Cathedral of the Sea by Ildefonso Falcones

In fourteenth-century Barcelona, a city brimming with ambition and injustice, a young serf named Arnau Estanyol flees his lord’s cruelty and finds freedom among the citizens who are building the magnificent church of Santa María del Mar. Rising from dockworker to money changer, Arnau’s life mirrors the city’s turbulent rise — through war, plague, and the grip of the Inquisition. Torn between loyalty and survival, faith and vengeance, Arnau’s destiny becomes entwined with the very stones of the cathedral, a symbol of hope and defiance in a world governed by tyranny.