The story follows a young and devoted monk, Phillip, who is about to become the prior in the small village of Kingsbridge. To his shock he finds that the local monastery is run-down and instead of spiritual enlightenment he finds there lazy and gluttonous monks. To Phillip it’s hardly a sight worth worshipping. He sets himself the goal of making the monastery a God worthy place again which would attract new pilgrims and novices and would reverse the current decline. To achieve this, he plans to have a cathedral built there and employs a skilled mason, Tom Builder. However, there are a lot of obstacles in the way of building the cathedral. On one hand, there’s a civil war breaking out and on the other a power struggle between the church and the monarch. In these times of hardship, laws are often overlooked and unscrupulous and corrupt people come to power. One of those people is William Hamleigh who soon makes life in the whole of Kingsbridge and its neighbourhood a living nightmare.
The book maps the life of several characters during their whole lifetime. The suspense unravels gradually over time and is quite unexpected. I had to say goodbye to the characters that I believed would stay much longer. Even though, I’m not a religious person and I thought I couldn’t possibly enjoy such a book, it turned out I was wrong. I got attached to the characters quickly and the reading was gripping and easy.
I was wondering whether the villains would be justly punished in the end and was surprised by the extent of malevolence they could come up with.
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