The Kingdoms
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4.1 • 54 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
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.
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. Swept out to sea with a hardened British sea captain named Kite, who might know more about Joe's past than he's willing to let on, Joe will remake history, and himself.
From bestselling author Natasha Pulley, The Kingdoms is an epic, romantic, wildly original novel that bends genre as easily as it twists time.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
As 19th-century France, Spain, and England battle for control of the seas, this time-shifting adventure throws you right into the middle of the action. When Joe Tournier steps into a London train station where all the signs are in French, he knows something isn’t right. Diagnosed with a rare form of amnesia and claimed by a wife and family he has no memory of, Joe tries to fit in. Then he receives a postcard with a personal message—that’s nearly a century old. From a lonely Scottish lighthouse to the lavish drawing rooms of the aristocracy to bloody battles on the high seas, this time-jumping alternate history is totally enthralling. Natasha Pulley’s wonderfully atmospheric writing grounds you in each new reality. (We swore we could feel the salty spray of the North Atlantic!) Whether you’re a history buff, an Anglophile, or just a fan of unputdownable fantasy adventures, The Kingdoms will capture your imagination.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Pulley's latest genre-bending feat (after The Lost Future of Pepperharrow) masterfully combines history, speculative fiction, queer romance, and more into an unputdownable whole. In 1898, Joe Tournier finds himself in Londres—a city in the French Republic, which colonized England in the Napoleonic Wars—without any memory of his life before that moment. All he has are hazy images that come to him in dreams and an unshakable sense that something is wrong. And he's not the only one: others in the city are feeling the same strange amnesia. When a postcard arrives for Joe bearing clues to his identity—mailed in 1805 but somehow depicting a recently built Scottish lighthouse—Joe resolves to find a way to reach that lighthouse and search for answers—but the mystery only grows more complicated from there, leading Joe down a rabbit hole that sends him from Scotland to Spain on a time-bending journey that spans more than a century. Pulley doesn't shy away from the story's sharp edges, exploring the devastating effects changes in the past can have on the future and shining a light on the ambiguous moral choices made by characters under duress. These dark, challenging moments are bolstered by the action-packed and intricate plot and leavened by the rich emotional entanglements of the makeshift family that Joe stumbles into along the way. This is a stunner.
Customer Reviews
New favorite
I just finished reading this for the second time and it has become one of my favorite books of all time. Absolutely riveting, beautifully detailed descriptions. All I could ask for in a book.
Stay with it. It’s a beautiful book.
The kind of story that sticks with you. Can’t stop thinking about it.