I'm an insomniac and a very fast reader, so I've already finished it,and tbh, I found it disappointing compared to the previous two volumes. It's as bloated as the middle-aged Henry VIII at 903 pages in hardback, and suffers from exactly the same lack of editing as some of the chunkier mid-to-late HP novels, where the huge public appetite for more doesn't translate into effective editing.
I think the shape of this one is more problematic, too -- the first two both had the reign of a queen (or getting rid of one queen and getting in another) to structure them, as well as TC's increasing power. This one starts with the execution of Anne Boleyn, and includes Henry marrying Jane Seymour, her death, his shortlived marriage to Anne of Cleves, and his marriage to Catherine Howard, as well as the Pilgrimage of Grace, the Dissolution of the Monasteries, lots of politicking around Mary's marriage and Henry's heirs, the various successes and betrayals of TC's household, Tynedale, as well as TC's own decline.
It's pretty unwieldy. (Anyone who found her first novel A Place of Greater Safety too mired in its own detail might recognise something similar here.)
There's also the fact that it's much less compelling to watch someone start to be expendable in the corridors of power than to watch him imposing himself on them. I mean, we've all been ignored at some meeting or other, right? I felt at times that Henry was just Monster Boss, and the Privy Council and courtiers were just a bunch of fractious middle-managers stabbing one another in the back in the photocopy room.
I say this as a huge Hilary Mantel fan, who's read all of her previous books, and while acknowledging that HM not at her best is still better than most other novelists firing on all cylinders. And there are gorgeous parts. When the ghost of Wolsey starts to talk to TC again, it's wonderful, and astonishing writing.