Entries tagged 'Tudor England'

I have finally been able to get back into reading some books for pleasure, and so I need to catch up with some mini-reviews.

Dissolution by C. J. Sansom is the first in a series of books set in Tudor England featuring Matthew Shardlake, a hunchbacked lawyer working for Thomas Cromwell, in this one investigating a murder at a monastery as those institutions are being dismantled. In the time between when I first put a hold on this book and finally started reading it, the cover changed to highlight that there is now a television series on Hulu called Shardlake that is based on the books. It is a good mystery that seems to be absolutely loaded with historical details and atmosphere, and eventually I will probably get around to reading more of the series and perhaps checking out the show.

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley is a wonderful time-travel story. A mysterious door has allowed the government (British) to pluck several individuals out of time and bring them to the present day, and the protagonist works as a “bridge” to one of the “expats,” a naval officer from 1847 who would have otherwise died as part of the Franklin expedition to the Arctic. Like any good time travel story, it gets weird. It’s being adapted as a series by the BBC and A24, so that is promising.

Those Beyond the Wall by Micaiah Johnson is a sequel to Space Between Worlds which I read back in 2022 when I wasn’t writing here. The first book was very much a “multiverse” sort of story, and while the second shares the setting and some characters, the story stays in one world. The characters and world are really well-developed. It has more than a little of a Mad Max vibe but commenting more directly on American racial and queer politics. My memory is a little fuzzy on the first book, but it had made enough of an impression that I picked up the sequel without hesitation.