Jonathan Healey's brilliant narrative history, sees a spry cast of characters navigate the uncertain lead-up to war . . . Energetic and exceptional . . . Takes us beyond the disputes in Westminster . . . A book that bursts with character, a vivid reconstruction of England on the brink . . . It's a pleasure to read Healey's stylish and fluid prose . . . A rollicking history, packed with fire and excitement

Daniel Brooks, Telegraph

A lucid, fast-paced and exhilarating account of how, if not necessarily why, England descended into civil war . . . Vivid details brighten almost every page . . . There is hardly a paragraph not enlivened by his eye for the mannerisms, quirks and eccentricities of the actors in his story . . . Highly accomplished and impressively accessible . . . Its pages teem with larger-than-life personalities and dramatic incident . . . The House of Cards-ish drama remains gripping to the last

John Adamson, Literary Review

This superb narrative history adds a rich cast of supporting characters, from Clerkenwell prostitutes to fire-and-brimstone preachers

Telegraph, Books of the Year

Gripping . . . A galloping narrative . . . Healey deftly joins the dots between several points of no return. He writes briskly and accessibly, even to the point of tabloid snappiness . . . Discreetly, and persuasively, merges different currents in civil war history . . . Healey makes these elite manoeuvres lucid, lively, even suspenseful . . . Gives us gripping history from below as well as from above

Boyd Tonkin, Financial Times

A forensically detailed, unputdownable account of the bleak winter of 1642, as England tumbled into war. It was dark, messy and complicated but Healey, always with an eye for the everyday and the quirky, tells a thoroughly human story of this most cataclysmic event

Alice Hunt, History Today, Books of the Year

Netflix should make this enjoyable English civil war history into an epic drama . . . An old-fashioned Westminster thriller, meticulously following the relationship between the proud, prickly Charles and his parliamentary critics . . . Creates a sense of atmosphere from the confusing, claustrophobic warren of the Palace of Westminster to the reeking streets of the City of London

Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times