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"   Hilary Mantel&amp;#039;s tenth novel, Wolf Hall, is the kind of high-brow, complicated historical fiction that can strike fear and intimidation in the heart of a casual reader on sight, clocking in just shy of 600 pages. That and its storied subject matter, King Henry VIII&amp;#039;s unruly reign and break from the Roman Papacy as seen through the eyes of the book&amp;#039;s counterintuitive protagonist, Thomas Cromwell, made me wonder whether my grasp of Tudor history was up to snuff (even if I have caught The Other Boleyn Girl a dozen times on cable). And yet, from the first chapter, where we&amp;#039;re introduced to the young Cromwell, who must escape his debauched father&amp;#039;s free-wheeling fists, intellectual insecurity falls away and all attention is turned to Cromwell&amp;#039;s narrative, moving with a crackling intensity that reminds you of The West Wing rather than your freshman European history class.  Mantel&amp;#039;s novel, chockablock with eye-popping details of Sixteenth-Century London, differs radically from other fictionalized versions of Henry VIII&amp;#039;s court, thanks to her unusual choice of tour guide. Usually depicted as a merciless political fixer and held responsible for the tumultuous, sometimes murderous English Reformation, Cromwell is the voice of reason in Mantel&amp;#039;s hands. We root for his rise to power\u2014from blacksmith&amp;#039;s son to the Earl of Essex\u2014as he uses his wit and instincts to aid the king in divorcing Catherine of Aragon and taking Anne Boleyn as his Queen. Our unlikely fealty a neat trick that breathes new life into this familiar tale of power and seduction, but it&amp;#039;s not the only reason Mantel scored the esteemed Man Booker Prize for best English-language novel of the year last week (and with it $82,000 and a sizable bump in sales).  It&amp;#039;s hard not to be awestruck thinking about how Mantel, a former social worker, managed to write with such pinpoint historical accuracy (she researched the period meticulously) while still crafting a mesmerizing political thriller that feels undeniably modern and intimate, due in large part to the swift, nimble dialogue that never wades into clich\u00E9d period-speak (no ye oldes here). Just be sure you&amp;#039;re not too awestruck that you&amp;#039;re hesitant to pick it up\u2014even if it is really heavy. And conveniently enough, Wolf Hall is being published today in these here former colonies. Talk about good timing! \u2014Candice Rainey Follow ELLE on Twitter. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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