Ken Follett's third novel in the Kingsbridge series, A Column of Fire, returns to the setting and story that began, and continued, in the The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End. Christmas 1558, the world is in turmoil as a new queen takes her throne and one man pledges to protect her life at all costs.

The Kingsbridge Novels are Ken Follett's classic historical masterpieces. Set in the city of Kingsbridge, Follett brings his rich expertise to this immersive and epic saga - full of ambition, love, power and family conflict. The story begins in The Pillars of the Earth, which centres on the struggles of Prior Phillip and his mason-turned-architect Tom as they attempt to build the greatest gothic cathedral in the medieval world.

The sequel, World Without End, is set two centuries later and follows the lives of four children who witness two men being killed the day after Halloween. From that moment, their lives are bound together by love and revenge, as they confront the Black Death and the beginning of the Hundred Years War. The saga continues in the third novel, A Column of Fire. Beginning in 1558, it charts the star-crossed romance between Will Willard and Margery Fitzgerald over half a century. Meanwhile, Europe turns against England when Elizabeth Tudor becomes queen and finds herself beset by plots to dethrone her. The Pillars of the Earth, starring Rufus Sewell and Eddie Redmayne, and World Without End, starring Cynthia Nixon, have been adapted for television.

Follett has once more lit the touch paper of English history and allowed it to explode across the pages in in all its vivid technicolour