The Kingdoms will be reviewed in the May 2021 issue of SFRevu and is exclusive to them until 1 June 2021. You may read the review on the SFRevu site beginning 1 May.

Pulley’s intriguing historical fantasy mixes mystery, the Napoleonic Wars, time travel and a touch of steampunk. The writing pulls you in even when you're just as in the dark as her amnesiac lead, Joe. The story opens with him walking off a train and not remembering where he came from, who he traveled with or even recognizing where he’s landed. But clues and possible memories keep pointing him to a lighthouse off Scotland.

A strange but compelling book about causality, with the Napoleonic Wars as the fulcrum. I must say I'm pleased to find historical fiction - even speculative historical fantasy - focused on neither WWII nor the US Civil War. It's a very pleasant change. While I suspected some of the eventual reveal early on, I was sufficiently distracted by the red herrings and was not sure I was correct until nearly the end, and parts of it completely took me by surprise. Well done!

When Joe Tournier gets off a train from Glasgow he has no memories of the past. When he receives a mysterious postcard of a lighthouse and a message to come home, he is intrigued and eventually makes his way to the lighthouse. Thus Joe embarks on a journey to the past to rediscover memories he had lost.
I wanted to love this book as the premise sounded great. However, I really struggled connecting to the characters, following what was going on, understanding characters motivations, etc. Overall I enjoy the premise, but the execution lost me.

An extraordinary tale of love and loss across multiple timelines, as well as a tale of the continual wrenching human costs of waging war.

Pulley’s darkest book yet is a story of twisting time, hardships and trying your best in a world that takes everything from you.

The romance is between two very complicated and flawed people. The love they build was tender and enduring, through many many trials and tribulations. The way Pulley writes is so delicate and nuanced and that remains true in the Kingdoms.

The romances woven in Pulley’s works are often built on a tenuous meeting, before a slow loving connection is built, but The Kingdoms romance is maintains an extremely contentious relationship until almost the very end. The main character is terrified of the unpredictably cruel love interest, until he slowly gains sympathy for him. The sweet moments are very sweet, but a bit jarring after the bitter scenes.

If you’re looking for a gritty story about 1700’s ship battle with time travel in the mix, and a very background romance, you’ll love The Kingdoms.

This alternate history mystery novel started off slow for me but buy the half way mark I was invested in the mystery,world and the main characters predicament. The ending had me wanting to immediatly look up what else this author has to offer. I highly recommend this great novel!

This one is a difficult book to review.

I loved the first 1/4 or 1/3. I was really into it, and thought it was a great book.
Then the story changed and there was more time jumping and I was confused at times. I didn't like the rest of the book nearly as much.

I received this as an ARC. (so thank you to the author the publisher and #netgalley). So the punctuation was odd. But maybe it was because it was an ARC and not the final? So I will give it the benefit of the doubt and not go down a star,. However, this did take me out of the story, so would I have liked it more?

I want to say it wasn't a great book, but a week after I read it, I still remember it and am still thinking of it. So I think you need to decide for yourself.

I read this book a few weeks ago, and I'm still thinking about it. Part time travel story, part historical fiction, and part romance, it's an amazing book. It starts with one of my favorite tropes: a man steps off of a train in the late nineteenth century with no memory. Other people soon find him, claiming to be his family. He's told his name is Joe Tournier, he's in the French colony of England, and things are ... not great for the English. It is illegal to write in English, and many of the formerly English are indentured servants who might be indentured forever. When a postcard arrives that gives Joe his first clue that there may be more to his amnesia than the people claiming to be his family will acknowledge, he sets off to figure out what happened to him. Ultimately he will travel through centuries and countries in his attempt to solve the mystery of his life.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3668799249

In THE KINGDOMS, by Natasha Pulley, we meet Joe Tournier, a man in late 19th century who suffers from amnesia, who receives a hundred year old postcard. The message and image of a lighthouse on the postcard provide Joe a clue to who he is and more importantly, where (and when) he is from. Joe's journey to the lighthouse becomes an adventure through time where nothing and no one is what they seem.
The book drops the reader, with very little pretense, into Joe's life and all of his inward confusion and outward confidence. Quickly the turmoil inside Joe is revealed and he is drawn to the lighthouse to hopefully end that turmoil. Pulley creates a character in Joe that is driven by discovery and clouded by a past he can't connect to. It can't help but remind the reader of their own search for who they really are, only Joe's search is almost completely blinded. The story takes us back and forth between the turn of the 19th and the turn of the 20th century. I found myself getting lost in where Joe was and who was around him and what just happened several times, and while that was probably a design choice to have the reader feel confusion much like Joe is, at times it was more frustrating than anything else. That being said, I really enjoyed the ending and how Pulley wrapped up this epic tale.
Exciting and mysterious, THE KINGDOMS takes the reader on a journey as unique and puzzling as any book I've read. The true joy of reading this book is taking all of the seemingly random clues dropped throughout the book and finding out in remarkable fashion how they lead to a warm and gratifying ending.

An alternative history fantasy The Kingdoms has some outstanding worldbuilding and beautiful prose that focuses on a POC MC and also includes the B and the G in LGBTQIA+. The author has a great way of weaving in world details without info-dumping that I can't help but appreciate.
The Kingdoms starts with the mystery of who Joe Tournier is and why he has lost his memory. Joe lives in London near the turn of the 18th century but it's not the London we know. Here the French rule and those who sing "God Save the King" or have written English are considered terrorists. Joe's search for his memory leads him to an independent Scotland and a lighthouse with some impossible properties. I loved this part of the book and thought it might be a new favorite based on the first 1/4th but then the story takes a turn and I became progressively disenchanted with it.
The mystery turned out to be interesting but simple and not terribly imaginative. Joe goes on an adventure that I found depressing. Instead of filling me with wonder, it left me feeling bleak and disconcerted. The narrative begins to jump around in time in a way that is meant to hide the fact that the story, if told chronologically, would not be all that interesting.
We are introduced to a new mystery that is easily solved by the reader but takes Joe the entire book to figure out. I think this was an intentional use of dramatic irony and, at first, it works. But the longer it takes Joe to figure it out the more annoyed I got with him and the character hiding things from him. While I appreciated the realistic approach to war, what it does to those who fight, and PTSD, I felt too many obstacles were smoothed away to deliver a happy ending that rang hollow after all that realism.
I can see this being a favorite for some people but it just didn't work for me.

The free copy I received from Netgalley contained some unconventional use of punctuation and capitalizing. I was unclear if this was an intentional style choice or an accident of the uncorrected proof. If a style choice it made no sense to me but didn't keep me from reading.

Love Natasha Pulley’s previous books, but had a hard time getting into this one. Going to give it a bit of time, then try again.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of The Kingdoms.

The premise sounded so intriguing so I was excited when my request was approved.

Sadly, it failed to capture my interest for a number of reasons:

1. The world building was good, but I felt like not enough exposition was given, the framework was loose and readers had to guess about the political and societal climate Joe woke up in.

2. The writing was good, but wordy, tedious, and many times the narrative dragged.

3. I didn't connect with any of the characters, maybe Agatha, but didn't sympathize or cared about anyone.

4. I'm not sure if this was due to the fact that I'm reading an ARC, but most of the sentences do not start with a capital letter. I hope this isn't a stylistic choice meant to be artsy because it's not. It's distracting and irritating, like when a gnat keeps flitting around your head.

5. Worst of all, I found the themes of sailing, war, politics and sea battles immensely boring. These topics have never been of interest to me. All I wanted to read about was the time slip and it was barely about that than about war and battle.

The Kingdoms was definitely not for me, but I think readers who like a little political intrigue, war battles and sailing would enjoy this.

This is a unique alternative history story, and I wanted to love it. I hoped it would be like Motherland or something like that, but I just couldn’t get past the editing. I get that it’s an arc but it was really distracting and I just couldn’t get into the story.

This was the first Natasha Pulley I’ve ever read but I was excited for it because I read and loved the other books it was compared to. Sadly, The Kingdoms didn’t deliver for me.

I never did fall in love with the characters or form an attachment to any of the relationships. I couldn’t really ever find my bearings with regard to the plot. The action was interesting and well written but even those parts were hard to read due to the very poor editing, or was it a stylistic choice? I realize that this is an ARC so it would be silly to expect a well edited work but the lack of capitalization at the beginning of sentences really made this difficult to flow and get caught up in the story.

I was really interested in the concept but it fell short for me.

I have very mixed feelings about this book. I loved that it's extremely imaginative and the reader has to discover (along with a character) what is going on. Books with those elements are usually among my favorite. Unfortunately I never felt very connected to many of the characters and didn't liked them as much as I should have. The middle of this book dragged for me as well and I feel like there are things that were never fully explained or tied together.

Do you want to know how good this book is? I stayed up all night before my finals just so I could read all of it. That's how good this book is. I will admit that I may be biased, as I am probably one of the biggest Natasha Pulley fans out there, so I began this book expecting great things. Not only did she surpass my expectations--she blew them out of the water.

The premise is extremely unique and unlike anything that I have ever read before. Joe, the protagonist, cannot remember anything, and finds himself in an alternate reality in which England is a nineteenth century French colony. After receiving a mysterious postcard from a light house, Joe goes to find the person who could've sent it, only to be whisked away into another world. It is amazing. The writing is so descriptive and really allows the reader to become immersed in the novel. The twists and turns of the plot are magnificent. The characters are like the story itself, feeling as though they are both fantasies akin to mist and real people acting right before your eyes.

I always say that after I read Natasha Pulley's books, no other one seemed nearly as entertaining to me. This one holds true to that sentiment. I honestly cannot wait to see what she does next, just like I was itching to turn each page and unravel the story for myself. I am sitting on the edge of my seat in anticipation.

I am really not sure how to properly express how transportative Pulley's books are. She tugs me into fantastical worlds steeped in beautiful research so that I feel that they are like our world but on the edge of something magnificent at the same time.

She is the best weaver of yarns: she wraps you so tightly in her beautiful, surprising and natural voice that you always feel a little colder---albeit wiser-- at the end of her stories and The Kingdoms-- this wonder of imagination --- is no different.


Yet, at the heart of her work is always characters, forged families and unique connections and relationships. I love the dream-like paradox, the elasticity of time and the same ethical and philosophical undercurrents that question action and consequence that are hallmarks of The Watchmaker duology and the Bedlam Stacks.

This is a book about love -- in many forms, in many places, for many things.

The nautical slant was a welcome opportunity for Pulley to practice her descriptive prowess.

Another five star read by one of the most talented voices writing today. A book to savour.


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Natasha Pulley is my newly discovered author, who captivates my soul in such a way, that I enjoy her writing from page to page. She will engage you in the storyline almost from the beginning and keep you like that till the end. This is a great book by the great author!

I was so excited by this title - the blurb and cover were brilliant and really inspired me to want to get reading... Unfortunately, from the very beginning I find myself overwhelmed by the inconsistent capitalization, which sounds like a small thing but made the story oddly difficult to read and feel very disjointed. Add in the fact that the book feels like it starts 12 chapters in the middle of the story, and I really struggled with this one from early on. I don't know if Pulleys writing style is just not to my taste or what, but I just never found my way into this one... I still think it's a brilliant concept, it's just not for me.