DNF at 29%

I wanted to like this one, I really did. It hit a lot of my favorite genres (time travel, romance, historical) but fell flat for me. The writing was clunky and the character development was pretty non-existent. We didn't even get a good description of the time travel.

Original concept, super smart, brilliantly written, and often laugh-out-loud funny, I can see why this novel is the debut of the season.

I talked about this book on my Spring 2024 Book Preview before I read it, but unfortunately DNF'd the book. The writing was clunky and I had trouble grounded myself in the story. But, I did love Commander Gore's take on the modern world.

This captivating story involves time travel, but it's primarily about deep human connections, complete with fantastic, funny banter; awkward adjustments to the time period; and love and deep heartbreak. The ending is wonderful.

In a world of the near future, a young (unnamed) woman is one of several civil servants offered a mysterious job: she'll be a handler for expats--and paid very handsomely for her work.

But the expats the government is gathering aren't necessarily from another country. They're from other times in history.

The main protagonist's focus in her work is Commander Graham Gore (a character based upon a real figure from history), who has been whisked from a desperately failed expedition in 1847 to the book's future setting.

In order to be a "bridge" for Gore between his past and the present, she'll have to explain why she's showing so much skin, why it's not healthy to smoke all day, and what a washing machine is.

But the bridge and her client are building bonds deeper than either could have imagined; the love story between the bridge and Gore is strange, heartwarming, steamy, fraught, and just lovely.

I was obsessed with the various expats' awkward, funny, sometimes poignant adjustments to their new time, social expectations, technology, slang, and more. Their common disjointedness brings them together, and the mashup of personalities and histories was fantastic.

The Ministry of Time starts out witty and fun, grows dark and ominous, with suspect motives, corruption, deadly danger, and foreshadowing of heartbreak and endings. There are twists I didn't see coming, which I was willing to suspend my disbelief regarding; and my mind was bent around trying to follow some of the later strings of time and timelines. The ending is gorgeous and I just loved it.

I received a prepublication edition of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Avid Reader Press, Simon and Schuster.

To read about other books I've reviewed that play with time, please check out this link.

What on earth did I just read? Better yet why did I enjoy it? This has to be the most bizarre read I've had in a long time. I'm not even sure what genre this is.

Another reviewer on goodreads sums up my thoughts really well:
<blockquote> if the author had told me she and her friends came up with this idea during a pub crawl that, after consuming several alcohol containing beverages, led to a wild round of the Wiki Game until one of them stumbled upon Graham Gore’s entry only to read that he was an English naval officer who supposedly died during an Arctic expedition in the 1850s, I would have believed her, no questions asked. 🤠 </blockquote>

I'm not at all surprised that the adaptations rights have already been snapped up. I can definitely see this becoming something with a huge following, like Doctor Who. I'm excited to see how such a weird novel will end up looking as it's adapted for viewers. The whole concept is extremely bizarre, but somehow the author makes it work. I'm amazed that this is the author's debut novel. She took a risk and I think it'll pay off. I will definitely be picking up her future works.

3.5/5 stars

(Thanks to @avidreaderpress #gifted.) Do you ever read a book and know it’s brilliant, but also feel like much of it went right over your head? That’s how I felt after finishing 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗠𝗜𝗡𝗜𝗦𝗧𝗥𝗬 𝗢𝗙 𝗧𝗜𝗠𝗘 by Kaliane Bradley. This near future story revolves around a young woman who works for a secret British agency that’s stumbled upon a means of traveling through time. They’re set on investigating the effects of traveling to a different era, so they devise a project where several people from the past are brought to the present. Each is given a sort of handler to live with and guide them through their first year in the current day.⁣⁣⁣
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The young woman who narrates is tasked with assisting Commander Graham Gore. He is the single real life character, an English Navy officer and polar explorer who died in the Arctic in 1847. This mix of modern era characters combined with both actual and fictional historical figures living together in the 21st century was truly a stroke of genius, leading to some very funny situations. I loved that particular aspect of the book, as well as the relationships between the time travelers, their handlers, and each other.⁣⁣⁣
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“He was an anachronism, a puzzle, a piss-take, a problem, but he was, above all things, a charming man. In every century, they make themselves at home.”⁣⁣⁣
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But, this story was more than just that. It was also a spy thriller and that’s where I got a little lost or maybe I just lost interest in all the competing factions who wanted different outcomes for the travelers and also those that handled them. For me, the end got messy. I hate leaving a book feeling like I need to read the crib notes or consult another reader, but that’s how I felt with this one. Still, 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘛𝘪𝘮𝘦 was a wonderfully creative debut and I look forward to seeing what Bradley brings us next. ⭐️⭐️⭐️.75

Bradley is a witty writer and the premise is really interesting. While I stopped 5% in, this is a solid 3-4 stars with 5 for the right readers.

Thank you to NetGalley and Avid Press for the ARC.

This is a classic case of an author trying to do too much and losing me. I had high hopes for this one, especially considering the buzz it was getting. Most appealing was its genre mashups and time traveling, two things I love, but instead I found myself lost and confused. I also didn't like the characters, which isn't typically a problem for me but in this book I needed SOMEthing to keep me engaged. So I put this one down and am not looking back.

I'd consider this book magical realism, which as a whole is a hit-or-miss genre for me. That said, the relationships between the characters, the building of those relationships, and the witty dialogue were all really well done. Where I found myself struggling the most was in the world-building and the needlessly verbose paragraphs, the latter of which was kind of jarring with how realistic the dialogue felt to me. Overall I did like the book, though, and wouldn't hesitate to read something else by the author.

I enjoyed this book. It has time travel as the background, but the main story is centered around the relationship that develops between our main character (I just realized she's unnamed) and Graham who has been plucked from 1847. It's a lovely cast of characters from various time periods that come together and form delightful friendships.

I know how petty and spoiled I'm going to sound in this review, but I can't, in good conscience, ignore this extremely promising debut novel. I'm a complete sucker for time-travel novels and stories, and all the weirdness that accompanies the (incorrect, in my opinion) History-changing antics of time travelers. (I think there are many worlds in the multiverse.) The notion here presented of making use of the lives of those who died too soon for Other Ends is one with a lot of appeal to me.

And yet this is a five-star idea in a four-star book. I love the idea! I like the execution because it's not fussy, doesn't cram in irrelevancies but *does* offer squads and fleets of enriching details, bothe about the past and the story-present, just a bit down our own road. So what's wrong?

She makes the spy story an excuse to tell this fundamentally romantic story, not this idea to propel a spy story. The way it's resolved is good just not great, and that's down to the wrong-endedness of the grasp. Nameless Narratrix is, it's absurdly evident from the get-go, going to fall in love with her new "expat" (coy bureaucratese for "kidnapped time-traveling hostage") and they are going to Do the Deed. I'm on record as not liking heterosex in my life, no matter where it comes from, so this was never going to work for me. But after thinking a lot about this book and its wonderful humor, its inventive take on the purposes of time travel, and its very well-limned characters, I realized I'd be just as tetchy if Nameless had been a man bedding a man the way god intended.

The problem for me is that I think the romantic plot is just too similar to the squads and fleets of inferior iterations of Outlander that litter the romance-reader's landscape. Why do more of the same? Well, in this case, because 1) it sells, and b) it's vastly...enormously...better-done than anything else in its competition.

But here's whiny little me, moaning "just leave it out!" as Nameless and her "expat" have headboard-smashing sex. Y'all are voting with your wallets, the book's a hit and rightly so! But it isn't the book I wanted.

Hence four, not five, stars. And my shamefaced admission that this is NOT the review that this book merited.

Thank you to NetGalley and Avid Reader Press for providing the ARC.

This book was a delightful mix of sci-fi, spy thriller, and romance that I just couldn't help but sink into. A little jarring with story lines feeling stilted or rushed, and sometimes a hard time of keeping track of who was speaking, but I had thoroughly enjoyed this time-traveling fever dream of a book.

So much intrigue, trying to figure out who did what and when, and who was responsible for the mess they were in, while watching two people from two different time periods fall in love. A truly winding tale full of excitement and more as the reader uncovers the truth.

This book has been getting a lot of hype lately and I can understand why. It’s an enjoyable and unique read. Best described as part time travel, part spy novel, it’s really so much more.

Ministry of Time takes place in a version of London where time travel has recently been discovered and a handful of “ex-pats” have been taken out of history and placed in modern times. Our narrator’s job is to serve as a “bridge” to help the new arrivals acclimate to modern life. She is assigned to Graham Gore, a 19th century explorer from Franklin’s doomed Arctic expedition. As can be expected, romantic feelings develop and nefarious characters emerge.

The book is full of witty dialogue, especially while Gore and his fellow ex-pats attempt to navigate a new century and culture. The narrator’s own history, as the child of a Cambodian mother, provides interesting commentary on racism and past trauma.

Thanks to Net Galley for the chance to read and review this wonderful novel! Highly recommended.

I considered DNFing this early on but persevered and for a brief moment it had potential but really I should've just DNF'd.

It was fine but I just didn't care about it.
It was jarring at parts - I had no concept of what sort of time was passing so everything felt rushed and the character development was non-existent - or rather, they did develop but it felt out of the blue. I have no idea why Graham was joining the ministry and then at the end he seemed to do a 180 and resent out main character who's name I've already forgotten

Also why.. WHY.. did we make him an actual person?
We have pretty much no info on who the real Graham Gore was and it just felt a bit off to me to make the character him and give him traits that could be wildly off rather than a character inspired by the man. I do feel a bit harsh as I'm not 100% against books about/featuring historical figures and telling their stories but typically those are people we have more facts on so we can write with some sort of foundation and not just purely speculate on the beliefs and characteristics of someone. I also fear that it allows us to look at the character and glorify them when in actuality we have no idea if that is a person we would want to portray in any sort of positive light (but equally they may have been an incredible person that we write wrongly and would have offended. Even if they've been dead over a century)

I also have no idea what purpose the alternate POV chapters served. I feel like nothing happened in them and they were just boring, though as I listened to the audiobook and clearly wasn't fully invested in the story, perhaps I just stopped taking them in.

This had such high potential but really fall flat to me. I don't even want to class it as sci-fi as we really don't experience much of that.

The British Government is testing time travel using 'expats' across history to see its effects on the human body, but also the fabric of space-time. A civil servant becomes the 'bridge' to 1847 aka Commander Graham Gore from a failed expedition to the Arctic. This more than awkward living arrangement turns into something more. They could never imagine the consequences of falling in love. And how this program could shape the future...

The 1st person POV is witty with a sarcastic flair, utterly clever and relatable. The reliability is amplified by the fact that the protagonist goes unnamed. I am sure most of us would think the protagonist's thoughts in this unusual situation. The narrative is embellished by random seeming observations that totally help set the scene, sprinkled with enticingly visual, pleasantly novel and emotion-fused figurative speech. And the awkwardness of the situation is so entertaining, the fish out of water aspect done marvelously. You will adore the expats Arthur and Maggie.

1847 has his quirks and is disarmingly charming, plus as an explorer, adapting is in his blood. Meanwhile, the bridge is despite not really wanting to be, the voice of reason. The dependable one. The sense of right and wrong is deeply ingrained in her. But she starts throwing convention to the wind, for the sake of others and the truth.

The growing of feelings is gradual, cautious and depicted quietly with beauty. Their interactions feel natural and the comparison between their two times makes us ponder the rightness of today's world. We also ponder how greed and the desire for power bleeds into everything, how an invention is good or bad depending on how we use it.

Time travel is treated as a social experiment, with lots of bureaucracy involved as it seems in the beginning, before we slip into government control & secrets, ingredients for a conspiracy theory. But there is also so much welcomed and anticipated time travel weirdness.

There were instances where the musings of the protagonist would get carried away, some of it confusing, some of it too long-winded. The interjection of Gore's past just seemed to interrupt the story for the most part.

Humorous and fun, but also pensive with an air of melancholy and then unexpected helpings of danger and gut-wrenching intensity, this is a book like no other.

Ouch 🤕

Before any GMA Book of the Month folks come after me…..

This book was quite messy. It’s a romance but the romance is very awkward and forced, it’s sci-fi but outside of time travel has no other sci-fi elements and seems to trip over itself.

The characters are not very well fleshed out and regarding time travel we are basically told “don’t think about it.”

The humor and romance elements of this book really missed me, and just didn’t hit - I’m sure this book will sell a lot and those that like more light-hearted and easy romances will enjoy this book! I believe the marketing for this one made me think a sci-fi nerd as myself would really find value and I didn’t.

I really wanted to like this book more than this but it just doesn’t feel very well fleshed out and the more I learn about it’s inspiration the less I’m intrigued…

I highly recommend Sea of Tranquility if you’re looking for a beautiful time travel story that is very well-rounded and whimsical!

This book is interesting examination of time travel, culture, science fiction, and romance. I really enjoyed the overall story. Parts of the pacing were a little weird. Overall, an enjoyable read.

Intriguing title, fascinating idea but muddled execution & plotting

Time travel and Time-loop related books are really my sweet spots. A book with the title " The Ministry of Time" seemed quite alluring especially as it plays around with the concept through time transportation. This is a book that is charming in parts. asks important questions regarding displaced people (culturally and temporally) but ultimately struggles to build an engaging coherent narrative.

Ministry of Time transports Commander Graham Grove of the missing HMS Terror to modern-day London as a time expat. His liaison in this world or bridge as they are called 'is our narrator on this journey – a biracial British- Cambodian translator. There are of course other time expats and bridges but our story primarily revolves around our narrator and Gore, a cultural expat and the time expat respectively.

For most parts, the book is a rather pensive exploration of colonialism, slavery, sexism, freedom, identity, immigration, and conformity. The languid pace and man-out-of-time nature lend themselves to very pointed observations; most are point-on and fantastic. The character interactions especially when Graham Gore is on scene is rather charming

However, the book just didn’t work as a coherent narrative. The plot tensions surface abruptly and didn’t have much flow. I think I would have enjoyed the book if it was just character tensions and how they fit into this world rather than the spy elements of it and that completely derailed me in the last 20%. I didn’t enjoy it as much and that was a shame given how much I did want it to be good. The internal conflicts of the lead character were pretty intriguing for the first sections of the book but after a while, it just felt like a massive whine all through

Rating - 2 dubious government operatives on 5

I know everyone is so excited about this book, and obsessed, but I had a really hard time getting into it! And once it started flowing a bit easier for me and my brain, I just found that I wasn't interested anymore. But I would still recommend it to people, as I think this one is just a matter of taste and not at all about writing ability or storytelling.

Fantastic book--my favorite this year by far! Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read this!