The Kingdoms: Natasha Pulley

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The Kingdoms: Natasha Pulley

The Kingdoms: Natasha Pulley

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The novel begins with Tournier arriving in London on a train, with no recollection of who he is, where he has been, or where he is going. A helpful stranger on the platform at Gare du Roi helps orient him and he finds himself, temporarily, in a hospital. Diagnosed with epilepsy that causes amnesia, Tournier and the reader are both allowed to discover this alternative London in which the French have conquered England, together. Tournier's education includes the discovery that he is a slave, married to his brother's widow, and is a knowledgeable engineer. These discoveries, along with a tattered and mysterious postcard featuring the Eilean Mor lighthouse, eventually leads him to abandon his wife and daughter to take a posting at the isolated lighthouse and try to determine what happened to the lighthouse keepers who had gone missing. And Kite. Ugh. What can I say about love interest Missouri Kite? I get what Natasha Pulley was trying to do with him, fusing "cruel lieutenant man" with "smexy sad boi" in a way that ended up wholly unpalatable. Multiple times, he kills innocent bystanders, but rather than feeling like this was a core tenet of a troubled, unempathetic man, it felt like window dressing designed to show how much of a teehee, "psycho" (the book's words, not mine) he was -- the way a 13 year old on Wattpad writing Jeff the Killer fanfiction might find that sexy (there's a fantastic Jenny Nicholson video on the subject matter). And I don't mind "bad" love interests, but I need to be able to fundamentally understand how characters who are against killing mentally reconcile their morals with being in love with characters who do bad things. Safe to say, that gap was not bridged here. And sure, the protagonist ultimately loses his daughter, wives, sister-in-law and brother because of the time jumping, but it's a happy end because Joe and Kite can be together right? Not on my watch.

The story drew me in so I wanted to read faster to find out what happened but also to read more slowly so it would never end. The table next to Joe's erupted laughing. Everyone threw things at a West Indian man, who flapped like a giant depressed fairy. Shortly after arriving, Joe receives a visit from a mysterious man he pulls from the water on a stormy night. He leaves Joe with a warning to leave the lighthouse and never return but the two soon meet again: this time in the year 1807 after he’s kidnapped by the crew onboard a ship looking for an electrical engineer to help them win a war and change the outcome of a future Joe had been taken from. Lots and lots of spoilers next, and plot ramblings, likely all very messy and some very shallow observations Now, I'm not going to lie, in the middle of this book I thought this just might not get 5 stars from me, because there was just so much hurt, and I didn't see how this could end in anything but devastation and heartache. But she did it! Natasha Pulley, you absolute genius!!!The story starts with Joe arriving at a train station in late Victorian London, except it is called Londres, everyone is speaking French and the fact that Joe is speaking English is treated with suspicion. Halfway through the book, the love interest Kite reveals to the protagonist that he has a letter written by a woman that the protagonist remembers from his past life, and was holding onto it for petty personal related reasons. He offers to give this letter to the protagonist so that he will forgive another man on their ship who tried to set him on fire in his sleep (again, implausible characters). For fans of The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and David Mitchell, a genre bending, time twisting alternative history that asks whether it’s worth changing the past to save the future, even if it costs you everyone you’ve ever loved.

Twisty gripping time travel and alternate history story with a yearning love story and a big mystery underneath. It is fantastic. It is also fantastically flawed (in my opinion). the kingdoms is soft gay magical realism at its finest. its woven with magic. magic that seeps through each word, wrapping around you. magic that wraps around elements of time travel and mysteries, guns and ships and sacrifice. What I'm trying to say is that this book was written in a way that made me think Natasha Pulley had been through this experience herself: she'd come from a timeline where books existed, which was promptly wiped for one where they didn't, and using the scraps of information she had left she attempted to write a "book", without actually knowing what one was. There is no other explanation for why this book is so strangely, quasi-incompetently constructed. I would NOT recommend this book to anyone who was interested in reading a sci-fi, nor to anyone interested in reading alternate history, because it fails on both fronts. I felt that ‘The Kingdoms’ was a triumph for Natasha Pulley and one of the best novels that I have read in recent years.The premise of this book is intriguing: what if the French had won the Battle of Trafalgar and occupied France for most of the 19th Century? Pulley paints a vivid picture of Britain under French rule and the battle scenes are truly outstanding, especially the brutal French conquest of London as the King and his cowardly entourage flee for Edinburgh. The scenes of the hardships of life on board a 19th century battleship are equally riveting. Pulley has clearly done her research. Leaving me WILDLY emotionally conflicted. Was the ending happy? Are we happy about this? Do we like both of the MCs? Like, I see it, but having some qualms about Kite's murdering a young boy just to protect the secret of his own love from Joe and the general faff about him murdering a decent amount of other people and not being fully stable seems justified if Joe is going to raise two toddlers with him. Also, Joe literally was married three different times and had two other sets of children, which is giving me pause. Am I being pedantic about this? Perhaps. But unfortunately, this isn't the only basic detail Pulley gets wrong. For example, she is very fond of her warships firing chain shot, and in chapter 24 states that 'Chain shot was designed to punch through a ships hull'. It wasn't. It was designed specifically to destroy sails and rigging, which can be ascertained in about a minute or less just by googling it. And in chapter 28 we have tents marked with red medical crosses. This is in 1807, but the Red Cross didn't become a medical symbol until the Red Cross Society was founded in 1863. There is no explanation for how history could have changed enough to move that forward by half a century. Once you see these problems, you start to wonder what else is wrong. The telegraph, for example, which plays a significant part in the plot. I don't know much about it - is what she says about it true or possible?

Six months after this valuable discovery, Thaniel Steepleton’s life is saved by the mysterious timepiece when he is drawn away from the blast scene that causes the complete destruction of Scotland Yard. This life-saving incident makes Thaniel Steepleton go in search of the maker of the gold watch. He turns out to be a lonely and kind immigrant from Japan named Keita Mori. When Thaniel comes across Keita Mori, he appears to him as a harmless person. But, several unexplainable events happen later that make Thaniel Steepleton suspect that Keita Mori might be hiding something very important. Cliss, Sarah. "Natasha holds author's event at Ely and meets up with some familiar faces" . Retrieved 2 September 2016.

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Joe Tournier has a bad case of amnesia. His first memory is of stepping off a train in the nineteenth-century French colony of England. The only clue Joe has about his identity is a century-old postcard of a Scottish lighthouse that arrives in London the same month he does. Written in illegal English—instead of French—the postcard is signed only with the letter “M,” but Joe is certain whoever wrote it knows him far better than he currently knows himself, and he’s determined to find the writer. The search for M, though, will drive Joe from French-ruled London to rebel-owned Scotland and finally onto the battle ships of a lost empire’s Royal Navy. In the process, Joe will remake history, and himself. The writing is also a bit weird, particularly the dialogue, which sometimes feel a bit 21st century. Some descriptions, narratives are very good though, and the pace, the dripping of tantalizing details is very good.



  • Fruugo ID: 258392218-563234582
  • EAN: 764486781913
  • Sold by: Fruugo

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