Best Selling Books by Ken Follett

"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 ... In these turbulent times, three characters find their lives intertwined: A young boatbuilder's life is turned upside down when the only home he's ever known 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 as she begins to realize that everyone around her is engaged in a constant, brutal battle for power, it becomes clear 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 ... [This novel] 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"--

The first comprehensive study of the novels of Ken Follett, master of the spy thriller.

Ken Follett's extraordinary historical epic, the Century Trilogy, reaches its sweeping, passionate conclusion. In Fall of Giants and Winter of the World, Ken Follett followed the fortunes of five international families--American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh--as they made their way through the twentieth century. Now they come to one of the most tumultuous eras of all: the 1960s through the 1980s, from civil rights, assassinations, mass political movements, and Vietnam to the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis, presidential impeachment, revolution--and rock and roll. East German teacher Rebecca Hoffmann discovers she's been spied on by the Stasi for years and commits an impulsive act that will affect her family for the rest of their lives. . . . George Jakes, the child of a mixed-race couple, bypasses a corporate law career to join Robert F. Kennedy's Justice Department and finds himself in the middle of not only the seminal events of the civil rights battle but a much more personal battle of his own. . . . Cameron Dewar, the grandson of a senator, jumps at the chance to do some official and unofficial espionage for a cause he believes in, only to discover that the world is a much more dangerous place than he'd imagined. . . . Dimka Dvorkin, a young aide to Nikita Khrushchev, becomes an agent both for good and for ill as the United States and the Soviet Union race to the brink of nuclear war, while his twin sister, Tanya, carves out a role that will take her from Moscow to Cuba to Prague to Warsaw--and into history. Look out for Ken's newest book, A Column of Fire, available now.

"In 1558, the ancient stones of Kingsbridge Cathedral look down on a city torn apart by religious conflict. As power in England shifts precariously between Catholics and Protestants, royalty and commoners clash, testing friendship, loyalty, and love. Ned Willard wants nothing more than to marry Margery Fitzgerald. But when the lovers find themselves on opposing sides of the religious conflict dividing the country, Ned goes to work for Princess Elizabeth. When she becomes queen, all Europe turns against England. The shrewd, determined young monarch sets up the country's first secret service to give her early warning of assassination plots, rebellions, and invasion plans."--Back cover.

In 1866, a young student drowns in a mysterious accident at the exclusive Windfield School, and the repercussions will be felt in a growing circle of treachery during the next three decades. Reprint.

Two centuries after the building of the elaborate Gothic cathedral in Kingsbridge, its prior finds himself at the center of a web of ambition and revenge that places the city at a crossroad of commerce, medicine, and architecture.

In his own bestselling tradition of Eye of the Needle and The Key to Rebecca, Ken Follett once again strikes Nazi pay dirt as a gang of all-female saboteurs go behind German lines.

Ken Follett’s magnificent new historical epic begins as five interrelated families move through the momentous dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women’s suffrage. A thirteen-year-old Welsh boy enters a man’s world in the mining pits. . . . An American law student rejected in love finds a surprising new career in Woodrow Wilson’s White House. . . . A housekeeper for the aristocratic Fitzherberts takes a fateful step above her station, while Lady Maud Fitzherbert herself crosses deep into forbidden territory when she falls in love with a German spy. . . . And two orphaned Russian brothers embark on radically different paths when their plan to emigrate to America falls afoul of war, conscription, and revolution. From the dirt and danger of a coal mine to the glittering chandeliers of a palace, from the corridors of power to the bedrooms of the mighty, Fall of Giants takes us into the inextricably entangled fates of five families—and into a century that we thought we knew, but that now will never seem the same again. . . . Look out for Ken's newest book, A Column of Fire, available now.

"I now describe myself as a lapsed atheist. I still don’t believe in God, and I never take Communion. But I like going to church. My favourite service is choral evensong", Follett writes. "Why do I go? The architecture, the music, the words of the King James Bible, and the sense of sharing something with my neighbours all work together. What they create, for me, is a feeling of spiritual peace! Going to church soothes my soul."

Originally published: New York: Morrow.