The descriptions of York, its ruined monastery, the Minster, and the spectacle of the royal progress are superb. You can almost smell the sweating horses and hear the troops marching in!
Poor Shardlake ends up in all sorts of trouble (insulted by the king, cracked on the head, shot at with crossbow bolts and --eeek-- taken to The Tower), and you really don't know who the bad guy is until the very last chapter. Gripping stuff.
So this is my favourite of the three Shardlake novels so far. It marries the 'modern thriller' with the historical novel and does so brilliantly. If you've not read the other two then it's no problem -- this will make perfect sense without them. And it's amazingly good value for money; plenty of reading to keep you going for a while!
 competent enough though not thrilling August 21, 2007
4 out of 16 found this review helpful
I have read Dissolution but not Dark Fire, and for me Sovereign repeats the plot of the first novel too much. I guess these books work well if you find Shardlake himself believable, but I'm afraid I don't. He has a modern conscience in the supposed mind/body of a C16th inhabitant and that feels too awkward and contrived for me. Also the fact of him being a hunchback is just too over-played: yes, I'm sure it's a huge burden but he never stops bringing it up and surely for a man now almost 40 with a successful career as both a lawyer and an official he'd have dealt with it. It's another example of the author, in my view, trying too hard to make him an attractive character: he's so concerned not to have a 'hero' who's attractive, charming, goodlooking that I fear he veers too far the other way.
The plot drags and again the author seems to put in every small detail he can glean about court life and the progress regardless of whether it actually moves the story on or not (and in most cases it doesn't, simply fills in for the story). I'm making it sound very negative, but actually I think this is a competent enough book that's perfect for whiling away a daily commute. Just don't expect much more than cardboard cut-out figures and detail for the sake of it.
A hugely satisfying read August 13, 2007
6 out of 8 found this review helpful
When I was presented with this novel at my book group my heart sank. I have never read an historical novel nor have I ever had the inclination to do so. It eyed me from my bedside table for a week before I tentatively started to read and boy was I glad I took the leap! This book has it all and descriptions of the age drew me in so thoroughly that I sat into the wee small hours devouring every page. Such was the adeptness of Sansom, I could taste, smell and hear York and what's more it kept me guessing 'til the end. Absolutely recommended.
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