No, not mine. Well, read mine too, but if you like historical fiction at all, do yourself a favor and get hold of a copy of Hilary Mantel’s spectacular, prize-winning Wolf Hall.

I’m posting today at the History Hoydens blog about my experience of reading it: one of the pure deep pleasures to match my seven-year-old memory of laughing my head off at Through the Looking Glass. But unlike my seven-year-old self, I’m trying to describe the kind of pleasure I got, which I think– hope — sheds some light on how the best historical novels work.

Historical novels, mind you, not historical romances, which I think are a different kind of game. A good kind, but playing by different rules.

What do you think?