Finished this in four days, couldn’t put it down and stayed up until 5am for two nights actually.

I like this because it doesn’t go overboard in describing the time (the Middle Ages), the architecture (the story centres on cathedral-building) and the people (spans generations). The storyline is fluid, and mixes politics, hope, religion, war, romance and architecture. I knew I would like it – as I generally like these kinds of books, like Foucault’s Pendulum, Name of the Rose – but I think those who haven’t an interest in period literature would still be interested.

Inside this book are characters which I loved to hate – and those that I realised, by the middle of it, had started to admire. It’s been some time since any novel I’ve read has led me to be less than ambivalent about the characters.