Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This book spans the decade between 997 CE and 1007CE at the beginning of the Middle Ages. England is under attack from the Vikings in the east and Welsh in the west. As the book opens, the Vikings attack the small fishing village of Combe, a shipbuilder’s family loses everything including the shipbuilder. They face privation and starvation in the aftermath of the Viking attack because the enemy burned everything from food to homes to tools. The noblemen, who consider both the town and the townspeople to be theirs, have no clue on how to keep the people who provide a rich living for them alive and working. In this ambitious, and some may say overly ambitious, prequel to Pillars of the Earth (1989), Follett tells the story of many characters in many settings. If you’re going to read this long book, be prepared to devote a lot of time to it. Because of the author’s propensity toward describing everything in detail, the book became bogged down in the minutiae. It starts off very slowly and picks up a little steam but doesn’t seem to ever get to the point where the reader is turning the pages as fast as she can read. No, this is a languorous book that some readers will be willing to spend time with while others will move on to the next book on their to-be-read list without finishing this one. My thanks to Viking and Edelweiss for an eARC.