Full of courage, and a desire to change the world, she puts herself willingly in danger for the sake of her faith and her ideals. Princess Margot, Princess of France - Daughter of Henri II of France and Catherine de' Medici, lover of Henri I, Duke of Guise, married to Henry of Navarre.

Follett masterfully interwove his fictional characters and places with actual characters and historical events - in "Pillars" we went from the drowning of the heir apparent in 1118, to the civil war between Stephen and Matilda, culminating in the assassination of Beckett in 1171, and through it all was Prior Philip and the characters of Kingsbridge.

Elizabeth clings to her throne and her principles, protected by a small, dedicated group of resourceful spies and courageous secret agents. Alice Willard - Mother of Ned and Barney, widow of the former mayor of Kingsbridge, a prosperous Kingsbridge merchant and tolerant Protestant. We've watched the place grow from an Anglo-Norman settlement to a thriving medieval town, and now we see it at the start of the English Renaissance. Perhaps the most useful book was Conyers Read's three-volume biography Mr Secretary Walsingham, about the man who was the Elizabethan equivalent of “M” in the James Bond stories.

This turns out to be very crucial, as otherwise the Spanish might have been able to tow the English fireships to burn harmlessly in the open sea.Where The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End focused on chapters of the Middle Ages that were foreign to me, I can quickly name every single Tudor monarch, every wife of Henry VIII, and tell you about the religious struggles, even details such as what happened to Margaret Clitherow. Alison McKay is depicted as afterwards strongly but vainly urging Mary not to take the decision to go to England - a fatal mistake which led to a much longer imprisonment which the loyal Alison shared up to the moment of Mary's execution. Although I still need to finish the Century Trilogy, I’m anxiously waiting for his next book, “Never”, a mystery thriller and historical fiction, being released next month. The previous two novels in the Kingsbridge series of novels were more intimate in their characterisation and readers of this third novel in the series may miss this aspect of Follett's writing.

One of the most popular authors in the world, his many books including the Kingsbridge series and the Century trilogy - a body of work which together chronicles over a thousand years of history - and his latest novel Never - which envisages how World War III could happen - have sold more than 188 million copies.

The page-turning historical saga that began in The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End , which now continues with Ken Follett's magnificent, masterful A Column of Fire . To Ned Willard is attributed the role of uncovering the conspiracy and averting it at the last moment. The dedicated reader will surely find a few characters onto whom they can latch and find some solace, though there are an equal number who can be hated for their actions. When Elizabeth finally is crowned queen and quickly becomes public enemy number one with all the other countries in Europe (no spoilers here we all know our history) she sets about building the first secret service by installing a network of spies to protect her royal ass. Though set in respectively the 16th Century and the 20th, both novels have a rich commoner woman (Margery Fitzgerald in the one book, Daisy Peshkov in the other) marrying the scion of a titled English aristocratic family.