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guybrarian133 's review for:
The Evening and the Morning
by Ken Follett
(Note: I received an advanced reader copy of this book courtesy of NetGalley)
This was actually the first Follet novel that I have ever tackled. Shortly after I started, one of the first things that caught my attention was the extent to which everything was described, even in conversations between characters. At first, it gave the book a bit of an over-explanatory kind of tone, and I quickly found myself wondering just how long it was going to take to eventually work my way through the several hundred pages.
At some point, however, a switch happened. I don't know when it occurred, but suddenly the book that I was stubbornly trying to work my way through became the book that I was reluctant to put down. I found that I had become quite fond of the three main characters as they navigated separate and shared challenges, the grand majority posed by a power-hungry archbishop and his various loathsome allies. Just when one machination was over, a new one was hatched, making for an abundance of intrigue and struggle that became harder and harder for me to tear myself away from. And as I stayed up increasingly later in the evenings to devour chapter after chapter, Follet’s style of descriptiveness had ceased to be a bother, and instead just made the characters’ world come incredibly alive through rich detail. Clearly, the author has done his research about life in this period. And while there is definitely a limit to how far Follet could go on existing scholarship before taking up some creative liberties, nevertheless at times it definitely felt like I had taken a time machine to early medieval England.
By the time it was over, it turned out to be a most enjoyable escapist journey via historical fiction. If this is Ken Follet at his usual level of work, then fans of his will definitely be justified in their anticipation of his latest book. And for first-timers like myself, I can say from experience that they have nothing holding them back from diving right in. Hopefully you newcomers found yourself as captivated as I was - because when you eventually finish, you’ll still have the rest of Kingsbridge series ahead of you (which, as one may expect, I am now quite excited to move on to).
This was actually the first Follet novel that I have ever tackled. Shortly after I started, one of the first things that caught my attention was the extent to which everything was described, even in conversations between characters. At first, it gave the book a bit of an over-explanatory kind of tone, and I quickly found myself wondering just how long it was going to take to eventually work my way through the several hundred pages.
At some point, however, a switch happened. I don't know when it occurred, but suddenly the book that I was stubbornly trying to work my way through became the book that I was reluctant to put down. I found that I had become quite fond of the three main characters as they navigated separate and shared challenges, the grand majority posed by a power-hungry archbishop and his various loathsome allies. Just when one machination was over, a new one was hatched, making for an abundance of intrigue and struggle that became harder and harder for me to tear myself away from. And as I stayed up increasingly later in the evenings to devour chapter after chapter, Follet’s style of descriptiveness had ceased to be a bother, and instead just made the characters’ world come incredibly alive through rich detail. Clearly, the author has done his research about life in this period. And while there is definitely a limit to how far Follet could go on existing scholarship before taking up some creative liberties, nevertheless at times it definitely felt like I had taken a time machine to early medieval England.
By the time it was over, it turned out to be a most enjoyable escapist journey via historical fiction. If this is Ken Follet at his usual level of work, then fans of his will definitely be justified in their anticipation of his latest book. And for first-timers like myself, I can say from experience that they have nothing holding them back from diving right in. Hopefully you newcomers found yourself as captivated as I was - because when you eventually finish, you’ll still have the rest of Kingsbridge series ahead of you (which, as one may expect, I am now quite excited to move on to).