A review by jobatkin
The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley

4.0

Very interesting and original but oh so complicated! I spent a good chunk of this just barely keeping up with the thread of the story, as it not only jumps back and forward to gradually flesh out the character backgrounds, but there's also time travel and multiple time lines and amnesia, so I found it really hard to follow. The main characters are all quite intense and unpredictable as well, which didn't help my struggle to understand. Joe Tournier arrives at a train station in London in the 1800s with no memory of who he is or how he got there. In his time the French won the battle of Trafalgar and so everyone in Londres speaks French and the English are regarded as inferior, with Joe himself living as a slave. He receives a mysterious postcard with a picture of a lighthouse, sent 100 years ago and waiting for him at the post office all that time, and eventually tracks down the lighthouse and finds a time portal back to the late 1700s, where the English navy is still trying to win against the French, and Joe's engineering talents are in high demand. Very convoluted plot but the overall theme of love triumphing over several lifetimes was heartwarming.