Finished: Winter of the World (Follett). The second book in the epic trilogy which spans from 1933 and the rise of Hitler to 1949, and centers on the children of the main characters from the first book. Much of the book shows the extremes of World War II as faced by characters from the main countries involved, Russia, Germany, Great Britain and America. There is alot of espionage involved, and by the end of the book, one of the scientists who worked on "the bomb" for the U.S.A. has secretly given the bomb plans to the Russians and they have successfully built their own plutonium bomb. Volodya Peshkov, the son of Grigori (but true son of his brother Lev) continues to work for the Red Army in Russia as a spy. One of his main contacts is the German, Werner Franck, who is so against Hitler's Nazism that he gets his hands on whatever war plans he cans and sends them to Volodya. This helps Russia turn the tide and begin to defeat Hitler in the war. Volodya is also instrumental in getting the bomb plans back to Russia, and he just happens to be married to Zoya, a brilliant Russian scientist who helps design the bomb for Russia. Towards the end of the book, Zoya and Volodya have two small children and Volodya finds out that his father is really Lev Peshkov, who he had thought was his uncle. Lev's two children, Daisy and Greg, also continues their stories. Daisy wants so hard to be accepted by society that she almost marries someone she doesn't love. When snubbed because her father is basically a gangster, she moves to England and marries Boy Fitzherbert, the son of the Earl of Fitzherbet who had the affair with Ethel the maid in the first book. Fitz has two sons with his Russian wife, Boy and Andrew. Boy is very self-centered and marries Daisy, but then immediately cheats on her and treats her badly. They try to have children but can't. Boy has been sterilized by having the mumps. Greg Peshkov works for the U.S. government, investigating people who are working on the bomb. They want to weed out any spies who may report back to the countries they have left behind. He has a son, Georgy, by Jacky Jakes, the woman his father hired to sleep with him in the first book as a teenager. Greg actually cares deeply for his half-black son and eventually convinces his parents to accept their grandson. He cannot marry Jacky, however, because he wants to go into politics and move up the ranks, which a black wife would not allow him to do. Meanwhile, while still married to Boy, Daisy falls in love with the Welsh, working class, Lloyd Williams, the illegitimate son of Fitz and Ethel. Lloyd fights in the war and comes home to Daisy when it's over. Boy is killed in the war leaving Daisy and Lloyd free to marry. Lloyd wins a seat in the British parliament as a labour representative and has two children with Daisy by the end of the book. Carla and Erik Von Ulrich, the children of Maude and Walter from the first book, are raised in Berlin by their parents and take two different paths concerning the Nazis. Erik falls for the propaganda hook, line and sinker and joins the Hitler Youth. He goes to fight in the war where he eventually sees the atrocities that Hitler is ordering in the open murdering of the Jewish people. He comes home very disheartened after Germany is beaten and he has spent several years in a prison camp. Carla, on the other hand, helps the young man that she loves, Werner Franck, pass secrets along to the Russians so they can end the war and the loss of German lives quicker! Werner is also held in a prison camp after Germany loses, though, and Carla is repeatedly raped by the Russian soldiers who "free" the Germans from Hitler. Carla gives birth to a son, who she names after her father, Walter, who is tortured and dies earlier in the book for his non-Nazi beliefs. She also adopts a teenager girl named Rebecca whose parents were both killed in the concentration camps. Carla is a nurse and by the end of the book has little Walter and Rebecca, who Werner has now adopted when they marry, and also a baby girl of their own, Lili. And, as for the American Dewar family, Gus, from the first book, has two sons, Woody and Chuck. Chuck joins the Navy and is stationed at Pearl Harbor. He is secretly gay and in love with another sailor, Eddie. Woody is following in the political footsteps of his father and is a junior advisor to the president. He's also in love with Joanne, a girl he's loved since his youth, and finally wins her over. They are engaged to be married. When the Dewar family travels to Hawaii to see Chuck, though, it is the day before Pearl Harbor is attacked by the Japanese and they are right in the thick of the battle. Running for their lives, Joanne is shot and killed and the entire family mourns for her. Chuck continues to work in the decoding and mapping division of the Navy with Eddie, but when one of their maps isn't detailed enough and some U.S. servicemen are killed, Chuck insists on going to battle himself to get a better look at the coastlines of the Pacific Islands. He and Eddie are both assigned there, and when Eddie is injured upon landing, Chuck begins to carry him back to the boat on the beach and is gunned down by the Germans and killed, a hero. :-( The family is devastated. Woody joins the military and fights bravely himself. He finally meets another woman he falls in love with, Bella, and they are married by the end of the second book. After the war, instead of going into politics, Woody works as a photographer, a really good one, after selling his Pearl Harbor shots to a newspaper. The whole book is entirely too long to recap more than this, but needless to say, I was once again swept away by the characters and anxious to see how each of their lives turned out! Now, there is one more book left, so I'm sure all the babies born at the end of this book will be the focus in the next. :-) Another great read by Follett!