Blair's Reviews > The Kingdoms

When I came to the end of this book it felt like my heart had expanded or something. I’m not being hyperbolic, I had a genuine physical response to it. This happens occasionally, when I’ve read or watched something that really gets to me: this the-world-is-full-of-wonders sensation that feels more chemical than natural. It’s the difference, I think, between a response to technical excellence and a response to emotional excellence. The Kingdoms is the epitome of the latter.

Because: this is how you do it!! By ‘it’ I mean ‘an epic fantasy’ and ‘a love story’ and, also, just ‘a book’. This is what I wanted The Absolute Book to be. This is the most moving chapter of Cloud Atlas if it was 450 pages long. It’s like finding the best fanfic you’ve ever read, and you’re not even familiar with the fandom and don’t know who any of these people are, but you fall in love with it all the same because it’s just that good.

This also means that reviewing it is hard. I realllllly want to get all CAN I HAVE A MOMENT OF YOUR TIME TO TALK ABOUT OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR MISSOURI KITE, but my enthusiastic love for that character isn’t something I think I can articulate. Or that it would mean much to anyone who hasn’t yet read the book, even if I did. The character development in this novel is something that has to be experienced; Pulley does this amazing thing of very gradually making you become obsessed with the protagonists, so that you don’t even notice it’s happening until, boom, sad songs are reminding you of them. At least, that’s how it worked for me.

I haven’t even mentioned what the story is actually about yet (which I think speaks to how much my enjoyment of it was down to emotional connection, though that’s not to say the plot isn’t also great). It starts in 1898, as a man named Joe steps off a train and realises he has lost all his memories. He finds himself in a world that is unfamiliar – to him, naturally, but also to us, as this is an alternate history in which the UK is under French rule. The London skyline is dominated by massive steelworks, households still keep slaves, and Edinburgh is occupied by a terrorist group known as the Saints.

Joe is eventually identified by his employer and reunited with his wife. But he doesn’t regain his memories, save for one: he recalls an image of a woman, along with the name Madeline. Although he can’t remember who she was to him, he can’t help but fixate on the idea of tracking her down. This mission becomes more urgent and complicated when he receives a postcard addressed to him and signed ‘M’ – a postcard that, he’s told, was sent 90 years ago.

The world of the book is fantastically complex and very vivid. I was fascinated by it from the start. The interweaving of timelines is one of those things I can hardly think about because I can’t even imagine how difficult it must have been to map out how everything/everyone intersects. However, the thing that really makes The Kingdoms special is the central love story. When writing reviews, I often mention the fact that I generally don’t enjoy reading romance. Lots of novels have a romantic subplot squashed in where it doesn’t seem to belong; lots of books explicitly positioned as romance demand suspension of disbelief that I find impossible. But this is exactly how I want a love story to be done: slow, uncertain, tentative and filled with yearning. I became so invested in it that by the last few chapters I was crying over these people.

I never want sequels to books but I want a sequel to this. I want a whole fan community to spring up around this. It’s sweeping and enthralling and has so much heart; I just adored it.

Missouri Kite, though.

I received an advance review copy of The Kingdoms from the publisher through NetGalley.

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