A Place Called Freedom

Mack was in one of the common wards of Newgate Prison.
He could not remember all that had happened to him the night before. He had a dazed recollection of being tied up and thrown across the back of a horse and carried through London. There was a tall building with barred windows, a cobbled courtyard, a staircase and a studded door. Then he had been led in here. It had been dark, and he had not been able to see much. Battered and fatigued, he had fallen asleep.
He woke to find himself in a room about the size of Cora's apartment. It was cold: there was no glass in the windows and no fire in the fireplace. The place smelled foul. At least thirty other people were crammed in with him: men, women and children, plus a dog and a pig. Everyone slept on the floor and shared a large chamberpot.
There was a constant coming and going. Some of the women left early in the morning, and Mack learned they were not prisoners but prisoners' wives who bribed the jailers and spent the nights here. The warders brought in food, beer, gin, and newspapers for those who could pay their grossly inflated prices. People went to see friends in other wards. One prisoner was visited by a clergyman, another by a barber. Anything was permitted, it seemed, but everything had to be paid for.
People laughed about their plight and joked about their crimes. There was an air of jollity that annoyed Mack. He was hardly awake before he was offered a swallow of gin from someone's bottle and a puff on a pipe of tobacco, as if they were all at a wedding.
Mack hurt all over, but his head was the worst. There was a lump at the back that was crusted with blood. He felt hopelessly gloomy. He had failed in every way. He had run away from Hugh to be free, yet he was in jail. He had fought for the coal heavers' rights and had got some of them killed. He had lost Cora. He would be put on trial for treason, or riot, or murder. And he would probably die on the gallows. Many of the people around him had as much

Ken Follett

"Sentenced to a life of misery in the brutal coal mines of Scotland, twenty-one-year-old Mack McAsh hungers for escape. His only ally: the beautiful, highborn Lizzi Hallim who is trapped in her owen kind of hell. Two restless young people, separated by politics and position, bound by their passionated search for a place called freedom...." ("Compelling." San Francisco Chronicle)

Praise for A Place Called Freedom
 
"Gripping . . . a very entertaining tale."  Chicago Tribune
 
"Compelling."  San Francisco Chronicle
 
"Quick-paced."  New York Daily News
 
"An altogether entertaining reading experience."  Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Follett skillfully combines tension, eroticism, and an unusual locale." Detroit Free Press

"A richly colored plot . . . Entertaining." Lexington Herald-Leader

"Superb storytelling."  West Coast Review of Books

"The action and the tension should keep fans happily turning pages." Booklist