After a slow beginning, I enjoyed The Ministry of Time. The main character, whose name is not given throughout the novel, is the child of a Cambodian mother and a white father, something continually pointed out. She had originally been working in the language department of the Ministry when she was recruited to become a "bridge," someone who works with persons who have been brought to this time period from the past, where they would have died. She is assigned to Graham, who had been pulled from 1847. There are other people taken from other times - the Ministry calls them expats. There's a mystery about why they were pulled and someone called The Brigadier who seems to want to kill the narrator. There is so much going on in this story after the 50% mark.

I was frustrated by the "woke" agenda, constantly bringing up race and racism, talking about how the narrator had the "privilege" of passing as white. Then when the narrator is talking to her coworker Simellia, who is black, towards the end of the novel, Simellia tells her about how The Brigadier came from the future and said that climate change was destroying the world and that sub-Saharan Africa would suffer with refugees being killed, and that, "How hard did you try to be a white girl that you're asking me whether racism exists?" Ugh! IMHO, not everything is about race and calling people racist, oppressed, or marginalised serves no purpose. I liked when the narrator told Simellia that she wasn't a victim and she did not give people the opportunity to make her a victim.

Why not four or five stars? Pretentious language! I'm a college grad and I think I have a healthy vocabulary - why use a word that the majority of people have to look up? It got so ridiculous that I began to keep track of them - gelid (cold), elucidate (explain), moved sepulchrally (like death? or darkly?), palaver (trouble?), perspicacity (shrewdness), clement weather (how about just saying nice or pleasant), penumbral (almost shadow?) - you get the idea. And those are just the ones I noted after about halfway through the book when I was getting frustrated.

Thank you to the NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

I feel like I’m going to be thinking about this book for a long time. I was very quickly absorbed by the whole concept.

I would describe this as a time travel thriller with an element of romance. I liked that it was unpredictable and I wasn’t quite sure where the story was going. I read the first 3/4 really quickly and then slowed down. I didn’t want the story to end. I will be very interested to see what this author does next.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced copy!

I really loved the idea of this book—so imaginative and creative to have a premise where people are brought back from history.
The problem for me is that, apart from the main two characters, I couldn’t latch on to anything about them past their physical attributes (or sexuality?). With a cast this large, I need more than hair color to remember why and how this person matters to the story.
I’ve heard this is already going to be adapted for the screen, which I think is fantastic. I’ll definitely watch.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

"The Ministry of Time" by Kaliane Bradley is one of the most unique and engrossing books I've ever read. I really enjoyed this book, even though it often made me anxious and kept me on my toes. There were lots of twists and turns, especially in the latter half of the book. I got a little confused at the denouement and had to reread sections a few times. Highly recommend you do not read anything more than the back-of-book summary prior to reading this story.

UPDATE: many people have pointed out that the plot of this novel is mysteriously similar to a Spanish TV show by the same name, yet I see no evidence that the publisher has publicly addressed allegations of plagiarism, This is unfortunate, and sadly, I must change my review/rating until this has been acknowledged and addressed.

I was thoroughly charmed by this book, which is in part science fiction, in part literary romance. The protagonist is an unnamed female junior agent for the British Ministry of Time, who has been assigned as “bridge” to an “expat” brought through time from the Victorian era to time of the story, which occurs sometime in the not-so-distant future. The reader is told that the British government is experimenting with time travel by bringing people out of the past who had experienced untimely death: essentially rescuing them from their early demise in order to discover how the shift through time will affect their bodies.

The bridge’s job is to help transition their expat into the modern era, and our protagonist is assigned to live with a British Royal Navy officer named Graham Gore, who had previously been destined to die during a doomed polar expedition to discover the Northwest Passage in 1847. Over the course of a year following his removal from the nineteenth century, romantic tension develops between Graham and the narrator. Meanwhile, there are revelations at the ministry which cause her to begin questioning whether her assigned mission is ethically sound.

I was entirely absorbed by the plot of this story and didn’t want to put it down. The characters are all great fun and well developed, and the period-specific dialogue for each of the expats was spot on. I enjoyed watching their relationships with one another develop and they each began to feel like friends to me. I would like to hang out with these people in real life.

The prose in this novel is magnificent! The descriptions are vivid and compelling in a way few authors are able to fully capture. There were so many sentences that I read over and over again, just because they were so lyrical and well written.

This book asks some serious philosophical and ethical questions, particularly about an ongoing colonialist/imperialist approach to scientific advancement. It has a heavy feeling to it overall, but I think it ends on a hopeful note that leaves room for readers’ interpretation. While there were parts that made me giggle or laugh out loud, the vibe is actually rather serious and it will make you think.

Thank you Netgalley and Avid Reader Press for an ARC copy in exchange for my review!

A gorgeously complex, heartbreak of a book. Every single character ripped my heart out, the plot compelled me and writing was both tender and funny. I'm beside myself that it is so far still from this book's release because I want to shout about it to everyone!

Not the type of book I usually read but on a recommendation I requested and was approved an ARC.
It’s a time travel, romance spy novel kind of a story and for the life of me I cannot remember the girls name, was she even named? She is recruited by a government agency called The Ministry. Their aim is to recruit people from across history to see if time travel is feasible, and what effects it has on the persons mind, body and well being. The girls job is to be a ‘bridge’ between her time traveller and the agency. She will document how they cope with this new life and all the interactions they have. The travellers are named by the year they were taken from and this story focuses on the Bridge and her traveller (who is a real person from history) 1847 or Commander Graham Gore. He was part of an expedition to discover the northern passage from Uk to Asia for trade. His expedition never made it and the ship and crew were never found. The Ministry obviously took him before his death and now he is living with the bridge in present day Uk and finding his feet in this new world.
There is a lot going on in this novel with quite a few characters and all of them are wonderfully drawn. With the Bridge the narrator of this story we see her falling in love with Gore, and at odds with the Ministry.
It’s a fun read with a mix of genres and ideas.

#TheMinistryOfTime. #NetGalley

Unfortunately, this was a dnf. It was very slow without as much humor as I was hoping for. However, I think it will be great for plenty of readers and will definitely recommend it to others. Thank you NetGalley and Avid Reader Press for the advance copy.

An exciting, romantic, and heartwrenching novel. The last thing I ever expected from this reading experience was to care so deeply about a dead Arctic expedition leader, and yet here I am. Beyond that, the Ministry of Time makes beautiful commentary on displacement (both geographically and in time), identity, and duty.
10/10 would recommend,

This books makes me want to be a better writer. I love the way the story is crafted and how the author examins everything around the characters without it getting in the way of the story. This is such an amazingly cozy read. can't wait to see what else she does. i loved it.

Interesting concept and story which moved well. I was skeptical that the story would be cliched time travel story. I enjoyed the character development and plot.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! Receiving an advanced copy was a delightful surprise. I believe both existing fans and newcomers will find it equally enjoyable.

I reviewed an advanced uncorrected proof. It is my genuine hope that the most egregious error in this text is corrected before being brought to print. In reference to feeling aware of an incoming uncomfortable topic of conversation, the main character is said to be on “amber alert.” I believe this must have been mere ignorance to have included this as a.) Amber alerts are named after a real person, Amber Rene Hagerman, and b.) this terminology is recognized internationally in its adoption. There is no way an Amber alert fits the context of the novel, and it should be changed. If it becomes brought to my attention that this content is removed, I will happily update my review to remove this area of concern from my review.

When I started reading this book, I was under the impression this author wrote a fanfic about a dead commodore from an infamously doomed Arctic expedition based upon a “foxy” daguerreotype, and honestly, I was here for it. I have found the mystery of Franklin’s expedition curious since I read about it as an example text on a standardized exam many years ago. The fact I never developed a crush on one of the crew members seems in retrospect a missed opportunity.

I wanted to like this, but it is trying to do too many things without fully realizing any of them. This book asks you to suspend your disbelief a lot more than I found I could. For example, is it realistic that our narrator could teach Commodore Gore to be less racist? No, at least not in my experience with old racist white people today. I doubt someone from the 1800s is going to be more flexible than grandpa, born only slightly before the Civil Rights movement. This is more of an issue than time traveling, for which the science is either ambiguous or so obtuse that I simply skimmed through it as I have no memory of the tech being explained at all.

The romance I expected is nonexistent. From early on, the needlessly unnamed narrator describes Gore both as her “overgrown son” alongside notes about his erotic appearance and manners. This happens more than once throughout the novel. When the romance does appear about 66% of the way through the novel, it is fast, hard, and abrupt, not at all the slow burn I had expected from previous reviews.

There is so much cigarette smoking described in extreme detail down to how much ash is produced at a time and where they are depositing it. Maybe this just bothered me, but I was annoyed at being told about the habit on what felt like every page.

The writing style is unique. Metaphors are lengthy and creative, but also they are often ineffective. If my complexion is “fungal,” does that mean like a mushroom or like a yeast infection? And also, what does either one look like?

The most interesting part of this story for me was about our narrator’s struggle with her family’s assimilation to the UK and the legacy of her mixed heritage. I would like to have read more of that instead.

Thanks to NetGalley and Avid Reader Press for an advanced copy of this book to review.

I'll be honest: if this was billed as just a straight time travel romance, I wouldn't have even picked it up. Time travel usually confuses me and, though I did try to read and watch Outlander, I just never bought into the craze like some of my friends did. BUT seeing that The Ministry of Time promised to be "a time travel romance, a speculative time thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingeniously constructed exploration of the power of truth" drew me in. That, and Kaliane Bradley has a number of impressive short story publications under her belt. I decided, on a lark, to take a chance, knowing that I would probably be sorely disappointed.

But, oh boy, was I wrong. First off, Bradley delivers on every single one of those premises which is, in and of itself, an impressive feat. Second off, her writing is so fluid and flexible that it is impossible not to get sucked in. Third of all, she made me fall in love with a 19th century explorer. What magic is this?

If you go in expecting a plain romance or a spy thriller or a workplace comedy, I think you will be disappointed (hence, as of writing this review, the 3.6 stars on Goodreads). Because TMoT is none of those things and all of those things at once. In true litfic fashion, Bradley probes at the seams of everything she writes. I would liken this to Ling Ma's excellent Severance, so if anyone here liked those diasporic themes, this one is for you. And, like in Severance, Bradley writes characters and scenarios so well that it is impossible not to feel them coming to life around you.

Bradley's England, even though it's set in the near-distant future, feels real and palpable, and her twist at the end had my heart racing. Although the middle, which felt very "slice of life," as other readers have noted, started to lose me a little bit, when I got to the end, I understood it all: it's not slow-paced, it's TENSE, with the subtlest of clues that something is off (and, of course, adorable scenes of Graham Gore falling in love with Spotify and discovering the joys of motorcycle riding). This is the kind of book that I immediately want to go back and re-read for everything that I missed, and that I desperately want to get my English major self back into gear for, annotations and all. I will be recommending this to everyone I know who likes their books sexy, smart as hell, and utterly heartbreaking.

This is not going to be everyone's cup of tea, but it was CERTAINLY mine.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Avid Reader Press, and Kaliane Bradley for gifting me this e-ARC in exchange for my honest feedback! The Ministry of Time is one of the strongest debuts I've read in a while and I will be eagerly anticipating Bradley's next work.

My thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC of The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley.

I loved this book so much! I hope it gets made into a movie. Consider its recipe: time travel, historical fiction, romance, spy thriller. YES, PLEASE. Turns out Capt. Graham Gore was a real person in the doomed Franklin expedition. Bradley imagines a scenario in which Gore is plucked from his own timeline by a secret ministry in the UK, whose goal is partly to fix climate change before it occurs. He is not alone though, because the Ministry pulls several other characters from different centuries in too, all of who become a cohort of acclimation to the twenty-first century. To make that transition, each is assigned a “bridge,” an officer responsible for living with the “expat” (I.e., time traveler) and teaching them about modern life and the history they missed.

But it turns out that Gore is the stuff of a Bond foil: ruggedly handsome (think Tom Hardy), charismatic, charming, likes to cook, learns to ride a motorcycle in leathers (please cast Tom Hardy in this film), can draw, plays the flute, and eventually, and unsurprisingly, becomes a hot, hot lover. For a time, the expats and bridges make friends, go clubbing, and have fun.That is until they realize they are being hunted by the future at the same time.

I hesitate to say more because I don’t wanna spoil so much that is wonderful about this book. Anyone who enjoys books liked Kindred (this imagines the time traveler moving forward in history but similarly having to grapple with historical problems and ethics), spy, novels (feels a bit Mr and Mrs Smith at moments, sexually tension, both highly trained agents, etc.),, or the recent Emily Wilde (similar romance) fairy books, will probably enjoy this book. Read it!

ok I was very excited abut the plot but this book ended up being kind of confusing. Things jumped around a lot and many things were left without being fully explained. The characters fell a little flat for me and lacked depth but I still found myself intrigued enough to not be able to put it down - so I guess that's something! The ending was also a little confusing and I wish I understood it more but I also did kind of like the art of the vagueness ?

This was an interesting book, rounded up from 3.75.

It started out really strong with a great opening chapter and a really strong premise. I felt it became a little lost around the middle and I got a little confused at times, however this is a time travel book so fair play.

The ending kind of snuck up on me! All of a sudden the action started and boom! The pace really amped up. I would have liked to have seen a more even pace distribution.

There was an open door romance scene at about 70% though the book, but other than that there was little explicit content in the book.

It was similar to the book Psychology of Time Travel in that it deals with the mental and physical health complications of time traveling and the issues with government involvement. It was different enough however that it still felt original.

This was a curious book and great for fans of Time Travel books. It is reminiscent of Outlander. I definitely have a history crush on Graham Gore and a new found interest in arctic expeditions.

The writing style was witty and I enjoyed the commentary throughout. Go into this expecting a slow burn and you’ll love it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for an eARC copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

The Ministry of Time touts itself as "a time travel romance, a speculative spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingeniously constructed exploration of the nature of truth and power." Which... it is, kind of. The romance happens, but only after more than half of the novel has progressed and, even then, feels a bit out of place. One of the main settings is a workplace, but the story isn't very funny nor is it totally "ingeniously constructed". What this book is, and where it succeeds, is as literary science fiction blended with a somewhat bloated spy thriller.

My main problem, after struggling through this for weeks, was that there was too much happening, not enough explanation put into the bits that needed explaining, and too much time spent in the first-person POV of our nameless bridge. (Also Bradley could have just made up a character instead of fictionalizing Gore??? I cannot stress enough how weird it was to read about the character Graham Gore orgasming and then remember that not only did this character share the same name and face of the real Graham Gore but was literally him!!)

Bradley mentions in the foreword how she "got really, really into reading about polar exploration" and thought it would be funny to image her favorite polar explorer as her housemate. I think there is another Ministry of Time where the bureaucracies of time-travel are insubstantial to the romance that blooms between a Victorian Arctic explorer and a disaffected British civil servant and also a novel where no romance exists at all. Blending the two made Bradley's actual novel the worst of both options.

(It was also very hard to take her seriously when, upon gazing at the man who she calls out as being "very, very attractive," my first reaction was "...him?" Bradley could have kept her sexual fantasies about Gore to herself and then I wouldn’t have had to figure out why a bureaucratic time-travel thriller was billed as a romance.)

2.5 rounded to 3 stars. thank you to netgalley for a free arc of this book in exchange for an honest review!
the more I put down my thoughts about this book the more I realize how good it actually is once I go beyond the plot. I think it's genius that she uses naive characters to get to the actual nitty gritty of things. she uses an almost infantile soul/clean slate character to actually shine a light and magnify how strange and maybe even wrong the modern human experience is. race, religion, culture, sexuality, all of it was so masterfully navigated and expanded upon in such a subtle, simple, but poignant way. i love this writer. I love what she says and how she says it. rarely have I related to and recognized what an author is saying and their observations on race as much as i did Kaliane Bradley. I liked the subtlety? I'm not sure how to explain it. she says the things I subconsciously think but don't put a name to. and in such a witty way. I never really describe an author or writing as intelligent but this author? intelligent, genuinely funny, witty, sarcastic, and unique. this is exactly my kind of humor and wit. she says things that I would say.
that all being said I think her genius writing style makes up for the fact that the pacing and plot are actually quite slow. i got into this book because it was touted as a time travel spy thriller with romance and don't get me wrong those aspects are in there. unfortunately it feels like the plot doesn't actually start until more than half way through and once it does it feels rushed and quick to finish. good writing but eh story but im still quite interested in what else this author has to offer

This just was not for me. I found the writing style insufferably self-consciously quirky and annoying, plus the love story didn't really do much for me. Closer to a 2.5 than a 3.