3.5
Sometimes the pacing/writing/political discussions can get a bit tiring/repetitive, but for the most part, this is a fun read. One of those books that contains so much despite not being that long. It has something for everyone, from steamy romance, engaging spy thriller, to a deep dive into the evils of the British empire. Interesting main character, and the love interest Graham is probably an even more interesting character, but I'm not sure if that's such a bad thing in this case.

I 100% did not want to put this book down...but I'm still rating it 4 stars.

Why? While comps compared it to Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, and the narrator had the same sort of dreamy, carefully and beautifully crafted prose (ask me how many times I highlighted something that struck true), I felt like the entire narrative was the effort of someone who had tried to cram just a little *too much* into a shrunken jacket, leaving gaps in the seams. This was an ambitious work by a talented writer, but it read as almost too ambitious, too much for her current skill at storycraft.

What we got instead were slivers of moments that were supremely beautiful, or profound, or melancholy, laid on a sci-fi framework of toothpicks rather than iron bars.

In concept, I was reminded a bit of Stephan Kiernan's The Curiosity, though I remember that as a relatively straightforward thriller.

Because of the long tail on the release date as I write this review, there is plenty more that I can say - about identity, about meaning, about being on the right/wrong side of history, about <spoiler>the structure of the novel as a letter to one's future self</spoiler>...but I won't say it now. I will say that this will still be a must-buy for Sci-Fi collections, though.

If you like time travel stories and Gabrielle Zevin, I encourage you to give this one a try.

P.S., I attempted to read this without picturing Gore as Adam Driver and managed to do so successfully throughout. Then I Googled for the one extant daguerrotype and...woops.

Received with gratitude from NetGalley for free in exchange for feedback and an honest review. I read the entire book from start to finish. This review is published under my name on Goodreads and Amazon.com.

What an interesting book. I haven’t spent such interesting time with a novel in a while. It’s not that I haven’t read excellent books - but this is ultimately a very solid work of speculative AND historical fiction AND a beautiful (love) (spy) (morality bending) story which makes for an absolutely remarkable read.

<< I should say first that if this book doesn’t become a sensation when it comes out, something is wrong with the world. >>

I am not a YA reader (though I think YA readers will absolutely inhale this book) that accepts emotional intensity for good writing. I have high standards for writing quality, plotting, character development, world building, etc. This book meets those standards quite well. I will note here that I received an advance copy - it was unfinished enough that I read it in PDF form - so there were some out-of-place sentences and a few moments where that felt like a missing stair in a staircase. And yet, it was still EXCELLENT.

So let’s talk about it! What happens if we invented time travel? And brought 5 people out of history with the technology? Maybe you’d start with people in wars or disasters that would have died anyway, minimizing the impact to the space-time continuum. Maybe you’d have to expect there would be challenges to adjusting those people to life in the 21st century - both gigantic (germ theory, WWI and WWII, airplanes), and equally earth-shattering minute changes (no maids? Tinder! Miniskirts!) Maybe you’d need guides and a way to quell the soul crushing intensity of loneliness, knowing all you’ve ever known is dead and gone. What sort of person would be attracted to the work of adjusting these “expatriates” to the modern day? What would this imply about the future? And what would it imply about the PAST? The British empire has had to reckon with its colonialist, imperialist legacy only very recently, but what if it had the ability to DO something about it? What would that mean for the people who worked in that civil service who have their own legacy to deal with?

Your narrator is a “bridge” - the woman assigned to bring polar explorer and Navy Commander Graham Gore into the 21st century, and a civil servant of the ministry of time. All the previous questions and more are dealt with deftly by the author, Kaliane Bradley, who like our narrator, is a British-Cambodian woman, and who uses this remarkable narrative to share pearls of wisdom and insight into her mixed-race experience - both as a fully British woman, AND as an inheritor of her mother’s rich Cambodian heritage and generational, genocidal trauma. The book is so much richer for addressing these sticky philosophical questions that modern society is attempting to reckon with today. And as myself a full American, who is ethnically half Korean and half Irish - the author (and thereby the narrator’s) experience rings a little bell of authenticity in my heart. Belonging everywhere, but always having one foot in another place, having your home and happiness rooted in more than one culture, food, nation…it’s a special way to be, and requires different skill to navigate. As I read it, I KNEW in my bones the author was speaking her truth through the narrator, and it make my connection with the story more powerful for it.

The Author does this throughout - she weaves an intense, thrilling story in with real wisdom. Some things about being a young woman in modern society are so beautifully dealt with that I relished in the author’s ability to summarize it in beautiful, relatable prose. Here is a few examples for folks considering if they want to read:

“You don't become a regular cyclist in London without developing a carapace of 'f&ck my haters', so I cycled home anyway. As the operator predicted, this was a mistake. The wind shook me like a beetle in a matchbox. After bashing myself against a number of surfaces, including the pavement, I hopped off and began walking my bike home.”

“She laughed. Simellia smiled all the time but she almost never laughed, so I remember this moment clearly. I suddenly saw how much of a façade was the elegant, highly efficient government professional - behind which was someone who, maybe, had too many texts from a wayward sibling that she hadn't dealt with, someone who was giving up on dating for the fifth time in as many years, someone who had to smother her impatience when Drunk Elephant-shopping beauty evangelists tried to explain the miracle moisture properties of cocoa butter to her. Before, I hadn't really been aware that other Simellia was there, but now, I felt her barricades.”

“He was introduced to the washing machine, the gas cooker, the radio, the vacuum cleaner.
'Here are your maids,' he said.
"You're not wrong.'
"Where are the thousand-league boots?'
"We don't have those yet.'
'Invisibility cloak? Sun-resistant wings of Icarus?'
'Likewise.'
He smiled. 'You have enslaved the power of lightning,' he said, and you've used it to avoid the tedium of hiring help.'”

I don’t want to imply the plot didn’t grab me and keep me on my toes…because around 40% of the way through, I began to realize something was very wrong. And as the little blocks started falling I began to realize there was a larger story at work than I had initially given the book credit for…and then I was hooked for good. So if anyone is considering not finishing the book (I don’t know how, I was riveted even at the beginning), don’t give up until you start to see the pattern. And then when you finish and blink your eyes (maybe through some tears…I mean, I’ll do me and you do you) - you may have to flip back to the beginning of the book and read that first sentence and say, “OH MY GOD…”.

So overall, a clear 5 stars. Maybe do a final cleanup before publishing to iron out those last little catches in the fabric. But don’t change too much. It’s amazing as it is. I hope it’s a HIT. Recommended for anyone with interest in history, historical fiction, spy thrillers, romance, or even philosophical discourse on the meaning of empire, race, belonging, or duty.
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CLEVER GIRL:

Ok…so I could be wrong…but I’m pretty sure the narrator opens with this line:
“The interviewer said my name, which made my thoughts clip. I don’t say my name, not even in my head. She said it correctly, which people generally don’t.”
And I’m fairly certain…that she never says the narrator’s name right through to the last word of the novel. AND I DIDN’T EVEN NOTICE UNTIL NOW, hours after I finished it!!
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…Also, I am realizing that first line is a clue to (one of) the mysteries. Effing incredible. What an author!! What a book!

The general level of historical awareness among many of today's writers is... frankly woeful. So it's refreshing to read a book like this.

The premise is that the British Government has formed a secret Ministry of Time because they have got hold of a Time Door from the future, and they've used it to bring a few carefully selected people to the 21st century from their own (earlier) times, where they were missing, presumed dead. This includes Graham Gore, an actual historical figure who was lost on a disastrous polar expedition in the late 1840s, along with a World War I officer, a soldier from a 17th-century battle, and two women, one of whom came from the Great Plague of London in the 1660s. The other plays little role, and I've unfortunately forgotten her details already.

They're assigned "bridges," officers of the Ministry whose responsibility is to acclimate them to the 21st century with a view to making them useful, and the never-named first-person narrator is Gore's bridge. Like the author, she is half Cambodian but able to pass for white, and I suspect that at least some, and probably most, of the very specific experiences and details she includes in the narrative are the author writing what she knows.

This in itself would be promising: a modern woman with an uncommon background interacting with a Victorian naval officer. But the execution takes that promise and develops it more fully than I had any right to expect.

Firstly, the inner lives and relationships and interactions of the characters are beautifully observed and unflinchingly portrayed. As a matter of personal taste, I wished the author had flinched a bit more than she did; most of the last third of the novel is pretty dark, darker than I prefer, and I almost dropped it from five to four stars because of that. It is really well done, though, so I couldn't bring myself to penalize it for achieving what it set out to do so well, even if I didn't personally enjoy that part much.

Part of why it's so well done is hinted at in my opening sentence of this review. A lot of 21st-century authors (looking straight at you, [author:Casey Blair|7998882]) feel obliged to recite whatever the current orthodox credo of progressivism is, right in the middle of their novels supposedly set in a very different society in a secondary world. Kaliane Bradley is smarter and more nuanced than that; she knows that the values of the 2020s are not inherently the peak of history and better than all values coming from every other place and time, and that they too have their problems, contradictions, weaknesses and pitfalls. And she doesn't just tell us this, she shows us. Gore, for example, summarizes dating as "like trying on clothes for fit, except the clothes are people," which is as devastating a short critique as I've ever seen.

There's a lot of fine imagery scattered through the book, in fact, though not in a self-indulgent or overdone way; it adds to the vividness, it doesn't sit there drawing attention to itself for its own sake. The speech of the 17th-century woman rings true to me, too, and I've spent a bit of time studying 17th-century literature, admittedly many years ago now. In fact, the author's grasp of language is at a level that I rarely see, and I noticed few errors in the pre-publication version I got from Netgalley for review (the worst being "sojourn" used to mean "journey," which is the opposite of what it means - but that's a very common mistake).

Intelligent, well crafted, moving, nuanced and insightful, this book goes straight to the Platinum tier of my Best of the Year list.

I haven’t finished yet, but I will soon, since this book is perfect! I love the voice of the author. It’s hilarious, thoughtful, insightful, and well written. I feel so seen as a person of mixed race, and a passing one at that. And the concepts are so well thought out and developed.

I found this book to be an interesting take on time travel. The characters, to me, were not particularly likable. They were somewhat relatable and it was nice to see some diversity in character types. I did appreciate the world-building, but it painted a very bleak future which is not generally my preferred story trope.

That said, the characters were very human and that came through very well.

While the premise of time travel always intrigues, the author makes this more a tale of cultural collisions and differing expectations in life. The interplay between the central characters is filled with humor and exchanged wisdom (even the sex scenes, obligatory to such tales, were softened by the comedy injected into the moments). Where the story really shines in in the ending, which has a few twists and turns.

I liked this title more than I expected I would, which is always nice to say.

Writing: 4.5 / 5 Characters: 5/5 Plot: 4/5

A surprisingly fun ride about the use of time travel to bring historical figures forward in time as part of a (very) complicated plot to ward off a severely climate damaged future. Our narrator (who I now realize is never given a name) is a civil servant who is offered an exciting new job as a “bridge” to one of these “expats from history.” A bridge’s function is to help the refugees from time accommodate to the present.

Our narrator is paired with Graham Gore — a Royal Navy officer and polar explorer from the early 19th century who is brought to the present just before his death as part of the ill fated 1845 Franklin expedition to discover the Northwest Passage. (This is a real historical person and his character and experiences are faithfully drawn from historical records — look him up!). Four other “expats” include the unpleasant Lieutenant Thomas Cardingham from 1645; the lesbian Margaret Kemble from 1665 rescued from the Plague; a woman from Robespierre era Paris (1793); and the closeted homosexual Captain Arthur Reginald-Smythe extracted from the Battle of the Somme in 1916 (he wasn’t going to make it).

The plot is crazy, the characters are well-drawn and time-appropriate. I loved the interactions among all the possible permutations of expats and bridges with what felt like very real reactions and learning curves — most taking to technological advances more easily than the great shifts in social mores and expectations. I found the depth and believability of these interactions and the personal reflections fascinating. Plenty of insight (which I always love) and a great new phrase for me: “ethically sparse” to explain how our narrator felt about certain policies and decisions made by her corporate overlords in the Ministry.

Bradley is an excellent writer — her phrasing and comic overlays are top notch. I found the plot confusing at times — but it feels like this was somewhat intentional as the events were certainly confusing to the people living through them, and we are sharing their experience. Our narrator is part Cambodian, and another bridge is Black. Add to this our historical lesbian and homosexual characters, and there is plenty of opportunity for some pithy and insightful identity issues as well. She even managed to work a theremin (weird musical instrument — look it up) into the plot as well. Impressive!

Some fun Quotes (sorry there are so many but I couldn’t pick:

“I finally had a savings account that looked like it might withstand a life emergency rather than crumple at a dentistry bill.”

“All the emotions I normally watched her puree into professionalism were churning on her face.”

“This was one of my first lessons in how you make the future: moment by moment, you seal the doors of possibility behind you.”

“When Graham got online, as he did not call it, and learned to peck at the keyboard with the elegance and speed of a badly burned amphibian …”

“But my mother never described herself as a refugee. It was a narrative imposition, along with ‘stateless’ and ‘survivor’.”

‘Stop hand-wringing,’ said Simellia, still smiling, though increasingly looking as if the smile was being operated by winches inside her skill. ‘God, Ministry bias training has a lot to answer for,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to drop a piano on your head but believe it or not, I already know I’m Black. You don’t have to roll over and show me your belly about it.’

“It was another dank toothache of a day, barely qualifying in its chromatic dullness for ‘grey‘.”

“Quentin treated me with an impatient familiarity, as if we were both were leaving streaks on one another.”

“We settled back, if ‘settle’ is the right word for the stiff, wary way we offset one another’s weight on the cushions.”

“That night, I slept with unpleasant lightness, my brain balanced on unconsciousness like an insect’s foot on the meniscus of a pond. I didn’t so much wake up as give up on sleep.”

“We separated and spent the fading day bobbing shyly around one another like clots in a lava lamp.”

“I launched into a preplanned speech about class mobility and domestic labor, touching on the minimum wage, the size of an average household, and women in the workforce. I took a full five minutes of talking and by the end I’d moved into the same tremulous liquid register I used to use for pleading with my parents for a curfew extension.”

"The Ministry of Time" by Kaliane Bradley is a genre-blending tour de force that seamlessly combines elements of time travel romance, speculative spy thriller, workplace comedy, and an exploration of truth, power, and the transformative nature of love. Bradley's debut novel introduces readers to an exhilarating narrative set in the near future, where a newly established government ministry is experimenting with time travel.

The protagonist, a civil servant enticed by the promise of her dream salary, is assigned to a unique project within the Ministry. Her task is to serve as a "bridge" for an expat known as "1847" or Commander Graham Gore, a figure presumed dead during Sir John Franklin’s ill-fated 1845 Arctic expedition. As the bridge assists and monitors the disoriented Gore adjusting to the modern world, a complex relationship develops between them.

The novel unfolds as a captivating love story that defies the boundaries of time and societal norms. What begins as an awkward living arrangement transforms into a fervent and unpredictable romance between the disenchanted millennial bridge and the adventurous Victorian explorer. The author skillfully navigates the challenges and consequences of their love, creating a narrative that is both heartwarming and thought-provoking.

Bradley populates the story with a delightful and eccentric cast of characters, including a 17th-century cinephile, a shy World War I captain, and a former spy with an ever-changing appearance and a rebellious attitude. Each character brings a unique flavor to the narrative, contributing to the novel's charm and humor.

The exploration of time travel is ingeniously crafted, incorporating elements of historical accuracy and speculative fiction. The juxtaposition of past and present, along with the clash of cultures and perspectives, adds depth and complexity to the storytelling.

At its core, "The Ministry of Time" poses universal questions about the impact of choices on both the past and the future. It delves into the personal histories of the characters, compelling the bridge to confront her own past and the decisions that have shaped her. The novel skillfully weaves together themes of love, identity, and the consequences of navigating the unpredictable currents of time.

In summary, Kaliane Bradley's "The Ministry of Time" is a masterfully crafted and original work that transcends genre boundaries. It offers readers a delightful and thought-provoking journey through time, love, and the intricacies of the human heart. Bradley's debut is a testament to her storytelling prowess and sets the stage for a promising literary career.

This is a first class time travel/romantic suspense/spy thriller novel; which centres on the relationship between swoon-worthy Graham, who has been plucked from 1847 by the Government and forced to exist in modern day England and his handler. This is a beautifully written book, with an unusually advanced vocabulary - I usually only have to look up untranslated foreign words; but in this case, I found myself stymied several times by the liberal use of unfamiliar words - for example, within a chapter or so, we have aphorism, performing exegesis, quotidian, excoriated, victual….. so as well as being captivated by the story, I feel educated! In addition to the enthralling spy action/romance story, the book tackles many complex issues head-on; such as racism, mental health and modern day sexuality. Many thanks to NetGallery and Avid Reader Press for allowing me to get an early copy of this debut novel - I have a feeling this will be a massive success when it is out on 7 May 2024! Highly recommended.

I was very intrigued by the concept of The Ministry of Time where time travels were brought to the future to see how they would assimilate. The book did not disappoint. I loved how all of the travelers interacted and the small details that built the world as well as the intriguing mystery throughout the novel.

Loved the premise (to test the feasibility of time travel, the government is bringing people who have died in the past to the present and the main character is a "bridge" who helps one of these "expats" adjust to modern life): this was fast and fun, and we do get attached to the characters and their quirks. I cared about what happened to them.

This reads like a fluffy thriller romance with twists and turns, but at times, the language is overwrought and trying so hard to be kind of high brow, that it didn't match. To be clear: I liked the writing itself and I liked the plot itself, but it felt like a mismatch, and every time I noticed the mismatch, I was pulled out of the story. There were also just a couple of unbelievable parts of the story that I had a hard time getting over.

Thank you to NetGalley and Avid Reader Press!

4.5 stars rounded up. This is a hard book to describe without spoiling, but it’s a puzzle-box time-travel novel in the vein of Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel, but funnier, and more of a love story, and darker and more political. I imagine the marketing team had a hard time figuring out what to do with this one, because it sort of feels like two different books in one.

Most of the first half is joyfully, deliciously self-indulgent RPF (fanfiction about real people, for the uninitiated). It feels like it could have started its life as a Yuletide fic. The premise is literally “what if your favorite blorbo came to life and you had to live together, for science?” Hats off to Bradley for pulling this off in tradpub!

The premise is a perfect sitcom concept, and the book automatically gets a lot of mileage out of that: What if a medieval peasant discovered dating apps? What would a Victorian google if a Victorian could google? Many variations on that sort of thing. It’s a bit formulaic, but it’s a pretty successful formula. Occasionally some of the humor feels a bit…low-hanging fruit? But for the most part I found the book genuinely funny.

In the second half of the book, things get complicated and intense, as though it’s switched genres from quirky romcom to spy thriller—and not, like, fun campy spies. The violence feels very real. You have to pay close attention to the plot, and even then you need a certain tolerance for confusion. There’s a lot going on—it doesn’t quite have the elegance of Sea of Tranquility (elegance in the way mathematicians mean, when a solution has a beautifully satisfying simplicity). But mostly the twists are satisfying, even if they’re not exactly simple! A couple of the lesser twists/reveals strained my credulity, like, this Top Secret department just happened to dispose of highly classified documents without shredding them? How convenient! But, on the big stuff, the book delivers.

I don’t often read books that center a love story between a man and a woman; I tend not to care for them. But this book made me invested. I, improbably, loved the white guy from the 1800s. The relationship is lushly romantic and erotic.

Overall, this was really good and I would definitely read more from this author. Pick up this book if you’re in the mood for some of everything: it’s sexy, it’s funny, it’s ridiculous, it’s horrifying, it’s swoony, it’s elegiac, it’s self-indulgent, it’s a harrowing self-reckoning, it’s a commercial plot with literary prose, it’s got a time-traveling lesbian on Tinder. What more could you ask for?

I loved the narrative! Admittedly, the actual explanation of multiple timeline time travel left me feeling dumb - but I am not dumb. I just don’t watch like, Marvel movies where it’s alllll multiverse. Might have worked for me in that case. If I was more in the mindset. Still, I thought I would not like this book and I was wrong. That’s always a fun feeling. Thank you for the ARC, will definitely be purchasing this title at our library.

So enjoyable, I really liked this story right from the get go! I found the concept interesting, the characters and dialogue were good and I had a good time with the whole read.

The Ministry of Time tells the story of a mixed-race British woman who is hired by the British government to serve as a cultural liaison in a secret time travel program. She is supposed to help one of 5 time travelers - people involuntarily yanked out of time, moments before their death, from the last few hundred years - adjust to the 21st century and determine if there are physical dangers associated with time travel that need to be accounted for before expanding the program.

Like in most time travel stories, there are aspects of the narrative that don't quite make sense and you just have to suspend disbelief and get on with it. But the heart of the novel focuses on the relationship between the narrator and Commander Graham Gore, which is believably built into a romance over the course of the book. In the moment, the narrator is woefully oblivious about mysterious hijinx going on around her but Bradley leans into the affordances of the first person POV and lets the narrator reference and foreshadow things she knows by the end of the book but didn't know at the time.

Overall, definitely a good, slow burn read that's worth getting to the end for.

The Ministry of TIme definitely starts with an interesting premise: the British government has time travel technology and has pulled several people who would have died anyway out of the past and into the modern day. Each is assigned a companion called a "bridge" who will help them assimilate. The story is told through the eyes of one of the bridges. I definitely enjoyed the creativity of the idea, but the story starts extremely slowly. The first two-thirds of the book is all character development with absolutely no action, before events start picking up.

Special thanks to Avid Reader Press and NetGalley for an ARC of The Ministry of Time in exchange for an honest review.

I really liked this book. It’s unlike any story from this genre that I’ve read before, and I honestly haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. I can’t believe Bradley made me fall in love with the romanticised version of a real-life man who has been dead for hundreds of years. (I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about this).

The plot of The Ministry of Time is so interesting. I'm actually grateful that it wasn’t over-explained at the beginning, which definitely added an aura of mystery that complemented its subject matter. It just made the entire experience so engaging. There were some technical aspects that probably went over my head, but I enjoyed this so much that I wouldn’t even mind reading through it again. I was constantly being ambushed by plot points and twists in the best possible way, and there were a lot of developments that I didn’t expect at all. Maybe this is because I missed a few things on my first read, but I just loved that the plot leaves you guessing and makes you really think.

Most of all, I fell in love with the characters and how the author’s captivating writing style made them bloom. The personalities and relationship dynamics were beautifully written, and there are so many quotes that I have bookmarked already. Almost all of them are probably regarding the narrator’s descriptions and feelings about Graham, but that’s neither here nor there (I don't blame her, and I wholeheartedly support her cause).

There’s no doubt that Bradley can write slow burn and write it well. I think this book just had that heart-wrenching quality that I often miss in other sci-fi/fantasy romances.

So many little details are incorporated into this novel that make it stand out as a really interesting, engaging story. However, there are still some aspects of it that I’m not really sure how to feel about—namely, the reimagining of Graham Gore, among some other issues. I think once I have another read, I’ll be able to articulate better why my gut feeling is to give this novel a tentative 3.75 stars and not 4 or even 5.

Overall, I really did enjoy this book, and I’m very much enamoured by Kaliane Bradley’s writing. I’m definitely eager to read more of her works in the future, and I’m curious to see how The Ministry of Time is received when it’s released.

DNF @35%. I kept waiting to understand half of what is being talked about but have reached my limit on caring. I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Wow, this book is entirely different from what I expected. (And in the loveliest of ways.) Exploitative time travel, forbidden romance and deadly espionage all show up in this poignant story that explores what it means to be different in spaces and places where everyone else aspires to be the same. THE MINISTRY OF TIME is a gritty, unique take on the complicated dynamics of belonging; one that still masterfully manages a light-hearted feel.

What more could you want from a book? I absolutely loved this!

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.