I didn't connect with any of the characters, maybe except for Agatha, but didn't sympathize or cared about anyone. An Oxford physicist named Grace Carrow happens to interfere unwittingly, causing Thaniel to be torn between two opposing loyalties. The novel turned out to be an entertaining and sweeping read. Its atmospheric narrative tends to take the reader on a mesmerizing journey through London of the Victorian era and Japan at the time of its crumbling civil war. Author Pulley has done a fantastic job of combining historical events with interesting, fancy flights. The original story and mind-blowing characters enabled the book to reach out to readers in huge numbers. Author Pulley’s wonderful style of writing and original story helped the book win the Betty Trask prize in 2016. Following the tremendous success of the book, Pulley began working on the second volume of the series and published it with much more success and popularity.

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. JadePhoenix13 on Reading The Wheel of Time: Taim Tells Lies and Rand Shares His Plan in Winter’s Heart (Part 3) 2 hours ago Cliss, Sarah. "Natasha holds author's event at Ely and meets up with some familiar faces" . Retrieved 2 September 2016.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. Pulley comes to The Kingdoms fresh from the success of her three previous novels – the best known of these are the duology of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street and its sequel The Lost Future of Pepperharrow, a pair of carefully-crafted novels about an aspiring composer-turned-government-clerk who finds his path entwined with that of a Japanese samurai lord with a propensity for watch-building. These novels are delicate and considerate in their construction, with timelines and characters dovetailing pleasingly to create stories about grief and loss and hope and the pain of knowing. Fortunately, The Kingdoms more than continues in this vein. The writing is also a bit weird, particularly the dialogue, which sometimes feel a bit 21st century. Some descriptions, narratives are very good though, and the pace, the dripping of tantalizing details is very good. The world building was good, but not enough exposition was given, the framework was loose and readers had to guess about the political and societal climate Joe woke up in.

Times, Los Angeles (10 July 2015). " 'Watchmaker of Filigree Street' is a magical tale of Victorian London". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 2 September 2016. Natasha Pulley's prose, her descriptions and the relationship between her characters makes the book really atmospheric. As if you were feeling the essence of the sea salt when the characters are close to it, or feel the drops when it rains in a chapter… God I already said this on my “The Watchmaker pf Filigree Street” review but the writing is wonderful. Ich hatte eigentlich eine Liebesgeschichte erwartet, die war auch vorhanden, unterschwellig, zwischen den Zeilen und ja, sie spielt auch eine Rolle, aber hier geht es um viel mehr, dass ich gar nicht weiß, wie ich das alles in Worte fassen kann. Amidst the characters, we find a thrilling, at-seas plot that is riddled with dizzying action set-pieces that isn’t afraid to show the real toll of war upon human lives – sympathetic characters are brutally killed off, important characters are wiped off the chessboard altogether, and malignant presences rise to further power and prominence – all while Joe attempts to discover the truth about his missing memory, who he was before he awoke in Londres, and the series of truths at the very heart of The Kingdoms‘ elaborate game.Shortly after arriving, Joe receives a visit from a mysterious man he pulls from the water on a stormy night. He leaves Joe with a warning to leave the lighthouse and never return but the two soon meet again: this time in the year 1807 after he’s kidnapped by the crew onboard a ship looking for an electrical engineer to help them win a war and change the outcome of a future Joe had been taken from. For an alternate history book set in the 1700s/1800s, they definitely don't act or speak like it. You'll find anachronisms peppered through their dialogue jarringly, in ways that reminded me uncomfortably of fanfiction dialogue tropes. Here are some of standard examples:

The thing about The Kingdoms – and this is actually true for all of Pulley’s books – is that despite everything that happens, it’s still a very slow book. Not in the sense that the pacing is bad, but just that Pulley understands the importance of why things happen, why the characters do & say the things they do. And it’s almost as if she somehow slows down the book to let you fully experience all those emotions. Like I said, it’s magic. 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. The novel begins with Tournier arriving in London on a train, with no recollection of who he is, where he has been, or where he is going. A helpful stranger on the platform at Gare du Roi helps orient him and he finds himself, temporarily, in a hospital. Diagnosed with epilepsy that causes amnesia, Tournier and the reader are both allowed to discover this alternative London in which the French have conquered England, together. Tournier's education includes the discovery that he is a slave, married to his brother's widow, and is a knowledgeable engineer. These discoveries, along with a tattered and mysterious postcard featuring the Eilean Mor lighthouse, eventually leads him to abandon his wife and daughter to take a posting at the isolated lighthouse and try to determine what happened to the lighthouse keepers who had gone missing. 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.The postcard has been held at the sorting office for ninety-one years, waiting to be delivered to Joe Tournier. On the front is a lighthouse – Eilean Mor, in the Outer Hebrides. its about history. changing history - is love strong enough to rewrite history, is it stronger than the laws of space and time? can you defy history and change the world to stay with someone you love? or does history soldier on, pulling love apart? 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. Natasha Pulley is a renowned British author of historical fiction and fantasy stories. She is well known for writing The Watchmaker of Filigree Street series. The first book of this series, having the same name as the series, has won the Betty Trask Award. Winning this award became the highlight of Pulley’s career as she got noticed by the who’s who of the writing world. Author Pulley made her debut in the world of publishing in 2015. She was born on December 4, 1988, in the United Kingdom. She completed her education in English Literature from Soham Village College, New College, Oxford. Thereafter, Pulley obtained her master’s degree in creative writing from East Anglia University in 2012. Following her graduation, Pulley began teaching English. She was employed in China as a teacher of English for 6 weeks.