A Column of Fire (The Kingsbridge Novels)

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This triumphant saga, begun almost 30 years ago with The Pillars Of The Earth, moves across England to Scotland, France and the New World. The reader learns of these struggles and waits to see how the numerous spheres will come together and eventually meld into a single storyline. Ken Follett takes us deep into the treacherous world of powerful monarchs, intrigue, murder, and treason with his magnificent epic, A Column of Fire—the chronological latest in the Kingsbridge series, following The Pillars of the Earth, World Without End, and the prequel, The Evening and the Morning. In a sense, this is probably the only way to complete the trilogy - characters die, but memories of them may continue.

Like the earlier two books, Pillars of the Earth and World Without End, this book is sweeping in scope, covering more than 50 years. There are only a few novelized versions, most not recent, so I’m not aware of other historical novels set in this period so there’s little to compare it with except the actual history. At times, it felt almost like an overview of history at this point and it's a history lesson that every British schoolchild learns early. Erasmus, Calvin, and of course Martin Luther play a substantial role although they don’t actually appear.The antagonism between Catholics and Protestants is at a fevered pitch as Queen Mary, also known as Bloody Mary, tortures and kills those who want to take Christianity in a different direction that of being less ostentatious, less mercurial, and more dedicated to the simplicity of worshiping God.

And I simply didn't love/hate the characters I was supposed to love/hate as much as I was supposed to love/hate them. It does a good job leaving the story where it did, in the reign of James I in England and Henri IV in France, pointing the way to an eventual reconciliation of the sects of Christianity with the Edict of Nantes on one side of the channel and the Gunpowder Plot on the other. If you fail to comply with this obligation, we may have a right of action against you for compensation.Romance, family breakdown, plot and counter-plot, hopes and expectation and the dissolution of the same, political partisanship, religious warfare and uncontrollable egos all play their part in this blockbuster of a novel. His celebrated PILLARS OF THE EARTH was voted into the top 100 of Britain's best-loved books in the BBC's the Big Read and the sequel, WORLD WITHOUT END, was published to critical acclaim. He’s done his homework on what actually happened in the Spanish Armada, but with a seaman like Ned’s brother Barney telling the story there’s no excuse to dumb it down. He started his career as a reporter, first with his hometown newspaper the South Wales Echo and then with the London Evening News. A Column of Fire is a cold winter’s night, big pot of tea and bar of chocolate comfort book and there’s plenty of space in the world for that.

It was too expansive, too spread out over a large geographical area, for the reader to really get involved in the characters. If a refund is payable to you we will process the refund as soon as possible, and, in any case within fourteen (14) days. I've had a whole month and 900+ pages to think about it-- and I just didn't enjoy A Column of Fire as much as The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End. Ned Willard and Margery Fitzgerald are two of the main characters who love one another and wish to marry. I was asked to review this by Nudge and was thrilled 28 years ago I read the first book - Pillars of the Earth on holiday and was blown away.Reading this felt like I was reading about the battles that took place between England and France in late 1500. There is action in Kingsbridge and the Cathedral does bear mention on occasion, but a great deal of the story takes place elsewhere, which lessens the impact of the community that readers have come to love. This book brings to a conclusion a story that began with the building of a cathedral in a tumultuous period of the Middle Ages and ends in the grounds of that same cathedral in the calm period that followed the infamous "Gun-powder plot" of the very early 17th. The novel is a long one, as the characters, events and the inter-relationship between the two are involved and intriguing. He's crafted an amazing set of towns, families, bonds and rivalries over a period of 60 years in this particular third novel where the tides turn every 5 to 10 years, or every 100 to 200 pages (yes, it's nearly 1000 pages long).