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  • Winter King

  • The Dawn of Tudor England
  • By: Thomas Penn
  • Narrated by: Simon Vance
  • Length: 14 hrs and 34 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (277 ratings)

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Winter King

By: Thomas Penn
Narrated by: Simon Vance
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Summary

A fresh look at the endlessly fascinating Tudors - the dramatic and overlooked story of Henry VII and his founding of the Tudor Dynasty - filled with spies, plots, counter-plots, and an uneasy royal succession to Henry VIII.

Near the turn of the sixteenth century, England had been ravaged for decades by conspiracy and civil war. Henry Tudor clambered to the top of the heap, a fugitive with a flimsy claim to England’s crown who managed to win the throne and stay on it for 24 years. Although he built palaces, hosted magnificent jousts, and sent ambassadors across Europe, for many Henry VII remained a false king. But he had a crucial asset: his family - the queen and their children, the living embodiment of his hoped-for dynasty. Now, in what would be the crowning glory of his reign, his elder son would marry a great Spanish princess.

Thomas Penn re-creates an England that is both familiar and very strange - a country medieval yet modern, in which honor and chivalry mingle with espionage, realpolitik, high finance, and corruption. It is the story of the transformation of a young, vulnerable boy, Prince Henry, into the aggressive teenager who would become Henry VIII, and of Catherine of Aragon, his future queen, as well as of Henry VII - controlling, avaricious, paranoid, with Machiavellian charm and will to power.

Rich with incident and drama, filled with wonderfully drawn characters, Winter King is an unforgettable account of pageantry, intrigue, the thirst for glory, and the fraught, unstable birth of Tudor England.

Thomas Penn has a PhD in early Tudor history from Clare College, Cambridge. Winter King is his first book.

©2011 Thomas Penn (P)2012 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
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Critic reviews

“I feel I’ve been waiting to read this book a long time. It’s a fluent and compelling account of the cost of founding the Tudor dynasty.” (Hilary Mantel, Man Booker Prize–winning author of Wolf Hall)
“An exceptionally stylish literary debut…[Penn’s] book should be the first port of call for anyone trying to understand England’s most flagrant usurper since William the Conqueror.” (Diarmaid MacCulloch, New York Times best-selling author)
“A definitive and accessible account of the reign of Henry VII.” ( Guardian (UK))

What listeners say about Winter King

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Fascinating

I really enjoyed this detailed and fascinating insight into the social and political life of Henry Vll. It offers pragmatic reasons for why this monarch ruled in the manner he did, with a tantalising taste of why his son, was the way he was!! Most enjoyable.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Superb

A very enjoyable book. A fascinating, detailed and well researched history that is very ably read.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Enjoyable, informative, interesting

Well written and narrated. Would have liked it to have been longer but good for an overall basic understanding of the skilful dictator (King Henry VII).

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Very enjoyable

I really enjoyed listening to this book, the pace was just right for me. Fascinating

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Outstanding

A fascinating and gripping book on Henry VII, as well as Early Modern England and Europe. It has a rich cast of characters, none more interesting than Henry VII... a criminally overlooked English monarch compared to his infamous son and revered granddaughter. I found the book a touch heavy going in places but never dull, in fact the quality of Thomas Penn's work means listening to it is time well spent. The narrator, Simon Vance, is wonderful.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Dreadful Narration ruins this title

What made the experience of listening to Winter King the most enjoyable?

It was just dreadful! I somehow didn't notice that Simon Vance had narrated this and bought it only to discover it was he! Seriously, ham acting doesn't begin to describe this.
He narrates so many books that I can only conclude that he reads aloud without actually bothering to look at the words he's saying, rendering it pointless really.

Would you be willing to try another book from Thomas Penn? Why or why not?

It may be a fantastic book, in fact I suspect it is as it's a great subjecct and Penn is usually very thorough. Such a shame about the narration which meant that I listened to about a fifth of the book and gave up.

What didn’t you like about Simon Vance’s performance?

Dreadful. Renders the book unintelligible as he puts no intelligence into his narration. One may as well have an automaton reading. Truly the worst performance on audible so far.

Any additional comments?

Hopefully someone else will narrate this at some point as I would truly love to hear it, but preferably by a narrator who has the ability to READ and understand what he is voicing.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Classy reconstruction of the period



Fascinating but selective. A  very enjoyable history of Henry VII and how he managed to size the English throne, and keep it,  in very unsure times.  The Battle of Bosworth is skated over very quickly, as is how Henry secured the throne.  But longer passages are devoted to more  obscure persons such as the  poet Skelton who became Henry VIII tutor.  It gives a good back ground to the early lives of Henry VIII and Catherine, and all the machinations around their eventually marriage. The final passages on the the death of Henry VII are some of the best, in showing what it was like to be around a dying king.   In the  end Henry VII still remains an  elusive character. A knowledge of the ins and outs of the period is useful, Wikipedia was very helpful.

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12 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Outstanding

Incredible insight into life of early Tudor Dynasty. Highly recommended. Educational. Brilliant narration. Spell binding.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent History

Clearly read in a calm manner.
The complex political machinations of the 15th century are delivered in a no-nonsense style with little,obvious bias.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

A Lesser-Known But Fascinating King

Not having been to school in the UK, I had never heard of Henry VII, and purchased this title on a whim, based on other reviewers' praise for this audiobook. I do not regret it.



On the one hand it is a perfect "prequel" to the life of Henry VIII and sheds much light into the context in which Henry VIII became king (in particular his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, the immense wealth he found when acceding to the throne, and the wild popularity he enjoyed at the beginning of his reign).



On the other hand it depicts Henry VII, an immensely interesting king in his own right. At a time when all European monarchs were cash-strapped due to their incessant wars, Henry VII studiously avoided wars and became the only cash-rich king of Europe. His attention to details (micromanagement) was probably also a plus as compared to other kings who let councilors run amok.



The book is a bit frustrating at times as it often doubles-back to tell the story of a new protagonist, just at the time when we are getting to a crucial point (such as the wedding of Arthur to Catherine of Aragon).



One point I liked about the book is that it did not end abruptly with the death of Henry VII, and goes on for about 30 minutes with the aftermath of his reign. Having had other biographies (Jean Edward Smith's FDR and Eisenhower come to mind) stop within half a page of the death of the biography's subject, it was nice to have the author's take on the transition to come.



The reader is excellent and nicely emphasizes the quoted, old English, parts of the text, so that one always knows what is a quote and what is the author's text.

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14 people found this helpful