I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I almost hate to say this because I am an artsy person, but the non-standard capitalization drove me bonkers through the whole novel. It pulled me out of the world and made me want to fix it. Was this because it was an ARC? Or should I say: 'was This because it was an aRc?' michelle Henrie said.

I kept thinking was the world was back "in order" the capitalization would normalize, but it didn't. I think it was intentional. It would be interesting to hear if it bothered other readers like it did me.

Okay, now that my biggest gripe is out of the way, we can talk about the story.

I loved how the world shifted with time travel, and how both the French and English sides were trying to use people from the future to shift the war in their favor. I loved the sense of mystery around Joe and the stories he learned as he went along as he tried to piece together who he was. There was a little more of a military vibe than I usually read, but it didn't overwhelm the story.

I did think the story was a little convoluted for the reader to figure out, but I was okay with it. (And I was obviously bugged by the capitalization so it was hard to focus.) Since we are on the journey with the mc, Joe, who is confused, it felt organic to be in the same boat (pun intended) with him.

A point of worry in the book is how casually Kite murders people. I tried to have empathy for Kite because Joe did, but I felt like my emotions were falsely trying to mimic Joe's or maybe being unsuccessfully manipulated, and I was more horrified than trusting of Kite. I liked Joe and had empathy for him more than any of the other characters.

In the end, there are things I liked such as the slipperiness of reality. I would categorize this as an idea book so it's okay that I didn't love the characters, but I would have liked it more if I felt that tug to empathize or root more for Kite. When Joe had a wife and child (depending on which reality you were in), I didn't know how I was supposed to feel about his love for Kite. And I didn't understand why they had such a strong connection. Trauma through war? I'm not sure.

My final verdict was 3 out of 5 stars.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this one.

I have to make a confession before I even start into this review: I am a huge fan of Natasha Pulley. She writes complex characters in difficult situations with compelling richness and depth. Her plots are intricate and her settings fleshed out. This book lives up to all of that, but even as someone very familiar with her previous works The Kingdoms blew me away.

For anyone unfamiliar with Natasha Pulley or who has seen this discussed as a romance, I would like to emphasize one important thing first: while there is a romantic relationship threaded through this novel, it would be a mistake to approach this book as a romance. As with her previous works, the romantic entanglement is central to the unraveling of the plot. However, the relationship is not centered in the same way as a relationship is in a romance novel. This book is complicated and slow at times. It’s about the nature of time travel and the implications of it. If you are going into it only for the gay relationship payoff, you might find this a difficult and disappointing read.

In 1898 Joe Tournier steps off a train to London and suddenly can’t remember anything about his life. Not why he was on the train, not where he came from, nothing. He knows his name is Joe and he has a faint memory of a woman named Madeleine. Everything else is lost. To make things worse he seems to be remembering a different London entirely – one not blacked out by smoke, where slavery isn’t legal, and where everyone speaks English instead of French. But people here remember him. His owner, who turns up to collect his runaway slave, and his wife, a woman he swears he’s never met.

Over time Joe adjusts as best he can. He pays off his debt, earns his freedom, and just when he’s setting out to find a job, a postman shows up at his door. The postman comes bearing a postcard the office has held for 90 years – an impossible postcard that shows the newly built lighthouse on Eilean Mor in the Outer Hebrides. It’s message is simple – if Joe remembers, meet the writer there. Joe doesn’t remember, just like he doesn’t remember anything else, but his determination to track it down leads him to the lighthouse maker and a job. Eventually it takes him to the lighthouse itself and the discover of a doorway into the past. A past that just might have the answers to Joe’s lost memory and to the identity of the mysterious postcard writer.

The Kingdoms is a master class in plotting. Reading that summary makes this book sound relatively straight forward and I have to laugh. I must confess I’ve reread parts of this novel half a dozen times. This is a complicated time travel novel with a layered and nuanced take on the implications of time travel itself. But to really talk about it would give so much away. Not giving out spoilers is a rule of my reviewing that I am loath to break and so I won’t be talking about the plot here, or any characters other than Joe. I’ve rewritten this review a dozen times and I can’t find a way to discuss any of that without giving out more detail than I would like. One of the best things about reading something new is the discovery that each new page brings. I won’t ruin that for anyone else.

That leaves me with telling you about Joe – the man at the heart of this mystery. And Joe is a mystery. Joe’s memory loss is brilliantly used, not only to introduce the reader to the world of the novel along with Joe, but to obscure how that world happened. You don’t know any more than he does and that binds you to him. Each discovery, each loss, each hope, each heartbreak, you feel it too. Joe is the touchstone – the thing that binds the whole novel together, but also the nexus. Everything branches out from him. Ultimately The Kingdoms is a story about identity and the intrinsic nature of people. Does messing with time change who you are? Does Joe’s altered memory or history change everything about him or is he still at heart, the same man?

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

This book is fascinating and I can't put it down! The story jumps around between several eras and there's a lot of mystery to the characters and their relationships to each other. The author does a great job of hooking you into the characters, but revealing things about them little by little. It's filled with smart characters doing their best to survive a world that absolutely could have developed, had a few battles in history gone differently.

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.