Pulley, N: The Kingdoms

As I enjoyed "The Watchmaker of Filigree Street" and "The Lost Future of Pepperharrow" very much, I was thrilled to come across a brand new novel by British author Natasha Pulley. However, I had a few problems finding my way into the story and to be able to navigate the different time periods the story encompasses. "The Kingdoms" displays an alternate reality in which Napoleon was not defeated and France dominates as the most influential political power in Europe. Our protagonist Joe Tournier is a British slave under French rule, wasting his time in a welding job even though his talents as an engineer surpass his current field of work by far. Moreover, he experiences flashes of epilepsy in which he seems to remember clippings of a different life of his own in another time line with another lover - and that is where things started to get fuzzy for me. Even though Pulley is always playing with the boundaries of reality and time travel, I unfortunately was not able to distinguish between the various time lapses of the story and the consequential differences in character constellations this time around. It might be possible that I only picked up the book at the wrong moment and might be less confused when reading the novel for the second time.