It's all quite entertaining and memorable.
Here, Follett sets the thrillers aside for a long, steady story about building a cathedral in 12th-century England.
Bloodthirsty or adventure-crazed Follett readers will be frustrated, but anyone who has ever been moved by the splendors of a fine church will sink right into this highly detailed but fast-moving historical work—a novel about the people and skills needed to put up an eye-popping cathedral in the very unsettled days just before the ascension of Henry II. The cathedral is the brainchild of Philip, prior of the monastery at Kingsbridge, and Tom, an itinerant master mason. Philip, shrewd and ambitious but genuinely devout, sees it as a sign of divine agreement when his decrepit old cathedral burns on the night that Tom and his starving family show up seeking shelter. Actually, it's Tom's clever stepson Jack who has stepped in to carry out God's will by secretly torching the cathedral attic, but the effect is the same. Tom gets the commission to start the rebuilding—which is what he has wanted to do more than anything in his life. Meanwhile, however, the work is complicated greatly by local politics. There is a loathsome baron and his family who have usurped the local earldom and allied themselves with the powerful, cynical bishop—who is himself sinfully jealous of Philip's cathedral. There are the dispossessed heirs to earldom, a beautiful girl and her bellicose brother, both sworn to root out the usurpers. And there is the mysterious Ellen, Tom's second wife, who witnessed an ancient treachery that haunts the bishop, the priory, and the vile would-be earl. The great work is set back, and Tom is killed in a raid by the rivals. It falls to young Jack to finish the work. Thriller writing turns out to be pretty good training, since Follett's history moves like a fast freight train. Details are plenty, but they support rather than smother.
It's all quite entertaining and memorable.Pub Date: Sept. 7, 1989
ISBN: 0451225244
Page Count: 973
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1989
BOOK TO SCREEN
Edgar’s own story in the present is more compelling than the revelations of the key’s past, and the novel might have been...
The prolific master of psycho-horror returns to the mysteries of the creative process, a subject that has inspired some of his most haunting work.
This could be considered a companion piece to The Shining, offering plenty of reversals on that plot. In both cases, isolation has severe effects on the psyche of an artist, yet where the former novel found its protagonist in a lethal state of writer’s block, the latter sees a one-time building magnate transformed into an impossibly prolific and powerful painter, due to circumstances beyond his control. And where the isolation in the former had a family cut off from society by a frigid northern winter, the setting of the latter is a mysterious Florida key, lush and tropical in its overgrowth, somehow immune to commercial development. A self-made millionaire, Edgar Freemantle narrates the novel in a conversational, matter-of-fact tone. He explains how a job-site accident cost him his arm, his sanity (during the early part of an extended recuperation) and his wife (whom he had physically threatened after the accident transformed him into something other than himself). What he gained was a seemingly inexplicable command as a visual artist, particularly after his recuperation (from both his accident and his marriage) takes him to the isolated Duma Key, where the only other inhabitants are an elderly, wealthy woman and her caretaker. It seems that all three have suffered severe traumas that bond them and that perhaps have even drawn them together. Soon Edgar discovers that his art has given him the power not only to predict the future, but to transform it. He ultimately pays a steep price for his artistic gifts, particularly as his investigation of the mysteries of Duma Key lead him to discover the tragic origins of his artistic vision.
Edgar’s own story in the present is more compelling than the revelations of the key’s past, and the novel might have been twice as powerful if it had been cut by a third, but King fans will find it engrossing.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4165-5251-2
Page Count: 624
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2007
No one captures the flavor and experience of a summer place—the outdoor showers, the seafood, the sand in the...
A celebrity chef’s sudden death leaves his widow, exes, children, and best friend in a quandary.
And since this is a Hilderbrand novel, is there any doubt that the dilemma involves Nantucket real estate? A somewhat dilapidated (or at least, dated) and decidedly downscale beachfront cottage known as American Paradise serves as plot driver and central symbol. As his success grew, Chef Deacon Thorpe bought the house with his first wife, Laurel, as a repository of happy memories for his son, Hayes—the kind that Deacon himself had been denied. (He had one idyllic day on Nantucket with his own father, who then mysteriously and permanently disappeared.) Deacon and Laurel never wanted to upgrade the house, and there are still reminders of earlier inhabitants, including a ghost supposedly occupying the smallest attic room. Now, Deacon has died (on the cottage’s back deck, of a coronary), leaving nothing but debt. American Paradise is facing foreclosure due to the three mortgages Deacon took out, unbeknownst to his family. Surprisingly, or perhaps not given Deacon’s (and Hilderbrand’s) sense of humor, he has left the place to his three spouses, current and former—Laurel, Belinda, the movie star he left her for, and official widow Scarlett, the Southern belle who was the nanny for his and Belinda's adopted daughter, Angie. Best friend Buck, Deacon’s long-suffering fiduciary, has called the wives and children to American Paradise to scatter Deacon’s ashes and—a duty Buck has been dreading—read the will. Each member of this unique blended family has a say, as they squabble over turf and mull over their past and ongoing missteps, loves, and addictions. Angie, a talented chef in her own right, prepares lavish meals (rendered in mouthwatering detail, including recipes). The question looms—if Deacon’s Nantucket legacy can’t be shared, can it be saved?
No one captures the flavor and experience of a summer place—the outdoor showers, the seafood, the sand in the floorboards—like Hilderbrand.Pub Date: June 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-37514-6
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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