Circle of Days

The epic new novel from the No. 1 bestselling author of The Pillars of the Earth

By: Ken Follett

Narrated by: Richard Armitage

'Monumentally epic . . . a superb novel' LEE CHILD
'A tour de force' PETER JAMES

From the master of epic fiction comes the deeply human story of one of the world's greatest mysteries: the building of Stonehenge.

A FLINT MINER WITH A GIFT

Seft, a talented flint miner, walks the Great Plain in the high summer heat, to witness the rituals that signal the start of a new year. He is there to trade his stone at the Midsummer Rite, and to find Neen, the girl he loves. Her family lives in prosperity and offers Seft an escape from his brutish father and brothers, within their herder community.

A PRIESTESS WHO BELIEVES THE IMPOSSIBLE

Joia, Neen's sister, is a priestess with a vision and an unmatched ability to lead. As a child, she watches the Midsummer ceremony, enthralled, and dreams of a miraculous new monument, raised from the biggest stones in the world. But trouble is brewing among the hills and woodlands of the Great Plain.

A MONUMENT THAT WILL DEFINE A CIVILISATION

Joia's vision of a great stone circle, assembled by the divided tribes of the Plain, will inspire Seft and become their life's work. But as drought ravages the earth, mistrust grows between the herders, farmers and woodlanders - and an act of savage violence leads to open warfare . . .

Truly ambitious in scope, Circle of Days invites you to join master storyteller Ken Follett in exploring one of the greatest mysteries of our age: Stonehenge.

NOW AN INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER!©2025 The Follett Office

Critic reviews

There could be no better match between author and subject than Ken Follett writing about Stonehenge. His trademark blend of the intensely human and the monumentally epic works to perfection here - a superb novel

A tour de force - Follett so brilliantly and engagingly immerses us in a world and society at the time of the creation of Stonehenge that feels indelibly real. It utterly grips and fascinates, and made me realize that apart from technology, so very little has changed between then and now in how we behave

A hugely enjoyable family saga. Books like this are a sort of anti-social media: just a reader turning pages, lost in a different world. Follett is one of the great storytellers

A must-read, wonderful saga for anyone who's ever gazed at Stonehenge in awe. The monument and the people that built it, brought to life like never before

One of the great, bestselling novelists

Follett is a master

Ken Follett is unquestionably a master storyteller but his unique skill is animating the ordinary lives that history too often fails to record. In Circle of Days, like Pillars of the Earth he breathes life into iconic stone, to fill history's silences with living breathing people

Another fabulous tale from the master storyteller, packed with passion, heartache and compelling historical detail. No-one does it better

Grand in scope but earthy in tone, this is historical fiction as rich as it is thrilling

Follett brings to rich and vibrant life this epic family saga . . . An addictive tale . . . Thrilling

Follett's origin story of Stonehenge is always entertaining

Thrilling

Nobody writes big blockbuster historical stories quite like Follett . . . A fascinating subject that comes to life in the usual Follett way, through the characters he creates that leap off the page

[A] giant of the literary world

Follett's gift for making his fiction seem tantalisingly authentic, and a plot that takes in murders, a famine, tribal warfare, and a drought, the distant past has never felt so viscerally alive

Transportive

A Ken Follett book is transportive like no other. Immerse yourself in a whole new world, a perspective that will change yours on the time you live in, how far we have come and what has gone before. Circle of Days is magical and the performance Five Star. 💫

Narrator

the Narrator is wrong for the book. First Audiobook I am struggling to finish. Very laboursome.

Admiration meets disappointment

I’ve read and listened to almost everything Ken Follett has written, and his books have always stood out for their depth, intricate characters, richly detailed worlds and stories that span families and generations. Circle of Days still carries his unmistakable ambition and sense of scale, but this time, something essential feels missing.

The world-building is good but oddly placeless. Aside from the field of stones, it could have unfolded almost anywhere, which weakens the historical weight Follett usually masters. The characters, too, feel more symbolic than human; they rarely evolve, and the emotional layering I’ve come to expect simply isn’t there.

It’s still a relatively well-written and well-narrated story, but it leans too much on speculation and not enough on the lived depth that makes his earlier works timeless. Out of respect for the author, I give it three stars: not for lack of effort, but for the gap between what Circle of Days could have been and what it ultimately became.

A glimpse of the past

Great story telling, vivid characters and landscapes as always. Wish it was longer and more in depth is all.

Exceptional Listen

This has been an exceptional listen, Ken Follett at his absolute best! I feel a little like I did after completing Pillars of the Earth. Narration by Richard Armitage brought the story to life thar I feel like I have lived the experience.