“Come home, if you remember.”

I am at a loss on how to put into words my final feelings after finishing this book. I actually want to go back when the audio releases and listen just to see what I may have missed and relive some of my favorite moments. Pulley created a novel about love, time-travel, soulmates and a connection that reaches across the expanse of time.

Joe gets off a train and realizes he has no memory of his past, let alone his present, though some things seem familiar. What follows is a search for clarity, reasons and a trip into an alternate time in history where the people in the past realize the tear in time exists and they use that advantage in the Napoleonic War between Britain and France. Between the graphic descriptive scenes of violent sea battles, the emotional and heart wrenching scenes between the characters, the odd humorous moments I found pulling me closer to Joe and the overall full 360 that ties everything together with a glorious gut punch of a bow…. I can honestly say I am smitten with this novel. Now mind you it took me a bit to get there.

I realized about part way through what the true theme underlying the pages was meant to entail. Once clarity settled, it became a fast ride. I am not a huge fan of amnesia-based plots, but Pulley did a really good job with this one and made the character as frustrated about it as I typically get. I appreciated that. I felt my feelings were shared in a sense and accepted it for this novel. There are some disturbing scenes and I have to admit that I am still questioning the mental stability of Kite. I’m not so sure about that one, even now. The relationship aspect took a bit too long to get too for me. I do think it hurt a bit of the plot not allowing more to shine through in the early stages of the novel. By the end I was hooked and had to sit back with my thoughts and feelings for a bit.

I do not think this book is for everyone but if you’re a reader who enjoys a great deal of depth with your time traveling adventures and richly crafted love stories… then this will probably be one for you. I’m looking forward to more of Pulley’s work after this adventure. She has a unique and captivating writing style that I found myself utterly absorbed in even in the early stages of my reading. Excited to see what more is in store.

Thank you to Bloomsbury Publishing and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this gifted digital arc for an honest and unbiased opinion. True rating 3.5/5.

The Kingdoms is one of the most original time travel books that I have read. The story is intricate, utterly fascinating and impossible to put down.

A combination of intentional and unintentional time travel moves the plot back and forth in time. Chapter headings help the reader keep track of when. The story begins in an England that lost at the Battle at Trafalgar where the French occupy the land.

The main character, Joe, is out of place and time no matter what timeline he is in. From the time he steps off a train with no memories of who he is, Joe constantly searches for his identity. The search takes him back and forth in time, and through England and Scotland. While Joe is not the only time traveller, he does seem to be the lynch pin to the story. His actions influence those around him which, in turn, influence events that may or may not change the future.

In his search, Joe receives a postcard mailed 93 years ago, sign by ‘M’. Searching for ‘M’, leads Joe to the past where he is held captive in order to provide the English navy with technology from the future to help them defeat the French. Since Joe has a daughter in the future, he is keen to return and does not want to cooperate. However, interacting with the soldiers, Joe begins to develop relationships with his captors. The constant desire to go home conflicts with his empathy with the English cause.

There is a subtle, slow-burn romance underlying the mixed up time line plot. The relationship, that may seem to be just an aside, will be critical to the story.

The Kingdoms is rich in historical detail, actual and altered, including an occupied England and a wartime Scotland. Warfare on the sea adds to the vibrant atmosphere. Sharp characters with complex relationships breath life into this amazing tale.

Thanks to the publisher who provided a copy through NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Oh the concept of this book is good GOOD.

The Kingdoms intrigued me right from the beginning. It's so well written, I was captured by the atmospheric settings and descriptions, as if I was at the location myself, aboard one of the navy ships gazing at the sea. It takes place in an alternate history across different time periods and I'm amazed by how the author managed to pull that off to build a mysterious, complex story that kept me guessing. It was so fun to see some pieces assemble together. Natasha Pulley paints a beautiful picture about love, loss and family.

Oh also, this book very g a y.

What started off great ended up disappointing me later. By part 4 of the book, I felt like the entire "mystery" was prolonged for too long. The reason behind all the happenings didn't have to stretch over so many chapters. So when all the pieces wrapped up, it was underwhelming to say the least. With a concept like that, I really thought we'd have a banger climax.

This truly was an ambitious story, one that I loved getting into, but alas the execution wasn't something that I liked.

While I found the premise of this novel to be intriguing, the execution was convoluted, messy, and frustrating. I have not read any of the other books that Natashy Pulley has written, but I was intrigued before reading this book. While I thought that her writing was sharp and well-crafted, I spent a lot of time trying to make sense of the plot. Wish I had enjoyed it more, but this just fell short for me.

It's hard to even know where to begin with a review of The Kingdoms, except to say that I absolutely loved it - and the second I finished it, I wanted to flip back to the first page and start right over again. Partly that's because it's a relatively complicated novel, and there were revelations in later chapters that made me reassess how I'd read earlier ones; but partly, I just want to recapture how I felt immersing myself in this story. I just wasn't entirely ready for it to be over.

It's an intricate, luminous book, one that caught my heart while I wasn't paying attention and lodged like splinters in my bones. I have a feeling I'll be thinking about The Kingdoms for quite a while... (all the more so if I do, in fact, go reread it immediately).

Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury for the advance review copy!

4.5 stars.

This was a fantastic read! I loved the premise right off and it really did not disappoint. Time travel and alternate history are always a very hard thing to logically pull off well, but this book does it. The atmosphere is fantastic and the dual timeline (though occasionally confusing) is really intricately done. There is a lot of cerebral work in this writing and I totally ate it up.

The characters are great and complex with some good nuance. They aren't just going along with the flow, they think things through and have some great conflict in terms of ethics and loyalty. Some bits are totally heart-wrenching, but so well done.

There are moments where the pacing does lag a little bit and I got caught up in some of the complexity, but overall this was a fantastic and mind-bending read. I could totally envision a reread in the future and I'm sure, now that I have the lay of the land, I would likely enjoy things even more.

Wonderful fantastical world with hints of dystopia and some interesting things to consider...how easily do simple changes and/or choices change the future? Brilliant.


* Disclaimer: I received a copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. *

Any high-level categorization of a book inevitably fails to fully capture the complete essence of a story. And then there are books like The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley, where even assigning several labels to the tale still doesn’t do the story justice.

The Kingdoms contains multitudes: it is a love story, a seafaring war novel, a time-travel mystery, an alternative history tale, and more. And while each description in the previous sentence is accurate, each description fails to capture all that the book encompasses.


The plot, however, is straightforward enough (by time-travel standards, at least). We start the book following the journey of Joe Tournier, a 43-year-old man who has lost his memory and lives in an alternative version of 1898 England where France won the Napoleonic War.

Even though Joe doesn’t remember anything before his 43rd birthday, he feels an urgent sense of loss, something that wakes him up each night in a panic. And so when he receives a 93-year-old postcard asking him to come home, if he remembers, Joe is compelled to go to the Scottish lighthouse drawn on the front of the postcard, leaving his beloved daughter behind.

Timey-wimey things happen at said lighthouse, and he’s sent back to 1807 where he’s eventually captured by Captain Kite. Kite knows he’s from the future (he knows quite a lot about Joe, actually) and Joe’s futuristic know-how is an asset to the English, who are losing the Napoleonic War because France had captured several folks from the future a few years earlier (hence, the alternative timeline).

The plot moves on from there, with Joe and Kite in a push-pull entanglement that is revealed to be a slow-burn romance. That’s where the “love story” label for the novel comes in, and Pulley conveys the two’s heartache brilliantly, making the reader ache along with them as they witness and execute unspeakable horrors as they try to survive the war.

Those horrors and the acts that characters commit stick with you long after you finished the book. That’s why merely calling The Kingdoms a love story is incomplete—the book is as much about trauma as it is about love, and Pulley doesn’t flinch away from showing how the impacts of trauma reverberate throughout history.

Kite and Joe—along with pretty much everyone else in this book—experience trauma in spades. People, including children, die suddenly and brutally, and the characters barely seem to react—this is understandable and almost expected given the hard realities of war. The book, however, doesn’t give you enough time to process what the characters have gone through and what they’ve done.

There is a promise that the processing, grieving, and perhaps accountability for the characters’ actions will take place after the book ends. For many readers, that will likely be enough. Those looking for a happily ever after, however, won’t close The Kingdoms feeling just happy. Or at least not only happy—bittersweet is too tame a word for the maelstrom of happiness, relief, grief, and anger you may have.

Those conflicted feelings at the end—the warmth of love persevering despite the horror of the atrocities committed—left me conflicted as well. And maybe that’s okay—The Kingdoms, as I said at the beginning of this review, isn’t just one thing. It’s complex and conflicting and complicated, just like real life is. And so if I finished the book feeling relieved, unsettled, and upset, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It is, in fact, most likely what Pulley intended.

Confusing emotions aside, one thing I can say definitively about The Kingdoms is that the story drew me in. It’s not a fast-paced book, but it’s probably the fastest I’ve read a novel in the last year. Pulley is undoubtedly a skilled and engaging writer, and if you’re ready for a complicated tale with sharp edges that will hurt long after you’re done reading, The Kingdoms is worth your time.

The Kingdoms is the newest book by Natasha Pulley. This is a twist on time travel and what happens when someone from the future ends up in the past.

"Joe gets off the train in London and becomes confused about who he is, where he belongs - why is everyone speaking French? He follows a clue on a postcard to a distant lighthouse and finds himself in a distant time and place. He tries to find the person on the postcard but becomes a prize between the English and the French. And he still doesn't know who he is or was?"

The story meanders around all of the timelines. Sometimes it becomes confusing to keep them straight and the characters that go with that time.
What I liked - There are some interesting characters. Kite is complicated and you wish he would just tell Joe what he wants to know.
What I didn't like - confusing timelines, no captilization at the begining of sentences - only names and places. The story drags a bit. I kept wondering if we were getting anywhere or if it would ever end. Not a good feeling in a book.

You may like this if you're a big fan of alternate histories and time travel.

This was such a fascinating and complex read, albeit a bit confusing at times. The parts of the book I liked, I totally loved, but the other parts were frustrating to lead. The beginning was a bit slow and I really struggled to connect with Joe for much of the story, especially since I picked up on the twist fairly early. The time travel aspect was really interesting and the repercussions of such actions were addressed well in most of the circumstances (though I do still have a few bones to pick with how Joe ended up). Kite was a really fun character at times, but at others, his actions were utterly reprehensible and he never seemed to face the consequences he needed to. I loved Agatha and at times I found the side characters more captivating than our protagonist(s). Overall, I found the more personal aspects of the plot to pale in comparison to the really excellent world-building done in this story.

What I know about the Napoleonic wars could fit into a thimble, so I was honestly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. It’s thought-provoking and heart-wrenching, and has a bit of a romantic subplot (though it’s most assuredly not a romance).

“Come home, if you remember.”


Joe disembarks from a train in London with no memory of how he got there or who he is. Taken to the hospital, and then later an asylum, he finds out that his isn’t the only case of complete amnesia, but there’s nothing to be done about. Joe, who finds out he’s a slave, returns to live with his master and his wife, neither of whom he has any memory of. But he can’t quite rid himself of the feeling that something isn’t right, and a postcard of a lighthouse with a mysterious inscription only fuels his hopes of one day rediscovering his memories. When the opportunity comes to visit that lighthouse, Joe hopes it’ll finally give him answers… but what he discovers there is worse than he could possibly have imagined.

The plot is delightfully twisty. It’s obvious that something traumatic has happened to Joe, and his inability to remember anything except a few snatches is terrifying, as well as everyone’s insistence that he simply fit back into his “normal” life as if nothing has changed. It’s hard to talk about the other twists without going into spoilers, but the majority of the story is Joe trying to figure out who he “really” is and why he lost his memory, while the characters around him manipulate him and refuse to answer his questions. Missouri and Agatha were fascinating characters, morally complex in ways that left me questioning whether I was rooting for them or not. And while there’s a few naval battles (a good chunk of the book does take place during a war) most of the book is slowly paced. Joe’s emotions are really front and center in the book, and the way the author conveys them and how they influence his decisions was particularly well done. For instance, there’s a particular plot twist that I thought was painfully obvious, but that Joe remains oblivious to for most of the book. The build-up to it – watching Joe make decisions from one point of context while knowing he’s horribly wrong – was one of the things that kept me turning pages.

Overall, this book was absolutely fascinating and I will definitely be checking out the author’s previous work.

I received an advance review copy of this book from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

I'm a huge fan of Natasha Pulley's novels and The Kingdoms was one of my most anticipated reads of 2021 and it did not disappoint! I fell hard for the characters and was deeply affected by all the hardships they endured as well as the time-defying bonds that they create. The historical setting is immersive and it was a delight to watch the alternate history and various timelines evolve. The story is intricately plotted and is a bit tricky to follow at points - I made notes as I went along to keep track of dates and timelines - but well worth the mental effort. (Honestly, it reminded me of watching Tenet -- which is a good thing!) The Kingdoms is a unique novel about family, choices, love, longing, and time. Highly recommend!

The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley
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This book was advertised as a genre bending, time twisting alternative history that is great for fans of The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle.
Soooo I was super stoked to read it! Love time travel, love when history gets changed by time travel, and I LOVE Evelyn Hardcastle!
Unfortunately, as much as I loved the premise and the ideas of the plot, I didn’t LOVE the execution on this one. The writing didn’t suck me in and make me want to keep reading. I wish the characters would have been fleshed out a little bit more.
But I did enjoy the story for what it was. The journey was just not a smooth as I would have liked.
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I am struggling with what to rate this one. I didn’t hate it so I’m giving it 3⭐️⭐️⭐️ but I didn’t love it either.

An Exciting Journey through Different Times and Places

This is a time travel, alternative history with the reader and the main character Joe Tournier both dumped into the beginning of the story in 1899 London where France has won the Napoleonic wars and the English are controlled by the French with no awareness of who he was and how he got there When Joe receives a 93 year old postcard, his journey begins through time with certain characters consistently showing up.

The story is detailed in its depiction of alternative history and the characters in them. There are clues throughout the book that guide to the epic love story throughout Joe's travels.

The story never lags or stalls but keeps the reader's attention throughout this creative adventure.

I received an advance copy from Netgalley. Thank you Netgalley!
Thank you for your review.

I love Natasha Pulley's writing. This is the fourth book that I've read by this author and she does not disappoint. I think her books will appeal to readers who like historical fiction and plots involving time-travel. Even though not all of her books involve time-travel per se, they all do include some aspect of time-bending in them. The Kingdoms specifically does have time-travel in it. The story is set in an alternative history London, and follows several timelines. We first meet our main character Joe Tournier in 1899. France had won the Napoleonic wars and England is under the French rule. Joe gets off the train in London and suddenly realizes that he cannot remember anything about himself. He is quickly taken to a hospital where he learns that it is a type of epilepsy that has affected large portions of the population. Three months later he receives a postcard in the mail which was held for him at the post office for 93 years...

It is really not necessary to know anything else about the book. We basically follow Joe as he is desperately trying to find out what happened to him. He has vague memories of a woman in green, a man waiting by the sea, he speaks several languages: he is utterly lost in time. As with her other novels, Natasha Pulley is amazing at describing the minute aspect of life in a certain time period - what technology was emerging at the time, how machinery worked, what it was like to be on a tall ship in the middle of a stormy sea... I absolutely love her writing. And of course, there is an epic love story. 5 out of 5 stars. Another favorite. I will definitely be re-reading this one soon.

An e-ARC was provided by NetGalley.com

Full disclosure, ever since Watchmaker, I go into Natasha Pulley's novels expecting to love them. The Kingdoms did not disappoint.

The story follows Joe Tournier as he attempts to live his life in a London he doesn't quite recognize. He remembers things - the fact that the French won the Napoleonic wars and occupy England, for instance - but they don't quite fit right. He has other memories, things that niggle at the back of his mind as he and his wife earn their way out of slavery, begin a family, go on with their lives. One of those memories is a name, Madeline. When a mysterious postcard that was held for 90 years for him arrives, signed with the initial M and featuring a lighthouse that wasn't even built that long ago, Joe sets off on a path that leads him towards the lighthouse, where he hopes he will find answers.

When he finally arrives there, he finds a doorway to the past and a British Navy desperate for any leverage against the French. Joe is conscripted onto the Agamemnon, captained by Missouri Kite, and Joe begins a fight for any hint to his identity and a past he hasn't entirely forgotten while he also struggles not to change his current present too much.

Pulley has once again crafted a beautiful narrative. There is a quietness to her style that lulls the reader, sits them down and gently guides them into the worlds she creates. There is also an intensity to this story, particularly where Kite is concerned - his past is one of trauma, and it informs his present. Joe and Kite's stories and the interweaving of past and present is masterfully done and I loved every second of reading this book and look forward to reading it again and again.

Time travel is one of my favorites and this book did not disappoint. I really enjoyed the alternate history and combined with the time travel it had me on the edge of my seat and it was difficult to put the book down. There is some mystery surrounding Joe and what part he plays and what will happen to him as well as the fate of England. Some going back and forth on my part guessing. This book had all the feels. My heart was torn at one point. That doesn’t happen too often either. I liked how the time travel worked as part of the story and not just a plot device to trap someone in the future or past etc. Thanks to NetGalley for an advance copy.

Thank you for the opportunity to receive an advanced reading copy of this book. Unfortunately, this book was just not a good fit for me. I struggled to connect with both the writing style and the characters and therefore was not able to finish reading this book.

Because I did not read this book in its entirety; I do not believe it would be fair to review it on Goodreads or retail websites.

Thank you again for the opportunity to receive this book.

The Kingdoms is not only an alternate reality book but a time slip book as well. It is set in the time where France won Trafalgar and Waterloo, and now the English are second class citizens. Joe an English slave has amnesia and is sent to fix a lighthouse where he saves a man from drowning. And this is where the story truly begins and I can't say more without spoilers. It was a fun story to read. However, I found the slow pace that revealed Joe's history to be somewhat frustrating. Thank you #NetGalley for allowing me to give my voluntary and honest opinion on #TheKingdoms

Actual rating: 2.5 stars As soon as I saw The Kingdoms listed as Read Now on NetGalley, I jumped at the chance to read it. Although I haven’t read anything by Natasha Pulley yet, I have The Watchmaker of Filigree Street on my TBR and have always been interested in the premises of her books. Plus, I can never pass up a time travel story!

The very start of the story was just confusing and strange enough to grab my attention. Our main character Joe steps off a train in England in 1898, except that he is surrounded by French street names and literature and is unsure of who is or where he’s come from. There’s a man with him whom he has never met before but who seems very familiar and together they go to the nearest hospital. At the hospital, Joe is told that he has a form of epilepsy with amnesia and must stay there until he recovers more of his memories. Shortly after, a man comes who claims to be his master and says that Joe is married.

From there the plot takes many twists and turns, jumping from time period to time period as our main character finds himself wrapped up in politics and wars and a fight to change the future. It’s a fairly complicated plot that was often confusing to follow, especially if you don't have a strong background of the history of England, France and Scotland during this time period. I usually love time travel books where the plot jumps back and forth in time, but it became too convoluted in this book.

I guess there was supposed to be a mystery as to who Joe really was since there was a big reveal at the end. But attentive readers will be able to piece together who Joe is at least by the halfway part of the story. With the suspense gone, it left the plot feeling a bit lackluster for me.

The writing was beautiful and I would love to read something else from this author, but I found myself too removed from these characters and the plot to be invested in this story.

One Sentence Summary: When Joe receives a mysterious postcard featuring a lighthouse after just as mysteriously losing his memory, it leads him on a journey into the past and attempts to change the future.

The Kingdoms is described as being genre bending with an alternate history and a battle between the French and the English. I'm not a huge fan of historical fiction, but I can't resist something called genre bending. I expected an interesting tumble through time and a dizzying adventure. Indeed, the back and forth in time kept me confused throughout the novel, but I think my brain pieced it together by the end, and I ended up falling in love with an unexpected love story.

The Kingdoms opens with Joe Tournier stepping off a train into a London that's become a colony of France. He speaks French and English, but speaking English is illegal, and, beyond that and his name, he doesn't remember much. A kind man takes him to a hospital, where it's determined he has epilepsy and that has caused him to lose his memory. Eventually, he is reunited with his young wife and his master, because, in this alternate London, slavery happens and Joe and his wife are owned by a kind older man who seems to love Joe very much.

Joe struggles with his memory loss, but the arrival of a mysterious postcard signed "M" with a picture of the Eilean Mor lighthouse sparks his journey into recovering his memory. Eventually freed, but still residing with his former master, Joe and his wife have an adorable little girl Joe becomes attached to. He also, led by the postcard, ends up working for the very man who supplied the machinery for the lighthouse on the postcard and ends up being sent to repair it.

Joe is reluctant to leave his daughter, but he's pulled by who the mysterious M is and believes going to the lighthouse will help him discover what's going on. It ends up leading him into the past, giving him the opportunity to set the timeline right, to reunite him with M, but it also comes at a terrible price Joe might not be willing to pay.

As a time travel novel, The Kingdoms actually leaves a lot left wanting. There were so many things about how it worked that just aren't explained. None of the characters really seemed to know how it happened either; they just knew it happened if you traveled through the wrong place. I'm still really fuzzy on how it worked, on how some of the things that happened were actually possible. While the beginning of Joe's adventures at the lighthouse were eerie and kept me hooked, the rest of the book never really addressed it. Actually, quite a lot never seemed to really be answered.

But I think the focus was split into two things: the history and the love story. Most of the story was poured into exploring the past, both the one Joe finds himself in and the one that came years before. There are a lot of different times to keep track off. The story goes back and forth at will to explore two distinct sets of characters and their stories. Somehow, they meld together, but my brain just couldn't wrap itself around the math required to check if it all actually worked out. I did find the alternate histories presented very interesting and couldn't help wondering how it would fix itself. But it was also confusing, especially since I'm not well versed in European history so had a harder time couching the story into the real historical timeline. Needless to say, I enjoyed it, but it felt like a wild ride I still don't fully understand.

So, I did like the time traveling and the alternate histories, but the unexpected love story stole my heart. The Kingdoms leaves a lot unexplained and probably too many loose threads. It was frustrating, unless I switched my perspective and looked at this book has a love story instead of a time travel and alternate history novel. The romance really snuck up on me, but, looking back, it was there from the very start. It ended up being quite a lovely love story and just managed to carry the weight of the rest of the story.

The romance was hard to see at first because I found the characters and their secrets and backgrounds fascinating and the alternate histories confusing. But I really did enjoy the characters. There's Joe who's just desperate for a life that's all his own. Because of his time traveling, he felt a little like he was bouncing all over the place and I truly struggled with pining him down. But Kite felt like a much calmer foil to him, though I often thought he was a bit crazy. He kept coming off to me as a quiet man and rather even keel. He also seemed a bit removed from everything, which was actually a little disconcerting. Outside of these two, though, while the supporting cast was fascinating and played their roles to perfection, most did end up feeling a little flat. They played their roles, but had nothing else to them. As a matter of fact, most of them felt, more or less, blase on just about everything.

Overall

As a time travel and alternate history novel, The Kingdoms does leave a lot wanting. I felt like I ought to focus more to really understand what was going on, but, in the end, I didn't feel I really should. There were too many unanswered questions and too many loose threads. However, as a love story, I felt it really did deliver. It was complex because of the back and forth in time and Joe's changing characterization, but it was much more straightforward than the rest of the story.


Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury for a review copy. All opinions expressed are my own.