I loved this book. I'm not usually drawn to 'time travel' or fantasy themes but I liked that it was set in modern-day London. The idea behind this book is fascinating; individuals are brought through a time door from the past into the future. The great thing is the humour running throughout the book as the main protagonist comes to terms with her nineteenth century sailor. Unusually, the man coming from the past was actually a real sailor, Graham Gore who did during the search for the N W Passage.
Pacing is perfect and characterisation is absolutely spot on with some of the verbal quirks especially funny. I read it pretty quickly because it is a page turner and has a fantastic twist near the end.
Loved it and would highly recommend it to even non fantasy types like myself.

Kaliane Bradley had me at the title. So much so that I didn’t read the blurb for “The Ministry of Time” until just now, moments away from posting my review. And you know what? I’m thrilled as I tend to run away from boy meets girl – and also because it allowed me to drift in the narrative without looking for clues. I went in out of curiosity and had a rollercoaster of a time!

The pace feels as malleable as time. It grabs you, then lets you go, then puts a gun to your head. Choices. The humour is dark, sharp and real. Who gets to tell history? The power of belief. Power in general. How we buy into structures that keep us safe, even if safe is known discomfort, pain and even death. What we choose to see, which lens we take as our own. And love.

Thank you Hodder & Stoughton for gifting me this ARC.

A thoroughly entertaining and unique story with so much intrigue.
As with many books and films that feature time travel there's a lot that goes unexplained so you're always caught wondering the whys and how's until the author reveals more to you, because they all use slightly different theories and bend them to fit their narrative. This kept so much interesting in this story, add in the spy elements too and I was constantly unsure who to trust, even our unnamed narrator main character. It was written so well, with such clever aspects to reveal the softer sides of the characters but also the complexities of human nature, no matter the era they were born.
Bringing together the different cultures, values, and even speech of the characters from different centuries provided so much entertainment, there really were some laugh out loud moments along with the serious peril the characters found themselves in once a traitor in their midst is revealed.
Pacy, steamy and heartbreaking it is deserving of the positive buzz surrounding this book and I think everyone should read it to judge for themselves.

I thank the publisher and NetGalleyUK for an advance review copy of this book in return for a fair review.
I was hooked almost as soon as I started this book - I love time travel stories and this turned out to be one of the better ones. It is one of those books you cannot say much about in case you spoil the constant surprises it springs on you for future readers. Suffice to say it is a very well told and clever variation on the theme. The characters are gradually revealed to us and I really engaged with the two leads and two of the main supporting players and cared about what happened to them. The twists and turns of the plot really surprised me, in a great way and the ending was surprising to say the least. A great story beautifully delivered and highly recommended.

There's much to enjoy in Kaliane Bradley's debut novel with it's fish out of water plot, government shenanigans and good old fashioned time travel. The writing is warm and inviting - taking us into the not-too-distant future and on a journey of discovery and romance for its protagonist. It's not afraid also to explore more serious themes such as generational trauma and the complexity of racialised identities in Britain. However for me the focus on romance in the mid-section of the novel slowed down the pace of the plot and stretched belief that our protagonists really could be quite so naïve. It's an assured debut and I look forward to reading more from this author.

In the near future a time door has been opened and a group of scientists decide to collect people from the past and bring them to the present.
The Ministry Of Time look after the expats as they are now called and teach them all about the modern age. This is an experiment to see if time travel can safely be achieved.
Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

Undoubtedly the weirdest book I’ve read this year. Imagine this as the imaginary love child of Interception, Get Out, and Frances Ha. Incredibly unique mix of big novel topics including but not limited to time travel, romance, critique of Britain’s past and current racism, and a bit of murder mystery. Incredibly original and so is the writing style.

At its core, we're looking at a tale set in the not-so-distant future of Britain. Picture a civil servant minding her own business when, out of the blue, she's informed that her homeland has cracked the secret to time travel. Bam! Suddenly, she's thrust into the role of a time travel agent, alongside a motley crew, all tasked with babysitting a bunch of 'expats' swiped from different points in history. Their mission? To guide these lost souls into the 21st century, all in the name of "pushing the boundaries of time travel."

Yes, this is a novel about time-travel and romance and spying and a critique of racist Britain (always here for that) but it did give me some fanfic vibes since the male main character is a person who actually existed and who, in the 1850s, got lost in the Arctic during a now pretty famous expedition.

While the novel discusses various topics like climate disasters, immigration, homophobia, world history, hate crimes, and misogyny, none are explored as deeply as I'd have liked. Maybe it tried to be or do too much at once, but the lack of depth in the areas I did enjoy left me unable to fall head over heels for this literary concoction.

I am, however, very much looking forward to what the other does next!!

it’s only March, but I can confidently say literally no matter what else I’ll be reading this year, this book will firmly sit at the #1 spot of “what the f did I just read” by the end of 2024.

In reviewing this novel I need to tell you what it’s about and if you are now asking yourself “hey, what is it about?” (please note the fourth wall breaking), boy do I have answers for you!!

Simply put, it’s a novel set in not so distant future Britain about a compliant civil servant who out of the blue is told that her country has acquired the means to travel through time and who finds herself promptly recruited as a time travel agent tasked who, alongside others, is tasked to live with, assists and monitor a group of ‘expats’ stolen from across time, shepherding them into the 21st century, all in order to test the limits of time travel.

But I also need want to tell you that even though goodreads top liked review on this book calling it “the closest thing to OUTLANDER since [they] have read since OUTLANDER” doesn’t even come close to describing what this novel also is:

a self-insert, first person POV fanfiction, not about a fictional character, but about a man who really existed, who even has his own Wikipedia page (read that again), leading to a narrative set-up so incredulous and bizarre, 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.

But maybe I just need to chill out because doesn’t every idea for a story start with a bit of self-indulgent self-insert? Dante did it, Stephanie Meyer did it, surely Kaliane Bradley can do it, too. The latter, however, included a real person turning him into her version of a fictional character. This, too, has been done before (recent examples include The Christie Affair as well as Hamnet), and I’m not looking to jump into an ethics discussion I am wholly unequipped for, but it was bizarre reading about the main character being gone down on (can I even say this??) by an navy officer, who in real life was definitely a racist and misogynistic Imperialist, in first-person narrative. And the sex was actually well-written in a way that was super realistic for a man and a woman born two centuries apart having sex for the first time.

"He bit me sharply on the shoulder and some other animal noise escaped me. He started to dig his thumbs into tender places while he moved in me. I bucked insistently into the pressure. A certain thrilling pain, which lived in my body like another body, woke and opened its long series of tributaries through my ribs."

Another reason why this is not only far from Outlander, but also far from what fans of Outlander might hope to find in here, is that yes, there is a romance story but this novel isn’t ABOUT romance, something that clearly shows in the writing style and the story’s focal point (more on that later). Bradley’s writing is expressive, creative, smashing nouns and adjectives together into similes and metaphors that should make no sense but weirdly do.

"We entered the season of rains. A great graphite pencil inscribed the diagonal journey of water on the air."

"March came in, mellow and pastel. The air felt washed. The scrubbed newness of the spring gave the rooftops and the street furniture a friendly polish."

The novel is part sci-fi, speculative fiction, action adventure, spy thriller, and romantic comedy and the writing reflects all of these genres more successfully than not, mostly because it changes style more often than not. Sweeping metaphors follow internal monologues, stand-up style commentary is superseded by onomatopoetic neologisms used to convey coughing, sneezing, throwing up, and sounds of pleasure. It’s hard for me to describe but there is something raw and yet precisely wielded about her words that makes me wonder what her literary voice sounds like when it focuses on just one of the themes touched upon in this novel instead of a myriad of them in which it is drowned out by all the things squeezed into it.

It is shared very early on that the British-Cambodian main character has been subjected to racial microaggressions all her life, something she picks up, talks about, and dissects throughout the course of the novel, reflecting her life as a biracial woman working for the government of a former colonial empire in a sometimes bitter, sometimes satirical, sometimes seemingly blassé voice. Those moments of critique that tear down past and current day Britain with its violent racist history as well as its linguistic gymnastics whenever Blackness or racial diversity comes up are the sharpest, the most poignant - Bradley’s language becoming a razor-sharp spear tip piercing the bullsh!t masquerading as equal opportunities for everyone.

Many other topics including manmade climate change, refugees, immigration, violence against women, homophobia, otherness, parent-child relationships, complicity, crimes against humanity etc are also mentioned, but none the above are explored as deeply as I would have liked. Maybe it’s because the novel tried to be or do too many things at once but there wasn’t enough of the stuff I DID enjoy for me to fall in love with this.

Since the BBC snapped up the adaptation rights to this even before the novel has come out, we will not have seen the last of Officer Graham Gore (and this will not even be the first time he is portrayed on screen since he already appeared in AMCs The Terror). Given that A24 is set to produce this six-episode series I admit I’m a little excited for how this aggressively weird, headstrong, unique, absurd novel ends up looking as a serialised adaptation.

Last but not least, write that self-insert fanfiction, speak your truth!

I'm not really sure how to sum this novel up without giving any spoilers. The premise is exciting. Somewhere in the very near future, the British government has acquired the power of time travel and established a secret ministry dedicated to exploring its limits. Our protagonist is a junior civil servant working as part of a team supporting "expats" — people plucked from history and brought to live in the present to test the effects of time travel on humans. I often struggle to follow stories about time travel (still can't wrap my head around time loops), but that isn't really an issue here because time travel is more of a backdrop than the central thread. This is a workplace drama, a spy thriller, a contemporary romance, and a commentary on what it means to be a refugee — all rolled into one. 

Overall I did enjoy this. I never felt like I was desperate to find out what happened next, but I was invested. The pacing felt off in some places because there's a very low-level tension throughout and then a crash of action towards the very end. I can't tell if that was intentional or not. One thing I did notice is that the main protagonist is extremely unobservant (also very self-absorbed, uninquisitive, and frankly not very good at her job) so looking back now, there were lots of clues to what was going on in the bigger picture, they were just difficult to spot at the time. This is one for fans of speculative fiction, and anyone who's ever wondered what it would be like to try and explain 9/11, Spotify, or modern dating to someone from the 1600s. Thanks NetGalley and Hodder for the advance e-ARC!

A lovely romp through time as well as literary genres. Nuanced, charming, smart, funny, and emotional--this book is the full package. The kind of novel that makes you want to go right back to the beginning to start reading it all over again when you reach the last page.

I don't usually read sci fi, although there are a few exceptions. However, I was intrigued by the description of this book, in which a select group of people are brought from the past to present-day Britain and must learn to inhabit the 21st century. I do love a good culture shock story. This excellent book is far more than that, though, and I am so glad I read it!

The book is told from the perspective of a civil servant, who had been toiling away in the Languages department, but applies for and is hired for a much more secretive and well-paying job in the Ministry, where time travel has been discovered. She will be the 'bridge' to Commander Graham Gore, who had been known as one of those who perished in the Franklin expedition to the Arctic. History says he died in 1847, but now he's learning about life in the 21st century. The bridge is there to monitor him and help him navigate this new world. Even she isn't clear about what the Ministry is about and what the purpose of the project is. This job also makes her think about her own life as an outsider--her mother was a refugee from Cambodia and she grew up with the casual racism that is sadly so common. Just as the 'expats' as they are called (in order to keep away the stigma of the word 'immigrant') must figure out what their place is in a new society, the bridge continues to figure out her place in her own. Her experience also complicates her relationship with Commander Gore at times, but in spite of the fact that this is supposed to be a job, she soon finds herself growing closer to her expat. At the same time, she finds herself uneasy about some of the things that are happening at the Ministry and isn't sure what to do about it. At one point she says, 'Life is a series of slamming doors. We make irrevocable decisions every day. A twelve-second delay, a slip of the tongue, and suddenly your life is on a new road.' (p 160)

As you'd expect, there is a lot in this book about belonging and feeling misplaced. For the bridge, this is a generational thing--there is a very moving short scene in which she remembers a trip to her mother's home place in Cambodia and how her mother's accent was ridiculed. She clearly didn't fit in there, but she never quite fit in in Britain, either. The bridge's sister writes about her experiences with racism, while the bridge tries to fit in and pass as white. In similar ways, the expats have different strategies for navigating their current world.

I don't want to give anything away, but I'll just say that the last 100 pages or so are a wild ride. I thought I knew where the book was going. I was wrong. This is a really fine book, beautifully written, and a real page-turner. I was annoyed every time I had to put it down and couldn't wait to get back to it. I've been thinking about it ever since I finished it and I think it will stay with me for a long time. Fantastic read!

I cannot overstate how much I enjoyed Kaliane Bradley’s THE MINISTRY OF TIME. Time travel, spies, double agents, a love story, a doomed Arctic expedition, it really has got it all. More speculative fiction that’s FUN, please!

The narrator is a woman working as a civil servant in the translations department before she is promoted to a new team, in a new role. The British government have discovered time travel, and have liberated a small group of time-travellers from a certain death in their own time, and pulled them into the present. She’s to be a “bridge” for the next year to one of the expats in time, Commander Graham Gore, a naval explorer pulled out of the fateful HMS Erebus expedition. They’ll be housemates for the next year, and she is to find *teaching moments* to ease the transition and help him integrate into life in the 21st Century, whilst reporting back on his ability to acclimate. Less straightforward than it seems, she also has to keep him out of harm’s way in a time he doesn’t know how to belong in, yet.

As well as being very funny, there are also some really beautiful moments when the bridge and the expats find moments of connection across eras, not just to the present, but also to their own different times - in particular, in two of the other expats, lively Maggie, a cinephile who would’ve died from the bubonic plague, and gentle soul Arthur, a World War 1 soldier pulled from the front line, Bradley creates such a strong sense of true friendship that the turn of the novel (which I won’t spoil) genuinely hits like a ton of bricks. 


Loved loved loved.

Kaliane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time is emphatically not one of those Time Traveller’s Guide to XXX Britain books. It’s a dark novel and one that will stick in my mind for a long time. The unnamed narrator works for the Government and becomes one of a new team taking on an unprecedented job: minding five people that have been brought forward from the past using a time machine. Our narrator (let’s call her Kaliane) is assigned to Commander Graham Gore, who was on an 1840s Arctic expedition with no survivors. Gore was plucked away before he would have perished from starvation and frostbite like the rest of the expedition. He and Kaliane have to share a house in London for several months and they get to know each other very well.

Although there is some humour as the time travellers acclimatise (or not) to the 2020s, there are sombre ones too: Gore’s discovery of the two World Wars and the Holocaust are painful. He finds video footage of Auschwitz online:
‘Children,’ he says.
‘Yes.’
‘Piles of shoes.’
‘Yes.’

Unfortunately, there is a traitor within the project and people die. They do not all live happily ever after.

Kaliane is a modern woman and her choice of swearwords is uninhibited, as is her attitude towards sex. The novel is very well written, but it’s perhaps not one for a sensitive maiden aunt. The scenes involving Maggie from 1665, who is delighted to discover that her preference for other women no longer needs to be hidden and, indeed, can be flaunted on Instagram, made me snigger. I not only enjoyed the book, but I shall remember it for a long time.

#TheMinistryofTime #NetGalley

I really love the concept of this book and it was written in a really interesting way overall. It felt very filmic too.

Oh my. I loved this far more than I expected. Bizarre and brilliant. But for the disappointment of the closing chapters, it would be 5*

I was completely captivated by this scifi/romance/comedic/polar history/dystopian crime/time travel completely original mash up wrapped up in a brilliantly characterised and absorbing plot. What happens when the civil service gets their hands on a time machine and decides to test it by bringing into the near present day people from history who would otherwise have died just after they are transported. If something goes horribly wrong, well, they would have died anyway, right? So into the 21st century come a woman who would have been guillotined during the French revolution, a soldier from the Somme, a woman who would have died from the plague along with another man from the seventeenth century and a polar explorer. Assigned to each of these unwitting refugees from time is a civil servant, a bridge. Our unnamed narrator is tasked with living with Lieutenant Graham Gore, sweet natured, handsome, Victorian and rescued from death by starvation or cold, for a year to assimilate him into the twenty first century and, of course, spy on him. What she's not supposed to do is fall in love with him.

Weaved into this gorgeous time travel romance is a thoughtful musing on the privilege inherant in what makes one person a refugee and another an expat. Our unnamed heroine is a white-passing half Cambodian woman whose mother fled Pol pot's Khmer Rouge. Generational trauma, survivor's guilt, exile, exoticising and othering is so expertly woven through her thought process it enhances what is already a cerebral book. Also woven in is the author's own fascination with polar expeditions and historical crush on Lieutenant Gore, who will soon have a whole new army of fans thanks to this book.

Fascinating, beautifully written and unputtdownable, this is a wonderfully assured debut. Highly recommended.

Clear the decks, free up some time and settle down to read the novel of the year! What a book! The writing is concise and the plot pulls you in straight away. In my mind, this is a mix-up of Slow Horses, Ghosts and Cloud Atlas - a reverse time-travel scenario where a select few people from the past are scooped up and brought into a London in the very near future by The Ministry of Time. The star of the show is Graham Gore — brought back from the fated Franklin expedition in Northern Canada in 1865 - a charming man who will charm his way into your heart and mind. This book has stayed with me since I finished it and it will be hard to find a better one.

I never before understood what it would be like to fall in love with not only a man from the past but now a fictional relisation of one, and now my heart aches.

The Ministry of Time like all other ministries that are governed by the British Higher ups is riddled with bureaucracy, closed doors and an overwhelming heir of imperial superiority. A team of 'bridges' is set up to over sea the assimilation of a group of people plucket from time. We focus is on our nameless narrator who is assigned Grahame Gore of the ill fated Terror and Erubus expeditions.

Of course when you mess with time some is bound to get angry and thus we have the threat of spies from the future, conspirator bridges and maybe even the ministry itself set to sabotage the project.
In between all the paper shuffling we get to know our time travelers a little bette, as much as the narrator makes poor decisions she accepts her naivety which thankfully makes her more endearing than annoying.

I am never a fan of open endings I prefer closure, but my heart bleeds for a man who not only lived in another time period but likely froze to death. I want closure for him almost as much as I want it for myself.
Beautiful read.

Absolutely loved Kaliane Bradley’s novel. An intelligent, sexy time travel novel with a clear eye for geopolitics, climate change and colonialism. This book is a brilliant thriller with a love story at its heart.

Phenomenal! I loved the combination of genres, which created such a spellbinding book. This is a book that I had been waiting for for so long, without realising. I had always wanted a book that contained time travel and romance and this book definitely delivered.

I sometimes wished that there was more clarity between the protagonist and Gore. However, in the context of the book and the characters, it makes sense why they react in the way that they do. I also felt like the ending could have been explained more but it still made its point. I loved how it paid attention to the impact time travel has on the body, which is normally glossed over in sci-fi.

I definitely will be recommending this title in store and handselling it. I may also buy this as a gift for friends and family.