Review: The UnTied Kingdom - Kate Johnson

When Eve Carpenter lands with a splash in the Thames, it's not the London or England she's used to. No one has a telephone or knows what a computer is. England's a third world country and Princess Di is still alive. But worst of all, everyone thinks Eve's a spy. Including Major Harker who has his own problems. His sworn enemy is looking for a promotion. The general wants him to undertake some ridiculous mission to capture a computer, which Harker vaguely envisions running wild somewhere in Yorkshire. Turns out the best person to help him is Eve. She claims to be a popstar. Harker doesn't know what a popstar is, although he suspects it's a fancy foreign word for 'spy'. Eve knows all about computers, and electricity. Eve is dangerous. There's every possibility she's mad. And Harker is falling in love with her.

My Thoughts:

I do enjoy a good alternative world kind of book. It's so fun to see what change if that or this happened or didn't happen. And it this book is was downhill all the way for England.

England was still a Catholic country, and had never built a large empire. Instead this glory had gone to France. There had been no WWI but there had been a "WWII" and sadly England had chosen the wrong side there. But there are more changes, no one discovered America, and poor old England is a third world country where only the army or the very rich own a phone and no one has a computer. Civil War is also tearing it apart.

Now doesn't that sound fun, it sure does. The country is bleak and in ruins. People are soldiering on, and the author has certainly created an interesting alternative world. One I really enjoyed reading about. Into all this Eve suddenly appears, she is sure something else and I liked her. If I had to say anything negative it was that she sure knew her computers, ok that is not negative, I just mean was she actually that good? Cos I could certainly not open one and see that a screw is loose. Anyway, perhaps she was, good for her cos the plot does need to go on ;) Moving along...The lead male character is Major Harker, kind of a brooding soldier type and even when he is all commands and all that  I still fell for him. Then we also have some minor characters that help to bring life to this book.

What do we have so far.. awesome world! Good characters, a thrilling plot about hunting down a computer and moving through a dangerous warzone (people will get shot), and a budding romance between a couple that keep arguing.

Conclusion:

I did not want to put it down because I needed to know what would happen. I would recommend this one too, oh this is hard, romance fans, suspense fans, steampunk fans (not the same but it works in a way), and all the rest of you too because it was a great book. And I sure hope the author writes something more like this book.

Rating:

Hard to put down!

Cover:

I like it

Genre: Alternative History/ Parallel World/ Contemporary suspense romance Fiction

Pages:

Publisher: Choc-Lit

Published: April 1st 2011

Source: Copy from the publisher