Genre Fiction
![Ken Follett - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_a_ken_follett.jpg)
The Evening and the Morning: A Novel (Kingsbridge)
#1 New York Times Bestseller
An Amazon Best Book of 2020
The thrilling and addictive prequel to The Pillars of the Earth--set in England at the dawn of a new era: the Middle Ages
"Just as transporting as [The Pillars of the Earth] . . . A most welcome addition to the Kingsbridge series." --The Washington Post
It is 997 CE, the end of the Dark Ages. England is facing attacks from the Welsh in the west and the Vikings in the east. Those in power bend justice according to their will, regardless of ordinary people and often in conflict with the king. Without a clear rule of law, chaos reigns.
In these turbulent times, three characters find their lives intertwined. A young boatbuilder's life is turned upside down when his home is raided by Vikings, forcing him and his family to move and start their lives anew in a small hamlet where he does not fit in. . . . A Norman noblewoman marries for love, following her husband across the sea to a new land, but the customs of her husband's homeland are shockingly different, and it soon becomes clear to her that a single misstep could be catastrophic. . . . A monk dreams of transforming his humble abbey into a center of learning that will be admired throughout Europe. And each in turn comes into dangerous conflict with a clever and ruthless bishop who will do anything to increase his wealth and power.
Thirty years ago, Ken Follett published his most popular novel, The Pillars of the Earth. Now, Follett's masterful new prequel The Evening and the Morning takes us on an epic journey into a historical past rich with ambition and rivalry, death and birth, love and hate, that will end where The Pillars of the Earth begins.
An Amazon Best Book of 2020
The thrilling and addictive prequel to The Pillars of the Earth--set in England at the dawn of a new era: the Middle Ages
"Just as transporting as [The Pillars of the Earth] . . . A most welcome addition to the Kingsbridge series." --The Washington Post
It is 997 CE, the end of the Dark Ages. England is facing attacks from the Welsh in the west and the Vikings in the east. Those in power bend justice according to their will, regardless of ordinary people and often in conflict with the king. Without a clear rule of law, chaos reigns.
In these turbulent times, three characters find their lives intertwined. A young boatbuilder's life is turned upside down when his home is raided by Vikings, forcing him and his family to move and start their lives anew in a small hamlet where he does not fit in. . . . A Norman noblewoman marries for love, following her husband across the sea to a new land, but the customs of her husband's homeland are shockingly different, and it soon becomes clear to her that a single misstep could be catastrophic. . . . A monk dreams of transforming his humble abbey into a center of learning that will be admired throughout Europe. And each in turn comes into dangerous conflict with a clever and ruthless bishop who will do anything to increase his wealth and power.
Thirty years ago, Ken Follett published his most popular novel, The Pillars of the Earth. Now, Follett's masterful new prequel The Evening and the Morning takes us on an epic journey into a historical past rich with ambition and rivalry, death and birth, love and hate, that will end where The Pillars of the Earth begins.
Editorial Reviews
"[A] richly told, complex story . . . Follett is a powerful storyteller . . . [whose] fans will enjoy this jaunt through the days before England was merry."
-Kirkus (starred)
"Follett has done it again. Readers will gobble up this exciting prequel."
-Library Journal
"[An] absorbing and lengthy saga of life in a chaotic and unstable England on the cusp of the Middle Ages . . . Fans of Follett's ever-popular Kingsbridge series . . . will flock to this . . . while intrigued newcomers can start here."
-Booklist
"Follett vividly re-creates the ancient era . . . in this feast for his fans."
-AARP
Praise for Ken Follett and the Kingsbridge series
"The Kingsbridge books . . . are swift, accessible and written in a clear, uncluttered prose that has a distinctly contemporary feel. . . . Follett presents his worlds in granular detail, but the narratives never stand still. Something dramatic, appalling or enraging happens in virtually every chapter. . . . The result is a massive entertainment that illuminates an obscure corner of British history with intelligence and great narrative energy."
-The Washington Post
"Follett takes you to a time long past with brio and razor-sharp storytelling. An epic tale in which you will lose yourself."
-The Denver Post
"[Follett is a] master of the sweeping, readable epic."
-The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Follett is a master."
-The Washington Post
-Kirkus (starred)
"Follett has done it again. Readers will gobble up this exciting prequel."
-Library Journal
"[An] absorbing and lengthy saga of life in a chaotic and unstable England on the cusp of the Middle Ages . . . Fans of Follett's ever-popular Kingsbridge series . . . will flock to this . . . while intrigued newcomers can start here."
-Booklist
"Follett vividly re-creates the ancient era . . . in this feast for his fans."
-AARP
Praise for Ken Follett and the Kingsbridge series
"The Kingsbridge books . . . are swift, accessible and written in a clear, uncluttered prose that has a distinctly contemporary feel. . . . Follett presents his worlds in granular detail, but the narratives never stand still. Something dramatic, appalling or enraging happens in virtually every chapter. . . . The result is a massive entertainment that illuminates an obscure corner of British history with intelligence and great narrative energy."
-The Washington Post
"Follett takes you to a time long past with brio and razor-sharp storytelling. An epic tale in which you will lose yourself."
-The Denver Post
"[Follett is a] master of the sweeping, readable epic."
-The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Follett is a master."
-The Washington Post
Readers Top Reviews
DariusLisa
Never thought I'd rate a Ken Follett novel so badly. The story is supposed to take place in the Dark Ages in Saxon England, but it fails to capture the climate of the Dark Ages. It reads like a miodern day soap opera with some murders, cheating husbands, child custody case and a kidnapping thrown in. Set against a background of Viking raids which are treated by the author as "by the way" occurances. Very similar characters to the ones in "Pillars" - a builder, a corrupt and evil Bishop, a do-gooder monk. I did not expect such a poor novel from this renowned author. There are a few sections of the book which are interesting although these do not make up for over 800 pages of a fairly unconvincing storyline.
BetteDDariusLisa
As pillars of the earth is one of my all time favourites I looked forward to this prequel and I was not disappointed. Full of great characters both good and evil. The story engrossed me totally as the world around me disappeared. Only thing that made me sad is I have finished it. Undoubtably I will read it again in a few months. Highly recommend it.
Alison CookBetteD
Ken Follett’s new book ‘The Evening and the Morning,’ as a prequel to the Kingsbridge Trilogy, is an incredible insight into the Dark Ages of England. So much well researched fact entwined with the story, it’s easy to forget that it is fictional. This story is a masterpiece, the narrative threads of characters and action with; great mixtures of love, lust, religion, the Court, everyday living, death, brutality, romance, pathos et al, learning about our indigenous Anglo-Saxons, the Normans and Vikings has been a pleasure. Such sensory descriptions, visceral narrative, Ken Follet knows how to bring his characters alive for us readers. I’ve learned so much about England during the Dark Ages, it’s left me wanting to learn more. Thank you to Pigeonhole.com for this opportunity of reading and commenting with other readers. Such a great book club that brings stories and characters alive, simply because I am not alone reading it. Thank you to Ken Follett for bring such a masterpiece, again, and for being such a master storyteller of historical fiction.
shelagh wadmanAli
It is the year 977CE at the end of the dark ages and Lady Raginhild, known as Ragna, a beautiful red headed French Nobel-woman steps ashore in England on her way to to marry the man she loves. She is to marry Wilwulf the ealdorman of Shiring. Her life until that day had been a privileged one, the daughter of the Count and Countess of Cherbourg she was brought up in Cherbourg Castle within a happy and loving environment. Life for Lady Ragna will never be the same again, she will endure a totally different life in England which is in a state of great turmoil fighting off not only attacks from the Welsh from the West but also terrible Viking invasions from the East. King Ethelred, who is not a strong ruler, has no clear rule of law, therefore chaos and bloodshed reign. One constant in her future life in England will be Aldred a monk who she had met previously when he visited Cherbourg Castle. Aldred dreams of building a library and scriptorium in the Abbey at Shiring. Meanwhile a young man Edgar, the son of a boatbuilder, and his family are devastated by a Viking massacre in his village of Combe. His father and the woman that he loves are killed and the family’s boat yard destroyed. Edgar, his two brothers and their mother move to Dreng’s Ferry and begin life again as farmers, suffering great poverty and hardship. On Lady Ragna’s journey to her new home in Shiring she stops at Dreng’s Ferry for the night. Lady Ragna and Edgar meet at Dreng’s Ferry and a friendship, which will last for many years, begins. The reader will find they are not only shocked, dismayed and angry at what befalls the three friends but enlightened as to what life was like in the Middle Ages. The Evening and the Morning is a wonderfully compelling insight into life at the end of the Dark Ages and the start of the Middle Ages and a great prequel to the Kingsbridge trilogy.
don m. colemanshe
The Evening and the Morning By Ken Follett Wedged in a ten year time span (997 to1007), Ken Follett’s epic novel “The Evening and the Morning (TEATM),” is essentially a love story. The story is woven around the attraction, then friendship, and finally an uncompromising devotion and love between Edgar, a gifted builder and craftsman and Lady Ragna a brilliant and beautiful noble woman. TEATM unfolds in the context of the complex class and power struggles of the Dark Ages of Europe. Follett weaves his story around four classes of European people. First is the richest and most powerful class, that is, the Kings, Queens and the various noblemen. Ragna’s father, a nobleman, is the Count of Cherbourg a French area along the English Channel. Second is the clergy. The novel is ripe with Follett’s depiction of the customs and rituals of Christianity as practiced during that era. The powerful in this class are the church leaders such as archbishops, bishops, and leaders of various other church and monastic institutions. However, within this class a range of diversity exists. Among whom we first meet Wynstan, bishop of the English town of Shiring who is clever, ambitious and treacherous. Wynstan uses his religious status to enhance power and wealth for himself and his family. Wynstan is contrasted with Brother Aldred, a pious monk who early in his monastic career committed a moral sin for which he was seriously condemned but who now, has devoted himself to the moral and material enhancement of the people. Aldred’s ambition is the development of edifice devoted to the translation of the bible and the education of the monastery. The third class in TEATM is the merchants, craftsmen, farmers, men of arms, and others. This class includes the greedy and mean spirited Dreng, the owner of an alehouse, a place which provides food, wine, short-term accommodations, and prostitutes to travellers and others who visit this struggling village in coastal England called Dreng’s Ferry. Dreng is a cousin of Wynstan. Finally the lowest class is that of the slave. Most slaves are the booty of wars between the various territories. Blod, a slave captured by the English during a conflict with the Welch, belongs to Dreng. Dreng prostitutes her and subjects her to indescribable brutalities. Classless are the known thieves and outlaws who play a role in the narrative and are loathed by all. They are observed to be even lower than the slave class Early in the story we have the marriage of Ragna to Wilfwulf (Wilf) a nobleman of Shiring, England and the half-brother of Wynstan. This marriage is both political and romantic. The political aspect is that it enhances an alliance between the English and the French. The theme of constant war --between the raiding, pillaging and Odin-worshipping Vikings vs. the Christian French and ...
Short Excerpt Teaser
Chapter 1
Thursday, June 17, 997
It was hard to stay awake all night, Edgar found, even on the most important night of your life.
He had spread his cloak over the reeds on the floor and now he lay on it, dressed in the knee-length brown wool tunic that was all he wore in summer, day and night. In winter he would wrap the cloak around him and lie near the fire. But now the weather was warm: Midsummer Day was a week away.
Edgar always knew dates. Most people had to ask priests, who kept calendars. Edgar's elder brother Erman had once said to him: "How come you know when Easter is?" and he had replied: "Because it's the first Sunday after the first full moon after the twenty-first day of March, obviously." It had been a mistake to add "obviously," because Erman had punched him in the stomach for being sarcastic. That had been years ago, when Edgar was small. He was grown now. He would be eighteen three days after Midsummer. His brothers no longer punched him.
He shook his head. Random thoughts sent him drifting off. He tried to make himself uncomfortable, lying on his fist to stay awake.
He wondered how much longer he had to wait.
He turned his head and looked around by firelight. His home was like almost every other house in the town of Combe: oak-plank walls, a thatched roof, and an earth floor partly covered with reeds from the banks of the nearby river. It had no windows. In the middle of the single room was a square of stones surrounding the hearth. Over the fire stood an iron tripod from which cooking pots could be hung, and its legs made spidery shadows on the underside of the roof. All around the walls were wooden pegs on which were hung clothes, cooking utensils, and boatbuilding tools.
Edgar was not sure how much of the night had passed, because he might have dozed off, perhaps more than once. Earlier, he had listened to the sounds of the town settling for the night: a couple of drunks singing an obscene ditty, the bitter accusations of a marital quarrel in a neighboring house, a door slamming and a dog barking and, somewhere nearby, a woman sobbing. But now there was nothing but the soft lullaby of waves on a sheltered beach. He stared in the direction of the door, looking for telltale lines of light around its edges, and saw only darkness. That meant either that the moon had set, so the night was well advanced, or that the sky was cloudy, which would tell him nothing.
The rest of his family lay around the room, close to the walls where there was less smoke. Pa and Ma were back-to-back. Sometimes they would wake in the middle of the night and embrace, whispering and moving together, until they fell back, panting; but they were fast asleep now, Pa snoring. Erman, the eldest brother at twenty, lay near Edgar, and Eadbald, the middle one, was in the corner. Edgar could hear their steady, untroubled breathing.
At last, the church bell struck.
There was a monastery on the far side of the town. The monks had a way of measuring the hours of the night: they made big, graduated candles that told the time as they burned down. One hour before dawn they would ring the bell, then get up to chant their service of Matins.
Edgar lay still a little longer. The bell might have disturbed Ma, who woke easily. He gave her time to sink back into deep slumber. Then, at last, he got to his feet.
Silently he picked up his cloak, his shoes, and his belt with its sheathed dagger attached. On bare feet he crossed the room, avoiding the furniture: a table, two stools, and a bench. The door opened silently: Edgar had greased the wooden hinges yesterday with a generous smear of sheep's tallow.
If one of his family woke now and spoke to him, he would say he was going outside to piss, and hope they did not spot that he was carrying his shoes.
Eadbald grunted. Edgar froze. Had Eadbald woken up, or just made a noise in his sleep? Edgar could not tell. But Eadbald was the passive one, always keen to avoid a fuss, like Pa. He would not make trouble.
Edgar stepped out and closed the door behind him carefully.
The moon had se...
Thursday, June 17, 997
It was hard to stay awake all night, Edgar found, even on the most important night of your life.
He had spread his cloak over the reeds on the floor and now he lay on it, dressed in the knee-length brown wool tunic that was all he wore in summer, day and night. In winter he would wrap the cloak around him and lie near the fire. But now the weather was warm: Midsummer Day was a week away.
Edgar always knew dates. Most people had to ask priests, who kept calendars. Edgar's elder brother Erman had once said to him: "How come you know when Easter is?" and he had replied: "Because it's the first Sunday after the first full moon after the twenty-first day of March, obviously." It had been a mistake to add "obviously," because Erman had punched him in the stomach for being sarcastic. That had been years ago, when Edgar was small. He was grown now. He would be eighteen three days after Midsummer. His brothers no longer punched him.
He shook his head. Random thoughts sent him drifting off. He tried to make himself uncomfortable, lying on his fist to stay awake.
He wondered how much longer he had to wait.
He turned his head and looked around by firelight. His home was like almost every other house in the town of Combe: oak-plank walls, a thatched roof, and an earth floor partly covered with reeds from the banks of the nearby river. It had no windows. In the middle of the single room was a square of stones surrounding the hearth. Over the fire stood an iron tripod from which cooking pots could be hung, and its legs made spidery shadows on the underside of the roof. All around the walls were wooden pegs on which were hung clothes, cooking utensils, and boatbuilding tools.
Edgar was not sure how much of the night had passed, because he might have dozed off, perhaps more than once. Earlier, he had listened to the sounds of the town settling for the night: a couple of drunks singing an obscene ditty, the bitter accusations of a marital quarrel in a neighboring house, a door slamming and a dog barking and, somewhere nearby, a woman sobbing. But now there was nothing but the soft lullaby of waves on a sheltered beach. He stared in the direction of the door, looking for telltale lines of light around its edges, and saw only darkness. That meant either that the moon had set, so the night was well advanced, or that the sky was cloudy, which would tell him nothing.
The rest of his family lay around the room, close to the walls where there was less smoke. Pa and Ma were back-to-back. Sometimes they would wake in the middle of the night and embrace, whispering and moving together, until they fell back, panting; but they were fast asleep now, Pa snoring. Erman, the eldest brother at twenty, lay near Edgar, and Eadbald, the middle one, was in the corner. Edgar could hear their steady, untroubled breathing.
At last, the church bell struck.
There was a monastery on the far side of the town. The monks had a way of measuring the hours of the night: they made big, graduated candles that told the time as they burned down. One hour before dawn they would ring the bell, then get up to chant their service of Matins.
Edgar lay still a little longer. The bell might have disturbed Ma, who woke easily. He gave her time to sink back into deep slumber. Then, at last, he got to his feet.
Silently he picked up his cloak, his shoes, and his belt with its sheathed dagger attached. On bare feet he crossed the room, avoiding the furniture: a table, two stools, and a bench. The door opened silently: Edgar had greased the wooden hinges yesterday with a generous smear of sheep's tallow.
If one of his family woke now and spoke to him, he would say he was going outside to piss, and hope they did not spot that he was carrying his shoes.
Eadbald grunted. Edgar froze. Had Eadbald woken up, or just made a noise in his sleep? Edgar could not tell. But Eadbald was the passive one, always keen to avoid a fuss, like Pa. He would not make trouble.
Edgar stepped out and closed the door behind him carefully.
The moon had se...
