The Kingdoms

Description

SHORTLISTED FOR THE HWA GOLD CROWN LONGLISTED FOR THE BRITISH SCIENCE FICTION ASSOCIATION 2021 BEST NOVEL 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 'Original, joyous and horrifying, The Kingdoms is an awe-inspiring feat of imagination and passion which had me in tears by the end' - Catriona Ward Come home, if you remember 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. Joe has never left England, never even left London. He is a British slave, one of thousands throughout the French Empire. He has a job, a wife, a baby daughter. But he also has flashes of a life he cannot remember and of a world that never existed - a world where English is spoken in England, and not French. And now he has a postcard of a lighthouse built just six months ago, that was first written nearly one hundred years ago, by a stranger who seems to know him very well. Joe's journey to unravel the truth will take him from French-occupied London to a remote Scottish island, and back through time itself as he battles for his life - and for a very different future.

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 new young writers at work. She lives in Bristol. @natasha_pulley

A twisty time-travelling tale ... Pulley's deft characterisation sucks the reader into what is a very human story of searching for a sense of belonging * Independent * I loved the vivid and intricate alternate universes of The Kingdoms, and the flawed and complicated people who inhabit them -- Katherine Addison The Kingdoms is an intricate and complex but ultimately very satisfying read, blending time slip and historical fiction with the pace of a thriller and the sweetness of a love story. A unique book -- Sinead Crowley What a novel. It broke my heart and stretched my brain and when I finished reading it I turned back to the first page and started again. Readers are going to love this perfectly realised vision of all the futures that are possible and all the ways that love can break and heal us -- Stephanie Butland Lavish world-building and breakneck plotting ... Clear a weekend and let yourself be absorbed * New York Times Book Review * Natasha Pulley has created a world so richly immersive that I felt real shock returning to reality. At once fiercely original, joyous and horrifying, The Kingdoms is an awe-inspiring feat of imagination and passion which had me in tears by the end -- Catriona Ward 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 * Inventive, immersive and entirely unputdownable -- Praise for 'The Lost Future of Pepperharrow' * Daily Mail * Wildly inventive, full of eeriness and magic, and fiendishly intricate plots -- Praise for 'The Lost Future of Pepperharrow' * The Times * Pulley excels at portraying the emotionally charged interplay of her charming cast -- Praise for 'The Lost Future of Pepperharrow' * Guardian *