Middlemarch is a fabulous book, but when it takes you three months to read it, you’re ready for something new — and with more action. Determined to finally listen to my brother’s literary suggestion, I picked up Louis de Wohl’s The Golden Thread, a novel about Saint Ignatius of Loyola, and was immediately transported to the chaotic world of 16th-century Europe.
Everyone seems to be at war. The Spanish, the French, the Germans — it’s nearly impossible to sort out who is fighting whom and why. Into this messy fray comes Swiss soldier Uli von der Flue, and his actions during the siege of Pamplona change both his life and that of a young Spanish nobleman forever. This nobleman, Don Inigo de Loyola, has grand dreams of gaining an illustrious knighthood, of fighting for honor and glory, and of being noticed by the lady he has sworn to serve. God, however, has other plans, plans that affect the Church down to this very day.
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