A Column of Fire: A Novel

Great book for any fan of Ken Follett's writing. To preface this review, I'm a gigantic fan of Pillars of the Earth. I've read it over a dozen times and consider it one of my favourite books of all time! Personally, for A Column of Fire, I found the story a bit repetitive in regard's to Follett's previous books. The throwbacks to the previous books were shoved into the character's lives in awkward ways and it felt a bit like cheap fan-service. I also just didn't really care about the main characters in the same way I did for most of Follett's bibliography. Maybe it's just because I've been reading a lot of strong writers lately (shoutout to fans of Brandon Sanderson) but, the female characters in this book fell really flat for me. Maybe it's just rose-coloured glasses when looking back on previous Follett books, but I feel like Aliena (and even Caris) were more well-rounded characters than the likes of Margery and Sylvie (I did like Sylvie, I just found her underutilized in the story). In other books, they make you really care about character's parents, extended family (sometimes), and always children. I didn't care about any of the parents or children in this book. They were just supporting characters that made protagonist's lives more difficult by their existence. Regardless of these negative things, I still liked the book a lot. It's always nice to get another viewpoint to a different time in history, and personally I've never actually read much about the fights between Protestants and Catholics, so it was nice to get the insight this book gave. A few of the male characters were pretty interesting. For part of the last quarter of the novel I was enraptured, couldn't pull myself away. It was pretty a nice change to see Follett using his skill writing about spies and treason for an era pre-20th century. There wasn't much of a historical footnote unfortunately, so I'm not sure how accurate the book was but it was at least a fun romp through the world of warring Christianity.

Ken Fillet novels never fail to build unique plots around characters close to moments in history, in a way that puts you there completely. A Column of fire does so with the most compelling and believable motivations for all his fictional characters, and you come away from the book with a feeling that history couldn't have happened any other way. I loved the cloak-and-dagger aspect as well, and one of the most satisfying villain character developments I've read, or seen in film.

A good story. I love learning English history through novels such as this and how the author brought these characters alive in this novel. Also the story of the spy network that twisted throughout the reigns of Elizabeth and James, and the realization that religious differences and greedy men have been at the root of man's problems since the dawn of time.