Cassie McCullough

So it's at the end of what was called the Dark Ages.

You know, obviously, you know, the Romans had been there and really disrupted the life that was being lived in the English Isles.

and entered this dark period where people actually sort of went backwards.

They didn't know how to read.

They, you know, all the kind of basics of life had been disrupted.

So you're coming out of that and religion, obviously, a huge part of the story.

The main character is a young man called Edgar, who is the son of a boat builder and they live in this little seaside town.

And he has two brothers.

Very helpfully, Ken Follett does things like this all the time.

The two brothers are called Edbald and Ehrman.

So you just know, okay, if their name starts with an E, they're one of those brothers.

And later on there's these other brothers called Winston, Wilgem and Wilwolf.

And, you know, oh, that's that other strand of that family and there's lots of other W names.

And so, you know, it's quite a handy thing to do.

But the Vikings come and raid...

this small town and pretty much destroy all the means of survival there and kill a lot of the men, a lot of the women are taken and, you know, dreadfully raped and murdered.

I mean, actually that's the theme in all of this series of books.

There is often great violence.

There's a lot of sexual violence against women.

And there's a lot of unfair justice, you know, in quotes, meted out by the ruling class.