I started the first book in Ken Follett’s Century Trilogy – The Fall of Giants — in mid-October of last year. A combination of the books’ long lengths, the fact that I was listening to them on CDs borrowed from the library (which meant they took longer to get through, and I spent a good amount of time on a waiting list) all added up to my spending about six months with these characters, and their children, and their childrens’ children. And while I enjoyed […]

Okay, yes, it’s another World War II book by Ken Follett. That makes my third this year? This one has much more in common with Jackdaws than Winter of the World: smaller cast of characters, tighter timeline, and I read the whole thing on a two hour plane ride (as opposed to Winter of the World, which took several weeks all told). Hornet Flight takes place in 1941, primarily in Denmark. A resistance movement there has been compromised, and their leader needs desperately to get information about the radar […]

“Why was it, Lloyd wondered, that the people who wanted to destroy everything good about their country were the quickest to wave the national flag?” Winter of the World, the second of Ken Follett’s Century Trilogy, picks up just before the start of World War II. Our cast of characters consists mainly of the offspring of the first book’s characters: Carla and Erik von Ulrich, Woody and Chuck Dewar, Lloyd Williams (a personal favorite), Daisy Peshkov (give her a chance, she’ll grow on you), along with her illegitimate […]

Ah, another Ken Follett book. Let’s see how this one adds up: Historical background? Check = the last days of WWII, just before D-Day Great bad guy? Check = Dieter Franck, Nazi tortuer extraordinaire (and his beautiful Jewish sidekick, Stephanie) Feisty chick? Check, check, check = our heroine, Felicity “Flick” Clairet, the beautiful British leader of a French resistance group and all around bad ass; plus a bonus feisty chick: a Gypsy murderess named Ruby, plus a collection of crazy women willing to go along on the mission (all of […]

This was a phenomenal book. I’m sad that my experience with Ken Follett novels for years was with his shorter novels, like The Third Twin and The Key to Rebecca, that I mainly read for the dirty bits (I think I read The Third Twin went I was 13–several times). I discovered him as a historical fiction writer last year when I read the two Pillars of Earth books, and knew I needed to find more like that. A few weeks ago, I started the first of the Century Trilogy, titled Fall […]