The Kingdoms

By: Natasha Pulley

Narrated by: Theo Solomon

Length: 15 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

Bloomsbury presents The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley, read by Theo Solomon.

Come home, if you remember.

The postcard has been held at the sorting office for 91 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 100 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.

©2021 Natasha Pulley (P)2021 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Critic reviews

"I loved the vivid and intricate alternate universes of The Kingdoms, and the flawed and complicated people who inhabit them." (Katherine Addison)

"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)

"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)

Another Pulley Triumph

Another convoluted masterpiece.

Naturally, the audiobook version is a bit trickier than an actual book – with such density you’d love to be able to look back and double check something from the previous paragraph. But that’s just the way it goes with audiobooks. I think it’s important, with this book, to concentrate on the place & date at the opening of each chapter as you can often get lost as to your position in time and place 😁

Audio Distortions

Audio slowed and dreadfully distorted. Downloaded and removed many times but unable to correct speed to sound normal.