The Evening and the Morning
Penguin USA (Verlag)
978-0-525-50845-8 (ISBN)
An Amazon Best Book of 2020
The thrilling and addictive prequel to The Pillars of the Earth--set in England at the dawn of a new era: the Middle Ages
"Just as transporting as [The Pillars of the Earth] . . . A most welcome addition to the Kingsbridge series." --The Washington Post
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. Those in power bend justice according to their will, regardless of ordinary people and often in conflict with the king. Without a clear rule of law, chaos reigns.
In these turbulent times, three characters find their lives intertwined. A young boatbuilder's life is turned upside down when his home 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 it soon becomes clear to her 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.
Thirty years ago, Ken Follett published his most popular novel, The Pillars of the Earth. Now, Follett's masterful new prequel The Evening and the Morning 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.
Ken Follett is one of the world's best-loved authors, selling more than 170 million copies of his thirty-six books. Follett's first bestseller was Eye of the Needle, a spy story set in the Second World War. In 1989, The Pillars of the Earth was published and has since become Follett's most popular novel. It reached number one on bestseller lists around the world and was an Oprah's Book Club pick. Its sequels, World Without End and A Column of Fire, proved equally popular, and the Kingsbridge series has sold more than forty million copies worldwide. Follett lives in Hertfordshire, England, with his wife, Barbara. Between them they have five children, six grandchildren, and two Labradors.
Chapter 1
Thursday, June 17, 997
It was hard to stay awake all night, Edgar found, even on the most important night of your life.
He had spread his cloak over the reeds on the floor and now he lay on it, dressed in the knee-length brown wool tunic that was all he wore in summer, day and night. In winter he would wrap the cloak around him and lie near the fire. But now the weather was warm: Midsummer Day was a week away.
Edgar always knew dates. Most people had to ask priests, who kept calendars. Edgar's elder brother Erman had once said to him: "How come you know when Easter is?" and he had replied: "Because it's the first Sunday after the first full moon after the twenty-first day of March, obviously." It had been a mistake to add "obviously," because Erman had punched him in the stomach for being sarcastic. That had been years ago, when Edgar was small. He was grown now. He would be eighteen three days after Midsummer. His brothers no longer punched him.
He shook his head. Random thoughts sent him drifting off. He tried to make himself uncomfortable, lying on his fist to stay awake.
He wondered how much longer he had to wait.
He turned his head and looked around by firelight. His home was like almost every other house in the town of Combe: oak-plank walls, a thatched roof, and an earth floor partly covered with reeds from the banks of the nearby river. It had no windows. In the middle of the single room was a square of stones surrounding the hearth. Over the fire stood an iron tripod from which cooking pots could be hung, and its legs made spidery shadows on the underside of the roof. All around the walls were wooden pegs on which were hung clothes, cooking utensils, and boatbuilding tools.
Edgar was not sure how much of the night had passed, because he might have dozed off, perhaps more than once. Earlier, he had listened to the sounds of the town settling for the night: a couple of drunks singing an obscene ditty, the bitter accusations of a marital quarrel in a neighboring house, a door slamming and a dog barking and, somewhere nearby, a woman sobbing. But now there was nothing but the soft lullaby of waves on a sheltered beach. He stared in the direction of the door, looking for telltale lines of light around its edges, and saw only darkness. That meant either that the moon had set, so the night was well advanced, or that the sky was cloudy, which would tell him nothing.
The rest of his family lay around the room, close to the walls where there was less smoke. Pa and Ma were back-to-back. Sometimes they would wake in the middle of the night and embrace, whispering and moving together, until they fell back, panting; but they were fast asleep now, Pa snoring. Erman, the eldest brother at twenty, lay near Edgar, and Eadbald, the middle one, was in the corner. Edgar could hear their steady, untroubled breathing.
At last, the church bell struck.
There was a monastery on the far side of the town. The monks had a way of measuring the hours of the night: they made big, graduated candles that told the time as they burned down. One hour before dawn they would ring the bell, then get up to chant their service of Matins.
Edgar lay still a little longer. The bell might have disturbed Ma, who woke easily. He gave her time to sink back into deep slumber. Then, at last, he got to his feet.
Silently he picked up his cloak, his shoes, and his belt with its sheathed dagger attached. On bare feet he crossed the room, avoiding the furniture: a table, two stools, and a bench. The door opened silently: Edgar had greased the wooden hinges yesterday with a generous smear of sheep's tallow.
If one of his family woke now and spoke to him, he would say he was going outside to piss, an
| Erscheinungsdatum | 02.06.2021 |
|---|---|
| Reihe/Serie | Kingsbridge-Roman / The Kingsbridge Novels |
| Zusatzinfo | 1 B&W MAP |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 105 x 171 mm |
| Gewicht | 352 g |
| Themenwelt | Literatur ► Historische Romane |
| Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror ► Krimi / Thriller | |
| Literatur ► Märchen / Sagen | |
| Schlagworte | amazon best books 2020 • Best books • best books of 2020 • Best seller books • best seller books 2020 • Best Sellers • best sellers 2020 fiction • best selling books 2020 fiction • books best sellers • books best sellers fiction • books for kindle • fiction books • gifts for dad • gifts for him • gifts for men • gifts for women • hardcover books • historical fiction • historical fiction best sellers • Ken Follett • ken follett books • mystery thriller suspense • new books • new books for 2020 releases best sellers • Pillars of the Earth • pillars of the earth series • Saga • Suspense • Thriller • Thrillers • viking books |
| ISBN-10 | 0-525-50845-7 / 0525508457 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0-525-50845-8 / 9780525508458 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
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