World Without End
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4.4 • 381 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
The bestselling sequel to Pillars of the Earth
On the day after Halloween, in the year 1327, four children slip away from the cathedral city of Kingsbridge. They are a thief, a bully, a boy genius and a girl who wants to be a doctor. In the forest they see two men killed.
As adults, their lives will be braided together by ambition, love, greed and revenge. They will see prosperity and famine, plague and war. One boy will travel the world but come home in the end; the other will be a powerful, corrupt nobleman. One girl will defy the might of the medieval church; the other will pursue an impossible love. And always they will live under the long shadow of the unexplained killing they witnessed on that fateful childhood day.
Ken Follett's masterful epic The Pillars of the Earth enchanted millions of readers with its compelling drama of war, passion and family conflict set around the building of a cathedral. Now World Without End takes readers back to medieval Kingsbridge two centuries later, as the men, women and children of the city once again grapple with the devastating sweep of historical change.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Eighteen years after Pillars of the Earth weighed in with almost 1,000 pages of juicy historical fiction about the construction of a 12th-century cathedral in Kingsbridge, England, bestseller Follett returns to 14th-century Kingsbridge with an equally weighty tome that deftly braids the fate of several of the offspring of Pillars' families with such momentous events of the era as the Black Death and the wars with France. Four children, who will become a peasant's wife, a knight, a builder and a nun, share a traumatic experience that will affect each of them differently as their lives play out from 1327 to 1361. Follett studs the narrative with gems of unexpected information such as the English nobility's multilingual training and the builder's technique for carrying heavy, awkward objects. While the novel lacks the thematic unity of Pillars, readers will be captivated by the four well-drawn central characters as they prove heroic, depraved, resourceful or mean. Fans of Follett's previous medieval epic will be well rewarded.
Customer Reviews
World Without End
A very enjoyable & engaging read. The story flows along at a good place. You can’t help loving the heroes & hating the villains. A good sequel that I would recommend.
Brilliant
Thought it’d be tough to follow up from pillars of the earth, but this was every bit as good!
Historical fiction at its best
Don’t be put off by the length of this. I found myself wishing it went on another 1000 pages. I’ve ended up reading the trilogy in the wrong order - This is the first book of the series i read, but now I have the other two set in different time periods to look forward to.
Fantastic read weaving true historical events into a riveting story centred around many different characters whose lives are intrinsically intertwined. The author Ken Follett has done such a good job balancing thorough research of this period and so many tiny details of it, with the art of engineering in its developing form in a realistic storyline that won’t bore. So many moments of despair as a reader, as well as many moments of triumph reading this, but overall a “can’t put down” read. Highly recommend!