The Kingdom of Ohio

I enjoyed this interesting and innovative story. All those footnotes which made it seem like there is a factual basis for the existence of the Kingdom of Ohio... I am sure the author just made it up, but I keep wondering if there is some chance that it is actually true? I also liked learning the little historical details about Edison and Tesla (and even J.P. Morgan) through this story. I thought the main characters were likeable and the story had a good ending.

I cannot recommend this book more strongly! This was a fantastic romp through the history of New York to solve a mystery. This was absolutely mind-blowing-ly good! I can't stress how much of a good impression this book left on me! This is a rare gem of a novel: interesting plot, engaging characters and unusual storyline. It is a rare book that keeps me this interested and riveted throughout. Strange, yes, but strange in a good way. The author has a vivid imagination and an excellent ability to story-tell. I am not going to talk about the plot here, or give anything away. I really loved this book, so did my significant other and several coworkers I've loaned this book to. This is a great way to escape every day life and read about fiction fantastic. Just pick up a copy of this book and find time to give it a try. Don't try reading it before bedtime. You will look at the clock and realize you've read the night away.

"It's a story about conspiracies and struggles to reshape the world; about secret wars between men like J. P. Morgan, Thomas Edison, and Nikola Tesla. It is about one of the strangest and least-known mysteries of American history: the existence and disappearance of the Lost Kingdom of Ohio. It is about science and faith, and the distance between the two. Most of all, it's a story about a man and a woman, and about love." If it sounds like The Kingdom of Ohio by Matthew Flaming has it all - alternative history, time-travel, and a love story - it does! . When an old antiques dealer in modern-day Los Angeles comes across a photograph from the turn of the century depicting three people, he realizes that a past he thought he had imagined was actually real. The photograph depicts Peter Force, a young man who came to New York to work on the subway tunnels, and Cheri-Ann Toledo, a female mathematician who claims to have accidentally traveled across time, from an America in which her family ruled the Kingdom of Ohio. "So you do not believe in fate?...Not mythic fate, but real, actual fate. The machinery of the universe, the laws of cause and effect, tell us that the shape of the future is written in the past. As the movements of a clockwork are visible in the design of its gears." One narrative is told from the antique dealer's point of view and the other tells the story of Peter and Cheri-Ann. Peter, not quite believing Cheri-Ann's story, feels compelled to help her, nevertheless. Together, they try to find out what how Cheri-Ann traveled seven years into the future and what happened to the Kingdom she swears once existed. The book, because it began with the antique dealer's weary voice, started a little slow for me, but picked up great momentum once it switched to Peter and Cheri-Ann's story. Flaming put footnotes within the story referencing sources - which are probably a mixture of truth and pseudo-history. I could not tell which was genuine and which wasn't. I began wondering if there really was a Kingdom of Ohio. Giants of industry and science become real people and their stories so well told that I now want to read their biographies. I loved the historical details of life at the turn of the century, especially about how the underground subway tunnels were built and how dangerous it was. "...all at once she feels a hidden thronging in the air around her. A sense of presence, somewhere overhead. Her scalp tingles, a shiver running through her body. Back. This word whispered into her ear, and she wheels to find its source---only underground gloom, jumping lantern shadows on the rough walls. A moment later though, she hears another whisper, this time farther down the tunnel, almost inaudible, then another---... Something is down there, in the tunnels: she knows this with a sick certainty. Something without shape but infinitely hungry, a swarming multiplicity. A part of her brain is screaming at her to turn and leave now, before it is to

In Los Angeles, the elderly antiques dealer has worked for two years on mystery of the photograph he obtained. The picture is that of Peter Force Cheri- Anne Toledo, taken in 1901. In 1900 Peter came from Idaho to work in the hazardous digging of the subways tunnels beneath the city. Cheri-Anne is a mathematical genius with bizarre memories that seem not of this time and place. They meet accidentally; at least that is what it seemed to Peter. When she insistently claimed to be the daughter of the ruler of the Kingdom of Ohio who traveled in time, he assumed she was crazy. However, he also is attracted to her and soon begins to believe her fantastic tale when others seem overly interested in her including combatant inventors and warring financiers. Soon he will understand that past, present and future of time and place is relevant to the individual as all converge either to conflict or deconflict if free will is meaningful; just like the note left behind "CROATOAN". This is a superb time travel romantic suspense thriller that takes a deep look at the sordid underbelly, literally as well as figuratively, side of New York during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The story line is fast-paced in spite of the cerebral underpinnings as fans will relish the tour of the city as rarely seen in novels while being escorted by two strong lead protagonists and enhanced by the real persona they encounter. Matthew Flaming provides a great, intelligent yet exciting thriller. Harriet Klausner

Every so often there appears a work that is unique and, by virtue of superiority in all of its aspects, very special. "The Kingdom of Ohio" is one of these rare specimens. It is both impossible to qualify and all too accessible to many, many, qualifications. Some will call it a "Time Travel" SF book; some will call it a heartbreaking romance; some will call it an amazingly visceral "historical" (albeit, not necessariy OUR history) novel; some will... enough! It is, what it is. And what it is, mostly, is brilliant! There will be, I am sure, those who will NOT like, nor "get" this book. If you meet anyone like that... run!