Hilary Mantel v my family ...

... sounds a bit more impressive than it actually is.

I'm reading Mantel's 'The Mirror and the Light' for our book group. Well, I say reading, I'm actually listening to it. I mean, come on, it's over 800 pages, and I just don't have the patience.

There are so many names. And it feels like most of them are Howards (great, now I've got the theme to Howard's Way in my head). 

And what do you know, I'm a Howard too ... if you go back 500 years, so yeah, not really a Howard at all, but the 2nd Duke of Norfolk is my x15 grandfather, and a number of his children and grandchildren appear in the book, including Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard, my 1st cousins 15x removed. So I plotted this out yesterday as I was getting myself in a muddle about who was who. Those shaded in grey have appeared in the book so far.

Oh how I shall bore my fellow book groupies when we Zoom this week!

In the meantime - meet my family!