Digital List Price:	$14.40
Kindle Price:	$9.99 Save $4.41 (31%)
Sold by:	Amazon.com Services LLC

Promotions apply when you purchase

Add an

audiobook with Audible narration for $7.49

Audiobook Price: $21.88

Save: $14.39 (66%)

Read with our free app

You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.

Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

There was an error. We were unable to process your subscription due to an error. Please refresh and try again.

Follow the author

Natasha Pulley

Follow

The Kingdoms Kindle Edition

by Natasha Pulley (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

1,215

See all formats and editions

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.

Print length

439 pages
Language

English
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date

May 25, 2021
File size

3170 KB
Page Flip

Enabled
Word Wise

Enabled
Enhanced typesetting

Enabled
See all details

Report an issue with this product or seller

Natasha Pulley
1,378
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $9.99
Natasha Pulley
1,853
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $9.99
Natasha Pulley
732
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $9.99
Natasha Pulley
6,453
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $9.99
Natasha Pulley
27
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $9.24
Laurent Binet
535
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $11.99

From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Natasha Pulley's first novel The Watchmaker of Filigree Street was a Sunday Times bestseller, won a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award. Her second novel,The Bedlam Stacks was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature's Encore Award and longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize while The Lost Future of Pepperharrow was published in 2020 to widespread critical acclaim, cementing her reputation as one of the most original and exciting writers at work. She lives in Bristol.

@natasha_pulley

--This text refers to the paperback edition.

Review

“Speculative fiction and historical fiction are closer cousins than one might think, and alternate-history novels can give enterprising writers the chance to work in both genres at once. Fans of such stories will be richly entertained by the lavish world-building and breakneck plotting of Natasha Pulley's The Kingdoms…Beautiful, surreal imagery appears throughout the novel, too...Clear a weekend if you can, and let yourself be absorbed.” ―The New York Times Book Review

“Natasha Pulley poses such a beguiling set of questions at the opening of The Kingdoms that even readers who are resistant to speculative fiction will barrel forward to discover the answers…The Kingdoms is interested not only in the adventure of its historical and imaginative plot, but also in what it would actually feel like to slip out of time…Thoughtful, inventive, and moody…an insightful meditation on how a sense of oneself can be lost – and found.” ―USA Today

“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 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.” ―Tor.com

“Pulley's prose feels ethereal even as it sizzles with dry humour. Pieces of the story take place at multiple places and times, and Pulley paints every single one of those settings with utmost veracity and vividness. Every single aspect of this book was indeed sheer perfection to me, but the romance at the core of the story-that blossomed even amidst all the uncertainty and carnage and hopelessness of war-really was the most beautiful thing about this book.” ―Nerd Daily

“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. . . This is a stunner.” ―Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Natasha Pulley's The Kingdoms is an intricate plot, for sure, but you get swept up in the narrative. If this sounds like the type of book you're drawn to - epic! time travel! history! - you know who you are.” ―Alma

“As scenes spiral back and forth between centuries, the book's emotional center crystallizes around a fundamental mystery: Who, in fact, is Joe? All time-travel plots are fraught with paradox, but not all rise to Pulley's level of tricky cleverness, and few of those trickily clever books rise to her level of emotional intensity. Suspenseful, philosophical, and inventive, this sparkling novel explores the power of memory and love.” ―Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“Pulley balances the topsy-turvy nature of time travel by grounding her story in tidbits of naval history and a gradually unfolding queer love story.” ―BookPage

“This riveting story keeps the reader hoping that Joe can rebuild his family in the best time line.” ―Booklist

“I loved it.” ―Crimereads' Most Anticipated Books of Summer

“Pulley successfully tackles time travel with both humor and fine detail…Exploring time, chance, identity, love of all manners, loss and destiny, this is a novel in which to immerse yourself. At heart a love story, a sweeping and strange romance, it is also a grand adventure and a writerly feat of achievement.” ―Bookreporter

“Pulley, a Brit, has clearly done her homework. The research undergirding The Kingdoms is evident, as is her thrill at devising 'what if' scenarios to reimagine well-known periods in history. The descriptions of important events-which range from claustrophobic to expansive-are atmospheric and in tune with the location of the moment…The Kingdoms is a complicated tale with plenty of twists and turns that will keep readers enthralled all the way to the last pages.” ―Washington Independent Review of Books

--This text refers to the paperback edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B08WLTHLSG
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bloomsbury Publishing; 1st edition (May 25, 2021)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 25, 2021
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 3170 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 439 pages
Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 1526623129

Best Sellers Rank: #219,022 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #866 in Alternate History Science Fiction (Books)
- #1,030 in Historical Fantasy (Kindle Store)
- #1,319 in LGBTQ+ Fantasy (Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews:
1,215

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Natasha Pulley

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Natasha Pulley was born in Cambridge. She read English Literature at Oxford before doing an MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. In 2013 she went to Japan on a scholarship from the Daiwa Anglo Japanese Foundation. She lived in Tokyo for a year and a half, learning Japanese and researching her first book, 'The Watchmaker of Filigree Street'. She spent several months in Peru courtesy of a travel grant from the Society of Authors, chasing llamas and researching 'The Bedlam Stacks', and more recently, spent some time in Shanghai studying Mandarin for 'The Mars House'. She lives in Bristol.

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5

1,215 global ratings

How customer reviews and ratings work

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

ancientreader

Riveting. That is all.

Reviewed in the United States on December 18, 2021

Verified Purchase

From the moment I started the sample, I couldn't stop reading. I was caught up in the suspense of the alternative-history plot (will the British be able to re-create a world in which they won the Battle of Trafalgar?) & in the central human mystery of who Joe is / who he is to Kite / whether Joe will be able to return to his daughter. You'll probably figure out the answers to the Joe questions long before Joe does, but it makes human sense that he doesn't get there till very late, and IMO the fact that he doesn't makes the uncertainty all the more poignant.

Pulley's worldbuilding is superbly detailed. A great deal is implied rather than stated directly on the page, & I can well imagine that if you're not paying careful attention you might become confused. I sometimes tend to skim, but I wanted to *bathe* in Pulley's prose, it's so beautiful and insightful; I wound up rereading long passages because I wanted to fix them in my memory. (Well, how else are you going to respond to a book with memory and forgetting as central themes?) Incidentally, there is no version of Britain or France in this novel that precisely resembles the history we think of as real: our history is changed and gone even before the opening page. This gave me the shivers and I love it.

I've got to address someone's criticism of Pulley's grammar & sentence structure. Uh ... say what, now? Pulley absolutely knows how to build a sentence. I have absolutely no idea what that reviewer can have been thinking.

No detailed spoilers here, but please don't expect moral purity from any of the central characters. If you're looking for cinnamon rolls, this isn't your book.

And, actual semi-spoiler:

Natasha Pulley does *not* deliver a neatly-tied-up-with-ribbons-and-bows happy ending. The people who are meant to be together do wind up together, but they pay a stiff price. I wept through the last tenth of the book and though I was *very* glad by the end, it took me a while to stop sniffling. You've been warned.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

phil keller

Gripping but flawed

Reviewed in the United States on July 12, 2021

Verified Purchase

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.

I have no problem with the mechanism of time travel itself. Time travel is such a paradox that why shouldn't the portal to another era go through two pillars rising from the sea off the coast of a remote Scottish lighthouse? One gaping logical hole in the narrative, however, is why travelling through the portals always lands the characters at the end of the 18th century or the turn of the 20th. Why not the 14th century or the Roman era? The dynamics of time travel appear to be driven by the needs of the plot.

My big problem with the novel, however, is the writing. There are too many sentences that are grammatically incomprehensible, leaving the reader scratching his head. Add to that the author's tendency to linger on internal monologues that make no sense, and the narrative becomes, at times, a slog.

Finally, a number of critical questions simply aren't answered clearly enough to sustain the plot shift in the final 100 pages. Most importantly, how did the British wind up winning the Battle of Trafalger so that the final chapters take place in the Britain we know, rather than the French-occupied Britain that Ms. Pulley so deftly depicts in the first 300 pages? Was it knowledge gleaned from traveling through the portal, was it the use of futuristic technology or good old-fashioned strategic genius? The novel never tells us so the reader is, once again, left burying a critical question.

Despite these criticisms, I had a hard time putting the book down. I've read enough time travel novels to know that even the best of authors sometimes slips on a metaphysical banana peel.

19 people found this helpful

Helpful

Shaylin

Painfully beautiful

Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2022

Verified Purchase

I can only describe this book as painfully, tragically beautiful. Is it possible to give it 6 stars out of 5? Or 10? I’m just gonna go with yes and do that. So 6 + 10 = 16 stars out of 5. Fight me.

I finished this in the early hours of the morning and well into the evening now can still feel the ghosts of those words underneath my skin. Other reviewers have captured the magic of this book better than I will ever be able to, but suffice to say that the top comments on goodreads are well-deserved and in no way embellished. First off, I’m in awe of how this book was put together. The interlocking and fluidly changing timelines are woven with such deft finesse that I had to put down the book multiple times and just stare at the wall for a minute while acknowledging that some amazing human out there has a brain that can come up with something like this out of thin air. Blown. Away. But beneath the richly realized historical setting, brilliantly intelligent time-shifting structure, and slowly flowering puzzlebox nature of this book lies the true engine: the characters. THE CHARACTERS. Rarely do I close a book feeling like I’ve been granted the privilege of seeing someone’s soul, but I absolutely did with this one. Missouri Kite was everything. It was impossible not to want so much for someone who wanted so little for himself. He was the beating heart of this book and I would’ve happily read about him until the end of time.

This book was poignant and moving. It snuck up on me. It crushed my heart to fine powder and then somehow reassembled it. I’m forever a fan of Natasha Pulley, all hail the queen.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Cathryn Goll

Weird

Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2024

Verified Purchase

Strange story and at times hard to follow. I wanted more story with Kites sister and first mate as he was not very likeable. Skip this one

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Kindle Customer

Read it!!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 30, 2024

Verified Purchase

Loved this book, My favourite of this authors so far! If you've loved her previous books this is worth reading! If not this is a brilliant place to start :)

Book-Impressions

A beautiful, twisting journey through time and history

Reviewed in Germany on September 12, 2021

Verified Purchase

The Kingdoms is a beautiful journey through history and alternative versions of history. The novel takes its time, but also has a lot of very existing and thrilling moments. It's slightly darker than her other books, but for me the ending is satisfying and hopeful enough.
I really enjoyed the atmosphere and the concept of the story!

One person found this helpful

Sunny

Another fabulous, engrossing read provided by Natasha Pulley

Reviewed in Australia on September 25, 2022

Verified Purchase

Have loved all Natasha Pulley’s books. This one was no exception. Highly recommended!!

Susanne Bodenstein

What if.....

Reviewed in Germany on October 5, 2022

Verified Purchase

Fantastic story - not even unrealistic if Napoleon HAD won the war. Storytelling at its best!!

One person found this helpful

Craobh Rua

Where is everyone ?

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 4, 2022

Verified Purchase

Natasha Pulley was born in December 1988. She studied at Oxford University, and then completed the MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. (A previous student, Kazuo Ishiguro, went on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature). Pulley's first novel, The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, was first published in 2015, and won a Betty Trask Award. "The Kingdoms," her fourth novel, is an alternate history book and was first published in 2021.

Joe Tournier steps off a train in London in 1898, and realises - worryingly - that he doesn't remember a single thing about his life. Well, when I say London, the city is officially called Londres and Joe is standing on Platform 3 of the Gare du Roi. This troubles Joe he wonders why all the signs are in French, then realises the signs in London have always been in French. He knows that England is a French colony, St Paul's is in ruins and that Napoleon takes the occasional holiday in Buckingham Palace. (The Republic stretches from Dublin to Rome). Still, he can't shake the feeling there is something wrong - not just with his memory but with the whole city.

A fellow passenger, sensing Joe's confusion and panic, stops to help him. When it becomes clear Joe only knows his name, and no thing more, the stranger brings him to a hospital. (In the months that pass, Joe can remember the fine details of this trip - everything, frustratingly, except the man's face). However, shortly after his arrival at the hospital, another name returns to his memory : Madeline. As time passes, he comes to believe she was his wife.

At the hospital, Joe is diagnosed with a form of epilepsy. Apparently these cases aren't entirely uncommon, and the patients' memories eventually return. Joe turns out to be one of the rare cases; his memories, prior to stepping off the train, never come back. The hospital are, however, able to track down his family : Joe is a slave, owned by M. Saint-Marie, and has a wife, Alice. (She's quite a bit younger than him, and the couple were essentially pushed into it - Alice was destined for Joe's brother, who unfortunately died). However, they're now both Joe's wife and master are now strangers to him - making life very uncomfortable for all involved. However, his master at least does seem a kindly sort.

Three months after stepping off his train, Joe's time as a slave is up. (The attic he's been living in now belongs to him). Shortly afterwards, he receives a postcard - one that was posted in 1805 and has been held at the sorting office for ninety-three years. The postcard is of the Eilean Mor lighthouse, in the Hebrides. The message on the back simply says "Come home if you remember" and is signed only with an initial - M. There's something familiar about the lighthouse - in fact, he's certain he knows it.

Joes starts investigating, and tracks down the company who'd built the lighthouse. Oddly, in spite of his ninety three year old postcard, they tell him the lighthouse is only six months old. The visit isn't a total waste of time though - while he leaves without any further answers, he does manage to blag himself a welding job. However, the opportunity for answers presents itself a couple of years later. The three lighthouse keepers at Eilean Mor have gone missing and Joe volunteers to spend three months up there, covering for them. There's no way he could have prepared himself for what happens next.

A very enjoyable book, and a real puzzle. There's a (unsurprisingly, given the postcard) a timeslip element to the story, and I enjoyed the alternate history aspect to the book. Joes has much to lose, if his investigation doesn't work out - not least a daughter he loves dearly. Very much recommended - this is something I could see becoming a very successful tv series or movie.

Buy for others

Buying and sending eBooks to others

Image Unavailable

Follow the author

The Kingdoms Kindle Edition

Customers who bought this item also bought

From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Review

Product details

Videos

About the author

Natasha Pulley

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries