Out on the 27th May, this is a genre defying whirlwind of a tale by award winning author. So when I woke up at 6:30 today to finish this book I knew I was totally captivated. A badly constructed story inhabited by forgettable characters, poorly read.I am not a morning person. There's a longish section narrated by a female character (don't know who, don't care) and that's when I gave up. When he tries to imitate a woman he uses a strained, feeble voice, like a child pretending to be an old lady. He was obviously told to speak slowly but the effect is that he sounds put-upon and peevish. He's annoyingly passive, always 'wondering' and never bloody 'doing.' The author seems to have mistakingly formed the impression that this is compelling stuff. He has no defining characteristic whatsoever apart from his strange circumstances. His lack of a past doesn't explain his lack of personality. The central character (I can't even remember his name) is a complete void. The dialogue throughout is anachronistic, even when the twofold timeframe is taken into account. I chose this book because I am interested in the Napoleonic wars and naval warfare but it was a mistake. I very quickly found I didn't know or care what was going on. Hoping this was just a one-off lull, I'm staying optimistic for her next publication. This was a tad confusing at times as chapters skip between time periods and iterations of characters therein.

It also wasn't helped by the editing and, at times, the performance: there was rarely pause or much other definition between chapters, so it was largely like one large run-on chapter. But this work was really lacking both in form and content between those few chapters mentioned. In her other works, if the beautiful machinations of the plot are taking a breath, then the character development and exposition, or the character interactions are picking up the baton and making you fall in love with them. Neither the characters nor the story were engaging, it just seemed to drone on in a soup of wishy washy durge back and forth. The beginning and the ending few chapters are great, just what I expect of her, but the loooooong middle was, sadly, decidedly meh. I'm already on my third time round of the Watchmaker duo of books and was eagerly waiting for this latest offering to arrive in audiobook format.

The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley