The premise of this book is neat--in the near future, a Ministry in the British government has figured out time travel and have grabbed a few people from the past to see how they do in 21st century life. Each time traveler has a "bridge" who lives with them to get them more acclimated. Our main character--never named--is the bridge for an Arctic explorer, Graham Gore, taken from 1847 and thus referred to as "Forty Seven." We meet other people from 1665, 1916, etc. Graham Gore is an actual figure from history, which is...somewhat disturbing to me, honestly.

I quite enjoyed the writing and the perspective of the bridge, whose mother is a Cambodian refugee and father is a white Brit; she can pass for white, and there's a lot of reflection comparing her and her mother's experiences to those of the time travelers. There's also a neat twist toward the end.

That said. The book is a bit of a mess. It's a time travel story, it's a romance, it's a thriller. It wants to Say Something about race and LGBTQIA and climate change and fascism and and power oppression. Bradley includes conversations between characters about race but there are so many subtle undertones that I just couldn't really grasp what was going on--I'm not sure whether I couldn't get the nuances because I'm white or whether it's just written in too opaque a way.

Reading the book, I was carried along, but after finishing it and thinking about the story, I don't know that it ultimately holds up. Bradley writes that she initially meant the book for friends after developing a crush on Gore and it does kind of show, from a story perspective. I am very interested to see where Bradley goes from here, though, because her writing is excellent and the concept is great.

Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for granting me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

"A time travel romance, a spy thriller, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all: Welcome to The Ministry of Time, the exhilarating debut novel by Kaliane Bradley In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she'll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering "expats" from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible - for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.

She is tasked with working as a "bridge" living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as "1847" or Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin's doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he's a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calves, surrounded by outlandish concepts such as "washing machines," "Spotify," and "the collapse of the British Empire." But with an appetite for discovery, a seven-a-day cigarette habit, and the support of a charming and chaotic cast of fellow expats, he soon adjusts.

Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic, evolves into something much deeper. By the time the true shape of the Ministry's project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined. Forced to confront the choices that brought them together, the bridge must finally reckon with how - and whether she believes - what she does next can change the future.

An exquisitely original and feverishly fun fusion of genres and ideas, The Ministry of Time asks: What does it mean to defy history, when history is living in your house? Kaliane Bradley's answer is a blazing, unforgettable testament to what we owe each other in a changing world."

Only seven cigarettes a day? Amateur. My grandmother was three packs!

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for the ARC. The Ministry of Time is the most incredible book I have ever read. Kaliane Bradley has such beautiful, rhythmic prose. I just love her descriptions and imagery, they're so unique, fresh, and relatable. The concept of a time travel romance intrigued me, so I had to request this ARC. While the concept is ambitious, I think the author has executed it extremely well. I loved reading about the protagonist's job in the ministry, the parts about being a minority and working for the Empire and also immigration. There is so much depth to this book, yet the plot is never weighed down by it, it never drags. Instead there is a constant subtle tension in the background that ramps up and finally concludes in the most perfect way. I also loved all the characters, the side characters were equally as compelling as the main characters. The romance was beautiful, the sci fi intriguing, and the book was perfectly thrilling in a manner that makes you look closer at the world you live in and the kinds of actions you take. This is probably the best book I have ever seen tackle such complex issues with the weight it deserves but also in an easy to understand manner. I love this book so much and I will instantly buy whatever Kaliane Bradley writes. I highly recommend everyone read this book!

Engaging and witty read with a perfect genre mash-up.
It's a time travel story without a real time travel - characters only deal with the aftermath of bringing someone across time, but we never really go with them to another era. That's because the focus of this book is on showing the corporate side of supervising the adjustment to a foreign world, rather than typical time-jumping related action and themes (although the story definitely delivers on the classical twists in this department). Apart from being simply fun, it also draws deeper parallels between the time expats and real-life migrants in UK and social commentary is precisely what earns my books an extra star.
The romance starts happening only a halfway through the book and Gore is such a charming character, I really enjoyed it, even though I don't read love stories.
In the beginning had some difficulties with the plot structure. The blurb describes this book as part "work-place comedy" and it's on point here, as jumpy scenes really looked like shot changes from a tv show, ending abruptly and in random places. Also, there are many dialogues with no narration, which was an issue, as I often lost track of who was speaking.
But putting this aside, I adored the whole story.
Also, I would like to note that I'm aware of the "controversies" related to the Spanish TV show of the same name and for anyone who actually read this book, and is not simply jumping on the bandwagon of internet hate, it will be instantly obvious that these stories are entirely different and the whole drama is just typical, silly drama for twitter mob.

A sad DNF at around 20% because this one just wasn’t working for me.

This book has a great idea - what if we rescued a whole bunch of people who died in history and brought them to the future so we could test if time travel is real - but it works better as a thought experiment than a novel. There’s a lack of human connection with the characters, who feel like they’re reading a script of what people would say if they were put in such a bizarre situation, rather than like real people living through it. The author also tries to have her cake and eat it to by handwaving the mechanics of time travel (fair enough) but also treating it as a super important experiment where scientists routinely test their subjects physical and psychological state with lots of technical details.

Hopefully this book lands better for others than it did for me.

Thank you netgalley for this e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

I love time travel romance so much; it really gives something I unique to the story that we doesn't see a lot in fantasy/sci-fi romance. But this was just okay. I didn't fall in love with it but I didn't hate it either. I'm not sure why it fell a bit flat for me. I think maybe I just didn't relate or love the MCs as much as I'd hoped.

This book definitely gives outlander vibes, so if you love outlander, definitely check it out.

3.5/5 ⭐

First, I would like to thank NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for this chance to read an e-ARC of this book.

This book is perfect for me as it resembles my favorite thought experiment. When I have a minute to daydream I often wonder what it would be like to be the last human of our time explaining our culture and history to a bunch of futuristic people. How would my life, experiences, skills, etc. impact what and how I shared? What would be preserved and what would be lost because of the limited scope of one human brain? The only thing my thought experiment doesn’t have is a romance plotline, So if you like a bit of romance I highly recommend you read this book rather than listen to me babble on.

In the Ministry of Time, we journey with our nameless protagonist, a civil servant recently inducted to the highly classified time travel project. At this ministry, men and women are pulled out of time, at the moment before their deaths, and brought to modern times where they will be observed for any side effects. This will later inform the feasibility of future time travel missions. One such person is Graham Gore (a very real person in history), who died in 1845 during a deadly expedition to the Arctic. It is our protagonist, who is assigned to be his ‘bridge’, to help him acclimate to modern times. However, as I alluded to, eventually the lines between subject and handler blur, in all the best way, and yes there is spice if that is something you enjoy.

This book was a lot more than I expected. It was packaged as a romance, spy thriller, but it feels a bit deeper than that. There are things we don’t consider, in regards to time travel, but would be very apparent if it ever did happen. The world does not look the same as it did 30 years ago, let alone 100+ years. With that comes having to explore different values and societal roles and challenges to the elasticity of the human mind. I enjoyed the exploration of these themes, though I did wish we got more of the fluff and hijinks of being displaced in time before getting down to business. I just think it would make everything hit harder.

Not to say I wasn’t in Spain (without the s) by the end of the book. I know it was theoretically hopeful, but something about it just went right through my heart and after I was done I was just sitting on my couch wondering what to do with my feelings. I think it was a very realistic fact that we may try our best, love people, and fight for people we love, but we are still small parts in such a big story. All you can do is struggle accept what happens, and hopefully lean on people to move forward when it’s not quite enough.

Ugh! This book is going to live in my brain forever, isn’t it? I just want our protagonist, Graham, Arthur, and Maggie to be happy and have a guaranteed happy future. Is that too much to ask for?!?!

I found the synopsis of this book intriguing when I found it in Netgalley. I have read many time travel romances and find the differences in the ways of life of the characters the best part. In that respect, this story does not disappoint.
Nonetheless, it is a very unique and peculiar book. The author establishes the plot in the near future London, a time when time travel is possible but not mainstream. It is created a Ministry to deal with this capacity and an experiment is made bringing to the current time a group of people from different times from the past. The idea is to make sure that is physically possible and without permanent damage. The people chosen are rescued in their final moments to make sure that history is not changed. Each one of them has a bridge, an agent from the ministry that will help them get settled in the new century.
The main characters are an English linguist with Cambodian heritage and an arctic explorer from the navy who presumably died in 1847. The first part of the book is dedicated to them navigating his inadequacies to the current time.
The second part is much darker and introduces some characters from the future and we learn that there is much to fear in that future. Climate change is a real threat in the plot and without saying much more about the plot, I must warn the readers that this becomes more of a scy-fy thriller than a romance novel.
I enjoyed it but I must say that the story had a much higher degree of anxiety than your familiar time-travel romance.
It is very well written, and for a totally different experience, I would surely recommend it.

It's a mixed bag for me. There is so much going on that the focus becomes pretty hazy.
The storyline contains time-travel, mystery, history, murder, sabotage, comedy and romance. There is also a good bit of commentary on race and women's discrimination, which I'm not sure was necessary to dvance the story.
That said,the good parts are memorable. The two main charachters have a whitty rapor, which is entertaining. The group of individuals known as the "expats" also have memeorable friendships that read well. However,the idea of these people from the past assimilating to present day life so quickly was a bit far fetched for me.
Perhaps a more narrowed,streamlined focus would have helped make this novel more appealing,at least for this reader.

This book was a bit if a feminist update of Time Traveler's Wife, with a dose of Dr Who and DC's Legends of Tomorrow. I liked the premise, and the story was a good ride. Recommend to history buffs and scifi needs alike.

Genre-bending, fiery, and darkly reflective, The Ministry of Time asks pressing questions like "what will we do for love?" and "what does it mean to uphold empire from within its mechanisms when you are also marginalized by it?" and also, crucially, "what if the British government time traveled real life historical figure from the Franklin Expedition Graham Gore to the 21st century?"

I was completely drawn into this book, and boy is there a lot to unpack. Our unnamed narrator is a funny, unreliable, and blunt underqualified civil servant, who is telling us the story of her year as a "bridge," helping (and falling in love with) one of the British government's newly time traveled "expats"—a handful of people brought to the 21st century moments before their deaths—adjust to their new time. She feels painfully real, and very well-realized. Bradley's writing style is captivating and gritty, and created a creeping sense of foreboding that followed me through the novel and didn't leave when I'd put it down. This was a book that had me staying up late to finish it, and left me staring at the ceiling metaphorically chewing on everything I'd just read for a long time afterwards.

A time travel romance, a speculative spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingeniously constructed exploration of the nature of truth and power and the potential for love to change it Welcome to The Ministry of Time, the exhilarating debut novel by Kaliane Bradley.

This was nothing short of spectacular and I'm going to spend the rest of 2024 being completely obsessed with this book. This novel really goes through all the genres - it's a science fiction, a love story, a comedy, and a spy novel. I laughed, I swooned, I cried. I certainly never expected to fall for an 1800s Commander, but I sure as hell did. And now I'm completely and utterly bereft that it's all over. I did not expect anything in this book and that made it all the better. Ultimately, this book is SO much fun (and a little sexy okay?)

It is a truly beautiful thing to stumble into your new favorite novel.

I adored this book. It's fun, thought provoking, and has some of the most breath catching prose I've ever read. I often had to sit and just stare off into space after reading some lines.

A romance disguised as a science-fiction mystery; this novel has everything! It has time travel, secret government agencies, dreamy artic explorers, subterfuge, discussions of colonialism and race, and band of unlikely friends you cannot help but fall deeply in love with. We follow the narrative of our MC describing her assignment as "bridge" to 19th century English naval lieutenant, Graham Gore, who has been rescued--my means of a Time Door-- from the doomed Franklin Expedition through the artic. Our MC is tasked with helping Gore adjust to life in the present day, part of a covert government project. Against her better judgement, our MC falls irrevocably in love with him. But all is not fair in love and time travel, and while our MC and Graham figuring out love in the 21st century, sinister forces are at play to change the course of time.

One of the most exciting debut novels of the year. This novel is a brilliant take on time travel. It is a story that will stick with you. Also, this book is written with wide range of vocabulary. I felt smarter after reading it.

It was very good. The pacing was very good, and I liked the retrospective building sense of tragedy. The last 45 pages were amazing.

This was really fun and clever! I usually find it hard to get into books regarding time travel, but the author made this really intriguing and enjoyable.

Man, this is a hard one to review. I definitely thought I was going into a rom com about a hunk who gets pulled into the future and all the hijinks that would ensue. While there was some of that, this was way more spy thrillery than I expected. Lots of suspense and high stakes action.

I loved the travelers and the little family that they formed through their trauma bond. I liked that there were important issues being discussed. The plot definitely kept me guessing. I think I just wanted a little more from the ending. Overall, this was an interesting read. Not a rom com, more of a character driven spy novel. There were slow bits, but it came together nicely.

I don't know exactly what I was expecting. But this book was MUCH more than all I've expected. While time travel is a component to it, it's a lot more lit fic than sci-fi. While the MC is observing a time traveler, it's fascinating to get to notice how much of the observations are internal reflections. It's also a very interesting look at identity. I have been thinking about it since I finished this one, and I might just re-read it!
I definitely recommend reading this one with someone, just to discuss the details.

Thank you so much to Avid Reader Press for the ARC of this one.

Thank you to Avid Reader Press for the early review copy of The Ministry of Time.

This is one of the quirkiest books I've read recently and I loved it. Honestly, this could be a perfect pick for a book club because there are so many elements to dissect and discuss. Sometimes this reads as a historical narrative about a doomed polar expedition in the mid-1800s, other times it's a fast-paced spy novel, and then there are the parts that read as a love story.

The Ministry of Time is a small government entity tasked with studying the impact of time travel. By wrangling "expats" from different historical periods and bringing them into the present, the ministry can observe the physical and emotional impact that time travel has on the human body. Each time the ministry brings a new "expat" into the present timeline, they are assigned a bridge - someone who is expected to live with and observe the behaviors of the "expat" in their new environment. Our main character is the assigned bridge for Captain Graham Gore - a polar explorer who perished on Sir John Franklin's expedition to find a Northwest Passage. Disoriented and surprised to find himself in a time very unlike his own, we watch while Gore acclimates to a life where modern marvels such as "Spotify" are commonplace in everyday life.
Over the next year, Gore and his bridge forge a connection that will be tested in ways they never could have imagined.

I loved this book - I found the parts about the failed Franklin expedition to be incredibly interesting and loved how Bradley brought this historical character to life in the present. As our main character begins to uncover the true intentions of the ministry the novel shifts into a tightly wound spy thriller that kept me on the edge of my seat. Overall, this is one of the most memorable books I've ever read and I can't wait to see what this new author does next.

A striking and entertaining blend of fast-paced and philosophy and time travel, that explores mixed-race identity, inherited trauma, and Britain's imperial legacy.