Let's be honest, last summer I was captivated with the fictional English town of Kingsbridge and its' citizens like Tom Builder, Jack, Prior Phillip and many more as they were determined to build the Church a cathedral. I spent days and weeks engrossed in The Pillars of the Earth. Shortly after posting my blog review, a parent-volunteer in my Kindergarten classroom asked if I had plans to read the sequel! Having just started Follett's Fall of Giants, I was hesitant to take on the task of another "big book", but felt torn because I really did want to go back to Kingsbridge! The next day one of my kids came bouncing into the room with a thick package, "a gift from Mom" he said!
The sequel was just as addicting as the first, and with a two week trip to Northern Wisconsin and Northern Michigan, there was ample time to dive headfirst into this storyline. The text opens with four kids sneaking away from the Kingsbridge Cathedral to a nearby woods where they witness the murder of two men. Each character, Caris (a girl with ambitions to be a doctor), Merthin (young boy who desires to be a master builder), his brother Ralph (purely a bully at this point) and Gwenda (a thief at a young age) will take something different from this episode in the woods. Their stories are intertwined throughout as they grow up in a time of greed, lust, romance, perversion, war, plague, and with the dynamics of royalty and politics.
As time passes, readers will ultimately take sides with their favorites and wish evil upon their fictitious enemies! My husband is currently reading the story on his Kindle and it's been fun to hear him get angry at characters who already hold a place on my "Jerk" list!
Without giving too much away, I really loved the mastermind of Follett here as he constantly threw curveball upon curveball followed by jaw-dropping twists and then of course, romance! You never quite know what will happen next, and it is this intrigue and desire that made me read this story cover to cover in less than a week.
P.S. Via Ken Follett's web site, an 8-hour mini-series for "World Without End" will begin taping this July in Hungary! If Starz is going to show this mini-series I highly suggest keeping an eye out for this mini-series in the future months to come, the mini-series for Pillars of the Earth was phenomenal!
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