This book is a cocktail of comedy, romance, science fiction, with a literary cherry on top. From the first few pages I was hooked, and I flew through this book like I haven't in a long time! The prose is beautiful and funny, and considering this is a debut I'm really impressed.
The ending got a bit too sci-fi thriller for me unfortunately, otherwise this would have been a 5-star read for sure.

This is a great idea for a book. Pull people from the past into modern times and see what happens.
However, for me it didn't quite work. I found it quite slow and a bit confusing. To be fair, a lot of time travel stories are confusing. It seemed like in this case the start was too slow and the end too quick.
I couldn't quite work it out.

The premise of the book is very interesting: a government ministry have discovered a door that can bring people forward in time. They have carefully selected subjects and given them ‘bridges’ - people to live with them and help them to navigate the modern world. I found the pace of the first part of the book a little slow and the developing relationship didn’t really convince me. I enjoyed the last part of the book much more after a twist in the narrative and a change to more of a spy novel with time travel complications. I think others may enjoy this book more than I did, Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC.

The Ministry of Time

For the first quarter of The Ministry of Time, I thought it was the greatest book I'd read all year. The premise was fantastic: steal some dead people from history, bring them into the twenty first century and see how they adjust. I did pause for a minute, as I often do with time travel, to see if it made internal sense. There were some issues, as there often are, but I decided to put them aside and just enjoy the story.

The writing is really, really good ("As the Arctic wind bites at his hands and feet, his thoughts slop against his skull", "Most friendship quartets don't function in squares but in lines"). The semantic discussion of expats vs. refugees, in the context of time vs. space, was right up my alley. I really enjoyed getting a nineteenth century perspective on our own era, especially since most of the focus was on societal changes, rather than obvious "big deals" like the invention of the internet or the cellphone ("There's no space here. How can you breathe? Is all of England like this? The entire world?"). I also loved the flashback bits describing some of Gore's experiences on the Arctic expedition. I find historical fiction the easiest way for me to learn about history and then also retain what I've learned, and even though Bradley filled in the gaps, the difficulties and dilemmas Arctic expeditions of the time faced, described in those passages, were both true and fascinating. I never realized ships could be literally trapped in frozen seas.

At some point, however, I began to feel like there was something I should be getting but wasn't. I think this feeling was intentional, since the book often hints at future events, and is written as a retrospection on something that has already happened, but rather than feeling like an unraveling mystery, I just stopped understanding what was going on.

The subtle discussions around race and power were so subtle they were actually too vague to follow, while simultaneously trying to function as major plot motives, so I lost the "why" of the plot, which made the "what" significantly less interesting.

The main conflict in the story came from a seemingly random direction, so much so that I almost considered going back rereading half of the book to understand how I'd missed it. That's when I lost the "how" as well.

Overall, while the writing continued to shine, the story progressively made less and less sense, and according to the end there was supposed to be some important statement about fascism, power and oppression somewhere along the way, but I have no idea when we were supposed to realize that.

I do see a future in which I re-read The Ministry of Time and see if hindsight changes the picture, and I'll definitely follow Bradley's future work, but I'm also thoroughly confused.

I have a weakness for time travel stories especially the ones where different eras clash with other eras that are totally different from the other ones so I was sold to the premise of this book instantly and I have to say it's really good and I enjoyed reading it but some parts I found more slow than the others. Still, seeing how a person from 19th century or 17th century might deal with this era it's just something I need to read. Maybe it had some parts that I wanted more from but maybe these are just my expectations, overall it's a good story.

I had really high hopes for this book, but unfortunately it slightly missed the mark for me - that's not to say I didn't enjoy it, but I'd perhaps set my expectations too high!

I loved the concept - a character focussed sci-fi about a group of people from various time periods who are transported to a near future. They are each allocated a 'bridge' who is tasked with living with, assisting and monitoring them. The story focusses on one bridge in particular and her expat known as "1847". I really enjoyed how 1847 explored life in the future - figuring out big things like relationships and how religion exists in the modern world, but also other much smaller things that we can take for granted in contemporary life, like Spotify and cycling.

I wasn't, however, quite convinced by the evolution of the relationship between 1847 and his bridge. I also found the first half of the book too slow and unnecessarily wordy (the second half certainly picked up pace), and the plot was a bit meandering for me. Overall, a good read with an interesting concept.

I'd give this 3.5 over 4, but I don't want to mark it down purely because it's a bit too sci fi for my liking. But that's not the author, or the books fault!
I could see this as a film quite easily and an enjoyable one too. I really like the way it is written, the author has a lovely way of ensuring that you want to keep turning the page. The right amount of detail without being overbearing!
If you like Sci-Fi, romance in unexpected tales and history; this book is for you!

No spoilers in my reviews, just read it!

Time travel sci-fi? Spy thriller? Or romance? I'm not sure what genre this book fits in, but it was certainly original and fun.

The main character (whose name is never mentioned) works at a UK government ministry and is assigned a new role of a 'bridge' to look after a time traveler - Graham Gore, a navy officer who died in 1847. Graham must be one of the most charming literary characters I've come across, and his adaptation to the 21st century was often hilarious.

The bridge and Graham are put in a house together and yes, they fall in love!

There's lots going on in the book and a twist is revealed towards the end I did not see coming at all.

Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my review copy in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely loved this new novel by Kaliane Bradley. Full of uniques ideas and great characterisation I found it very funny in parts, yet poignant in others. Great writing style.

A thoroughly enjoyable debut novel which is a fast read with a lot going on for a relatively short book.
Near future spy thriller, speculative time travel, a slow burn romance, historical fiction details of Franklins doomed expedition on the ships Erebus and Terror, themes of climate, colonialism, race and belonging. If anything there are too many big themes to fully flesh them out but it does mean we get a fast paced fun, emotional, mysterious and at times, humorous, story.

Narrated by a young British-Cambodian woman working as a translater who is offered a job as a 'bridge' at the Ministry of Time.
Five people from the past have been rescued from their own lives and brought to this 'present' time. It's the job of the bridges to help these 'expats' acclimatise to modern life while keeping them safe and keeping the project secret.

Our narrator is paired up with Commander Graham Gore, plucked out of the 1840s before he dies an icy death on Franklin's expedition.
It's the relationship of Gore and his bridge that is the heart of this novel with the other expats and ministry workers reduced to side characters. These include a soldier from the Great War and a woman from the 1600s who has a lot of fun learning about modern life, especially when she realises being queer is not to be hidden away as in her own time.

There are spy shenanigans with unexpected dangers when someone starts targeting the expats. Is there a mole? Are there people from other times involved? And what exactly is the project trying to achieve?

By the end of the novel there's love, heartache, death and sadness and many answers but not answers to everything. There's definitely scope for a follow up novel but it works perfectly well as a standalone. A terrific debut.

What an incredible book. I expected this to be a quiet, calm read, but it was anything but. I loved every second and I can't wait to read more of Kaliane Bradley's work. The idea of picking a character out of a history footnote and building him into a character that is so full and complex is such an amazing skill to have, and it makes me want more of these sorts of books. I found myself immediately looking up more about Graham Gore and the Erebus, as my own knowledge about the expedition was tiny. Mixing in time travel was a fun element and I feel it was done beautifully.

I agree that parts of the book were slow, but I felt that Kaliane used this opportunity to build characters and relationships and I really enjoyed the lulls in the tension. It also made me anxious to seek out the next bit of foreshadowing and try to grasp what was going on. The writing may not be for everyone, but personally I loved the flowery metaphors and similes ("bobbing around one another like clots in a lava lamp"; "emotion in her face spiralled away, water down a plughole"). It was fun to see new descriptions and they gave a great visual effect.

The characters were lovely to meet and follow. While the romance wasn't what I expected, I found myself searching for each look and word and praying that things would go further. They were all beautifully fleshed out.

Overall, I loved this, and feel physically drained after finishing it (a sign of a great book for me). Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for sending me an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A very interesting concept of futuristic dystopia, where all the ills of modern society have brought about destruction,and changing history through a portal, to bring people back from different eras is somehow going to change things. It is a pretty incomprehensible idea, and confusingly there is a lot of violent opposition and mixing up of the past and the future. Add to this a love story, and racial tensions from a Cambodian family’s past and present.
It is difficult to place this, on the one hand it is a comment on modern issues, it tells the story of the famous failed Artic expedition, and even plucks a real person from that to take the story forward. I found the writing to be full of language which seemed to be deliberately exclusive, also there were irritating weather analogies throughout e.g. “air like sifted flour” which I found very tedious.

I was so intrigued by the title of this book purely because I love anything to do with time travel. If I could go back in time or even forward and have conversations with people from 100 years ago, I would absolutely love it. How interesting would that be? You would be able to see how far mankind has come and how far we have left to go which is portrayed here clearly in the ministry of time. The expats brought from the past from different eras show clearly the rapid progression of the world in the book with things such as technology, climate and population but how much still hasn't changed from racism to inequality amongst the sexes and gender attitudes. So from that point of view, I enjoyed the book. I just felt i was a little bored at times and was trying to fast forward to find exciting bits. The idea of the book is good And there's a very clever twist that I did not see coming at the end. I took alot from the themes we see through this book and was able to reflect on them but would have liked to be more enthralled by the actual plot.

I love time-travel fiction ,so I was looking forward to this one by Kaliane Bradley and while I did enjoy Ministry of Time , it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. The book has a different take on time travel- what would happen if time travel was another department of the British Civil service and the establishment. And yet, there are a lot of forms!
The first-person narrator is a civil servant who is of mixed Cambodian and British descent is recruited to be part of the Ministry of Time, a department to help a time traveller( or kidnappee) assimilate into modern society. The narrator becomes the bridge to Graham Gore ( a real-life explorer) from 1845 and the gentle , development of the relationship between them and the other time travellers form the core of this lovely book.
The book also touches upon the difficulties of being different and trying to fit in whether as a minority, gender, sexuality or because you happen to be from the past.
The book slowly builds to an action filled finale with some twists and reveals along the way- but these are gently threaded through the narrative.

Always a fan of a good time travel yarn, and this is a good one- exciting, immersive and humorous to boot. I love the idea of historical figures being brought into the 21st century and seeing how they manage, but I am still at a slight loss to understand exactly why the government decides to do this (I might have missed something). Thoroughly invested in the relationship between the nameless protagonist and the wonderful Gore. Feel like a follow up might see the author really get into her stride with this- looking forward to it!

I like a good time travel story. This was a bit of a ‘genre-jumping’ tale- time travel, romance, a bit of a spy thriller vibe, wryly comedic for much of the story, and a touch dystopian.
The pace was at times a bit slow, and it seemed to me that the narrator (author) popped in quite a few comments that were non-sequiturs or just oddly phrased and I wasn’t sure what they were supposed to mean.
But I really enjoyed the story. The author does a very good job of taking characters from quite different eras, bringing them to life and making them believable.
It’s well-written and well thought out, with good background research, and a couple of clever twists.
As with all good time travel tales, the plot gets nicely convoluted towards the end, where it also picks up pace. My advice would be: don’t try too hard to work out the ‘chicken and egg’ ramifications of time travel - it just makes the brain overheat!
Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC of this book.

Very entertaining! Kaliane Bradley’s debut novel centres around an unnamed protagonist. She is a civil servant … but with a very unusual brief. She works for The Ministry of Time as a ‘bridge’ (ie a handler) for one of five expats. These expats have been plucked from their original timelines (in this instance 1847) just prior to their point of death … and so that history is not changed. The work of the bridge is to live with the expat for a year and monitor them as they acclimatise both physically and emotionally to their new environment.

Forty-seven, or Graham Gore - as he is also known as, initially adjusts well to 21st century life with the help of his bridge. He learns to cook, loves a drink and really enjoys riding his motorcycle. As the novel progresses, bridge and expat become more acquainted with each other and the inevitable happens.

Bradley’s novel features a combination of time travel, sci-fi, romance and your classic thriller-type conclusion as the expats come under threat from more expats from the future. This is a great bit of escapism, as well as a wise exploration of the human heart. I strongly recommend this book.

This was a refreshingly original read set in the not too distant future, The government have 'discovered' how to travel through time. As a test of its safety they have brought five people from the past, who would have died, into the future. Our narrator, a civil servant, is employed to work as a Bridge for Gore, an arctic explorer. Her role is to help him to come to terms with the 'hereness' and 'thereness' of his past and present experiences. Not only is this a love story, it is also underpinned by some thought-provoking ideas linked to climate change and the ends to which governments will go to protect their resources.

A hugely enjoyable time travel romance, which examines the reliability of memory, time and power. The The Ministry of Time is an impressive debut novel by Kaliane Bradley. I did get a little confused sometimes by the sci fi/time travel narrative, but overall, loved it.

A by-the-book millenial civil servant gets put in charge of stewarding a victorian polar explorer plucked from history into the twenty-first century. Time-travel and the British government, what could go wrong?
What struck me first about this debut novel was its confidence. Behind this bizarre romance premise was a challenging and clever postcolonial look at time travel and love under imperialist structures; one I feel like I need to go back and read all over again. This has been billed as a romance and yes, the relationship between the unnamed protagonist and Graham Gore sits front and centre but despite finding myself deeply compelled by the romance here, Bradley never let it sit completely easy. The narrator was deeply interesting, though often frustrating and hard to like, as well as deeply self-critical and contradictory and the story never quite managed to completely reconcile the fact that she fell for a charismatic and likeable former(ish) agent of British colonial expansion and empire, who she nonetheless had a significant degree of power over as his keeper and educator, though I think in many ways that was the point. She was bitter and reactionary, and a bit of a coward, but she felt incredibly real, despite the fantastical premise. I think her consistent naivety began to be a little grating towards the end of the novel, especially as I began to lose track of the increasingly convoluted plot and themes, however I absolutely could not put this book down and if the ending was hinting to a series, I am very on board for round two.
A moment also, before I finish, for Maggie and Arthur. I loved them and I miss them and they were often the absolute highlight of the book as everything went down.
Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for a proof copy of this book