Devastated by the ending of The Mirror and the Light

Finished Hilary Mantel's The Mirror and the Light yesterday in a parking lot yesterday. Devastated by the ending, even if I knew—as history would have it—that Thomas Cromwell would die. Remembered that Mantel cried when she knew she had finished writing the books: Cromwell was a character so interesting you would remember him randomly. Skipped the second book in the series (Bring Up The Bodies); reserving it for long vacations when I could re-imagine the 1500s, undisturbed.