The Kingdoms: Natasha Pulley

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Londres Gare du Roi, Joe Tournier finds himself dazed and confused on the train platform. He doesn’t understand why the station name is in French. This is a mystery, woven together with time-travel, a story of the violence of war and terrible decisions compelled by love and duty. But most of all it is about love. there will come a moment where you, the reader, will experience your own italicized “oh” moment of realisation of exactly What Has Happened. and you may experience a genuine physical reaction but please trust me when i say that it is entirely worth it. 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. Given his confusion Joe is taken to a hospital and is diagnosed as having a form of epilepsy that includes both amnesia and paramnesia, a blurring of something imaginary and something real.

I’ve read The Kingdoms six months ago, and I actually haven’t stopped thinking about it since. And yet, I still have no idea what to say about it. It’s one of those books that shattered my heart into pieces, but I’m staring at this mostly empty file & can’t string together two sentences to explain how. While many authors who focus on the mechanics of time travel and paradoxes have a tendency to simplify cause and effect, Pulley drills down into the possibilities, creating a world in which the present (whenever it is) is simply what it is, without knowledge of the specific decisions that caused it to differ from other potential presents. Furthermore, as long as there is the potential for time travel, no present can be truly considered set. Living in the late nineteenth century, Tournier could find himself married to his brother's widow one moment and the next he, his brother, and his brother's wife could be having dinner, never suspecting or remembering that there was a timeline in which Tournier's brother had died. this year i discovered the voice of natasha pulley and oh goodness, what an enchanting voice to know. singing a siren song, spinning a rich golden tale, an undercurrent of tender magic wrapping around and pulling you under. where has this been all my life? 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. After Joe arrives at Eilean Mor the truth about what is happening is gradually revealed to the reader and Joe, although some of the people we encounter seem to know more than they are willing to say.For fans of Matt Haig, Stuart Turton and Bridget Collins comes a sweeping historical adventure from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street

But, oh, oh, this book was written for me. Elegiac, liminal, fragile, aching. This book hurts but in such a good way. A spooling, non-linear narrative, that should be tangled and unparseable, but is instead clever and slowly unwinding until you understand the heart. Characters who are brittle and fragile as glass, complex and unthinkingly brave. Time travel with consequences, messy and completely probable alternate history, a slow-burn of a romance that is absolutely devastating and somehow perfect.

Dearest Joe, come home, if you remember. M.” reads the postcard which depicts a lighthouse in Scotland. It had been held at the sorting office for 91 years with clear delivery instructions. When Joe enquires, he discovers that construction on the lighthouse had just been finished. Six months after this valuable discovery, Thaniel Steepleton’s life is saved by the mysterious timepiece when he is drawn away from the blast scene that causes the complete destruction of Scotland Yard. This life-saving incident makes Thaniel Steepleton go in search of the maker of the gold watch. He turns out to be a lonely and kind immigrant from Japan named Keita Mori. When Thaniel comes across Keita Mori, he appears to him as a harmless person. But, several unexplainable events happen later that make Thaniel Steepleton suspect that Keita Mori might be hiding something very important.

Let's lay down some parameters here. Yes, this is fantasy, where anything is possible in theory. Yes, this is an alternative history where anything might have happened. But it's essential to any fantasy that it follows its own rules - so if you set up a story in which ships and naval warfare of the 18th and 19th century are a major part, then those ships and that warfare has to be consistent with the world you are creating. To begin with, I have to admit that the beginning might be a little bit dense. You have to get used to situating yourself well in what time (period/date) each character is. the question is: when am i /not/ thinking about this book. i think about it whenever i’m lying in bed at night, when i look at all the kingdoms art my best friends have made, whenever i hike to lighthouses just to feel alive. i constantly put on my kingdoms playlist and just. try not to evaporate from feelings. cup loneliness. the type that stops you right on the verge of crying, so you're just left with a constant hum of wrongness and guilt The table next to Joe's erupted laughing. Everyone threw things at a West Indian man, who flapped like a giant depressed fairy.

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Am I being pedantic about this? Perhaps. But unfortunately, this isn't the only basic detail Pulley gets wrong. For example, she is very fond of her warships firing chain shot, and in chapter 24 states that 'Chain shot was designed to punch through a ships hull'. It wasn't. It was designed specifically to destroy sails and rigging, which can be ascertained in about a minute or less just by googling it. And in chapter 28 we have tents marked with red medical crosses. This is in 1807, but the Red Cross didn't become a medical symbol until the Red Cross Society was founded in 1863. There is no explanation for how history could have changed enough to move that forward by half a century. This is impossible. A vessel that is drifting with the current cannot be steered. It must be moving through the water before the rudder can have any effect. That's what steerage way means. A sailing in that situation would be all but helpless, and would probably try and anchor until the fog lifted and some wind arrived. 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. Das erlebt nämlich der Protagonist Joe Tournier, der im Jahr 1898 aus einem Zug in Londres aussteigt und keine Erinnerungen mehr an seine Vergangenheit hat. London bzw. Londres ist ihm eigentlich vertraut, aber alles erscheint im völlig anders. Er zweifelt an seiner Wahrnehmung, an seinem Verstand und auch an sich selbst, bis plötzlich eine Postkarte eintrifft - aus dem Jahr 1805.