Fall of Giants (The Century Trilogy, 1)

`The master storyteller Ken Follett knits together British, American, German and Russian points of view from the start to the end of the First World War into a fascinating and remarkably fertile tapestry of society and politics' The Times `Few works set out with such a grand concept as Ken Follett's new Century trilogy, but part one suggests that the series will be one of the literary masterpieces of our time . . . while grand events and themes are at the core of the novel, it is the richness of the characters and the intertwining of their often disparate stories that steal the show' Sunday Times `He's pulled it off again with Fall of Giants: it's classic Follett with the brewing cataclysm of war given a human angle' Sunday Express `Follett has managed to write an accessible and fascinating page turner that leaves the reader wanting more, at the same time as staying true to history' Sunday Business Post `This is hi-octane storytelling all the more powerful because the story it tells is, mostly, true. Follett's command of the vast forces he unleashes is as impressive as the battle strategies of his generals, and in many cases more so . . . overall Follett is masterly in conveying so much drama and historical information so vividly' Scotsman `An extraordinary achievement' A.N. Wilson, Reader's Digest `Perhaps no British author better illustrates the forces at work in international publishing than can give birth to, and then grow, a global brand . . . If such books deliver the simple pleasures of escape, maybe they hold up a distant mirror to their readers too' Boyd Tonkin, Independent `Like Follett's classic novel, Pillars of the Earth, it quickly becomes a guilty pleasure' Daily Telegraph `An epic saga on a grand scale. Spiked with romance and intrigue . . . This involving historical saga is the perfect read for long winter evenings' Choice

The first in Ken Follett's bestselling Century Trilogy, Fall of Giants is a huge novel that follows five families through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for votes for women. It is 1911. The Coronation Day of King George V. The Williams, a Welsh coal-mining family, is linked by romance and enmity to the Fitzherberts, aristocratic coal-mine owners. Lady Maud Fitzherbert falls in love with Walter von Ulrich, a spy at the German Embassy in London. Their destiny is entangled with that of an ambitious young aide to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and with two orphaned Russian brothers, whose plans to emigrate to America fall foul of war, conscription and revolution. In a plot of unfolding drama and intriguing complexity, Fall of Giants moves seamlessly from Washington to St Petersburg, 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.