Cassie McCullough

But having said that, they are meticulously researched historical novels which, well, they've educated me about times and places that I may not have set out to learn about but have ended up loving.

Now, Kate, what you probably need to know about my reading of this book is my family, as a kind of team effort, multi-generational effort, have been reading this series.

of books over 30 years and so I was always going to read it even if it wasn't a plus plus in quality.

Yeah, look, they can span up to 50 years and you see children born becoming parents and grandparents.

That's the kind of time frame.

And there's always a zillion people coming and going and some of them dying dreadful deaths, some of them having redemption, and all of them somehow connected to the story that Ken Follett wants to tell about this period of usually English history but also European.

So...

In the Pillars of the Earth, there's even a prologue, which is in 1123.

And this is important in relation to the evening and the morning.

But in the prologue, there's a redheaded man who is being hanged.

And his pregnant lover is in the crowd watching this happen.

And she curses them, right?

Yes.

But that redheaded man is a continuing theme throughout the books because there's always a character who is redheaded and there are always redheaded children being born.

And of course, when we get to The Evening in the Morning, there is a redhead in this and you realise this is the origin story of the red hair.

Well, yes, it's in Britain and it's in what is to become Kingsbridge.

I mean, the Pillars of the Earth trilogy is also known as the Kingsbridge trilogy.

So it does travel back and forth across the channel.

And that's very interesting as a plot device, as well as unfolding some of the porous nature of culture at that time.

So throughout all the novels.