This book is so many things to me, and so many of them are truly beautiful and excellent. It's funny, in a way that genuinely made me laugh out loud. It's sexy, in a slow build but inevitable way that pays off fantastically. It explores the similarities and differences of personal experiences of trauma and generational trauma. It is a thrilling, action-packed spy novel. It poses fascinating questions about the science of time travel. It is truly devastating, but ultimately uplifting. It is deeply personal, while also speaking to broad, societal issues. It is utterly fantastic.

The Ministry of Time tells the story of our unnamed protagonist, who is employed as a "bridge" for a refugee of time, Commander Graham Gore, who was supposed to die in his arctic exploration of 1847. There is, of course, the whacky fish out of water shenanigans that you would expect in such a set-up, but the story is so much deeper than that. I don't want to give too much away here though - half the beauty of this book, for me, was discovering the story as it unfolded.

I did not expect this book to have half as much of an impact as it did, and I didn't expect it to stay with me as strongly as it has. I don't think I can do justice to all of the things I love about this book, so all I will say is read it

I am at a loss where to even start on this review, there are so many things about The Ministry of Time that I loved. And not a single thing I didn't.

So let's start with the easy bit, the story, set in near-future London. The narrator, a minor civil servant, is appointed for a secret mission: to act as a 'bridge' (observer, minder, helper) to a man who has been taken from the past using a secret time travel machine. He is Commander Graham Gore, second-in-command on a ship trapped in the Arctic ice in 1847. She is to live with him, help him adapt to the modern world, and report back on his behaviour and progress to the Ministry. Four other time travellers and their bridges are also set up together. The narrator and Gore soon become fast friends with two of them; Maggie, a plague survivor from 1665 and Arthur, a first world war soldier from 1916.

We follow the time travellers (called 'expats' by the Ministry) as they adapt to their new life. They have a lot of adapting to do. Maggie, a feisty, intelligent, warm-hearted and beautiful lesbian, revels in her freedom as a woman in this century, and quickly sets out to explore Tinder, clubs, fashion and parties. Her language is 17th century English, so she comes across as wildly eccentric. Arthur is a traumatised gentle soul, still reeling from the transition, but he and Maggie become close allies. Gore is, well, an utterly charming 19th century gentleman and hero, We also have a range of Ministry staff and other villains. What a cast!

Meanwhile, the narrator, overwhelmed by her lust/love for Gore, seems to be deliberately blind to all the hints that all is not as it seems at the Ministry.

Bradley is an astoundingly good writer and it is mind-blowing that this is her first novel, it is so perfectly accomplished. The writing is wonderfully readable but also original, quirky, funny and moving. No matter where we are in the narrative, Bradley makes it all just so damn INTERESTING! It's not only that the reader is gripped and eager to know what follows: she can make a description of a character making a cup of tea interesting. Her metaphors and similes are original, striking and often hilarious, the dialogue is clever, and the growing bond between Gore and his bridge is sensitively portrayed and beautifully paced.

Moreover, The Ministry of Time is full of insightful parallels with, references to and commentary on historical and current events, notably around empire and colonialism, refugees and climate change. Indeed the facts we learn about Commander Graham Gore's past are based on true accounts of his life and final Arctic expedition.

If this doesn't become a roaring bestseller, I don't know what will. It would also make a fantastic film or TV series.

This is a good old-fashioned love story but, a slow burning love story. It’s not apparent in the beginning but when the gentleman comes from the past into the future, well the present, his handler and himself just have a slow burning friendship which after they were attacked and almost killed, turned into love.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I thought it could’ve been a little bit shorter only by a chapter. But it was a fun easy read as you can tell I finished it in a day/2. The characters in it the main four the three from the past and the guider were great fun characters and it was a shame that they had to pass away well one of them did, but I won’t say which one! It also had a lovely little twist in there which I didn’t actually see coming but I should’ve guessed. Maybe you’ll see it when you read the book and I recommend that you do.

An experiment in time travel has led to a disparate group of expats who have been transported to the present by a mysterious Ministry. Each is assigned a 'bridge' who will live with them for a year, monitor them and assimilate them into modern life. One of the expats is Graham Gore who disappeared in 1847 on a failed Arctic expedition. As he and his bridge grow closer, the experiment starts to have problems.
I found this quite an odd novel to read. Being someone who utterly hates Sci-Fi I found great stretches of the story difficult to engage with, however the slow-burn love story and the insights into assimilation from refugees and 'expats' were great. It's a bit of curate's egg, fantastic in parts but actually the key plot points I really disliked, however there's no doubting Bradley's talent

Amazing concept, really well executed. This book is a slow-burn romance, a thriller, and a wibbly-wobbly time travel story all rolled into one, and also manages to take aim at climate change, colonialism, and racism along the way. Some of Bradley's metaphors are so well crafted, they were worth rereading to appreciate their beauty.

Graham Gore, a real Arctic explorer, is a worthy fictional object of swoon, although I was quite annoyed at him at times towards the end. Margaret and Arthur were perfect secondary characters, and the villains suitably evil. I could not have guessed the twist, and I can't help thinking about it, even days later. I will certainly be seeking out anything else that Bradley writes. This was excellent.

***Disclaimer: This e-ARC was provided to me by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Huge thanks to them. ***

Thank you to the publisher, the author and Netgalley for a free ebook copy of this novel in exchange for a review.
I adore time travel narratives. I have spent many an hour imagining where I would go if I could go back in time or who I’d most like to meet if I could have a little trip back. So, this book was a total no-brainer for me.
We follow a young woman who is part of a government experiment to introduce people that have been rescued from the past. All of them would have died in their original timelines, so in a way they are free to be here and now. We follow a little band of ‘bridges’ – the 21st century people who are to look after those in from the past, and the ‘ex-pats’: someone from The Great Plague, World War One and most importantly for the narrative, a Victorian man who was part of a doomed Artic exploration. He is the one who develops a relationship with the main (and unnamed) character and we watch how he assimilates into the future world. He is also based on a real person, and the daguerreotype referenced in the book is a real artifact that can be viewed online.
There were so many things to admire in this novel. Firstly, was the way sexual tension was built between the two main characters, it was so pitch perfect and a ‘will they, won’t they?’ dynamic that kept the story moving. The complications of a buttoned down man of the 19th century who was used to women covered from neck to floor and a modern, sexually active woman was enthralling. The next thing that was so brilliant about this book was that I don’t think the writer used one cliche in the whole thing. I think it is Orwell who advises writers to never use a simile or metaphor that they’ve read before and this writer stuck to that precept like glue, making the prose both original and fascinating. But as I say, pitch perfect, so whilst the metaphors were unlike any I’d read before – they created vivid images and played on the senses.
Finally, the writer created such fully formed characters by her use of language. Particularly with Maggie from the 1660s. I found that completely fascinating. Recreating someone’s language, particularly from such a long time ago, is incredibly difficult. Hilary Mantel even spoke about it when discussing how to create verisimilitude in Wolf Hall, and to be honest, I think Kaliane Bradley has nailed it better than Mantel.
There were a couple of things I enjoyed less though. One, all the foreshadowing, hinting that things weren’t going to work out well. It just felt heavy handed as it was sprinkled very liberally with comments throughout that gave away parts of the ending. And another was the timelines. The references to the Cambodian genocide kept the novel in a fairly distinct timeline and that plus the comments about the change in climate in London didn’t 100% seem to gel. But that is a very picky comment and probably other people wouldn’t notice or be fussed about it.
Overall, I loved this book and I have already been recommending it left, right and centre to everyone I know. I can’t wait to see what this writer does next and I’m very envious of her talent!

Loved this so much more than I thought I would! It's sci-fi but beautifully written. Kind of sci-fi/literary. The characters are fantastic. It's also way funnier than I expected. Highly recommend.

glorious. this book made me physically insane on multiple modes of public transport. i sobbed i laughed people moved to other tube carriages to keep away from me. one of the most special reading experiences i've ever had. romance isn't dead. my obsession with polar expeditions is alive and kicking. thank you to the publisher for giving me a copy of this!

What a roller coaster of a book - I loved pretty much everything about it, event the convoluted spy story.
It was a thoughtful look at how time travel could work, what it might feel like to be dragged through time, and an exploration of just how crazy our world would seem to people from the past - but equally if you have people from lots of time frames how little each of them would understand about the other time periods.
I really hope that this book ends up on lots of prize /best of year lists

I received an ARC of this book via Netgalley and am grateful for the opportunity to read. The book has rave reviews from well known authors - suggestions that it was a book that could be breezed through with a captivating storyline.

The premise of the book is time travel which brings famous people , who have died in the past, into the present without having an affect on the timeline. Throughout the book these time travellers are referred to both as the year from which they were plucked and by name. Like much else of the book there seems to be no reason why at one point they might be called by one name and then by another. I stayed with it until about a quarter of the way through the book when some of the narrative felt repetitious. I read the whole book and forme it's biggest fault is that new things are introduced late into the storyline, these new things changed what had happened earlier. My mind is a mess as I would suggest the book is.

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley is an absolute dream of a novel, It's like nothing I've read before, The plot is a mix of spy thriller, comedy, speculative futuristic and historical fiction - mind-blowingly well constructed, The characters are vivid, and expertly individually drawn (the historic cast slightly reminded me of the characters from the BBC comedy Ghosts, but that is a compliment).

It's very rare that I feel this strongly about a book, but I so wanted to have written this one! Let me list what I loved about this book:
it is clever; funny; thoughtful; page-turningly entertaining; a tiny bit sexy; heartbreaking; hopeful...I could go on. Brilliant, brilliant stuff!

This book was deemed 'the most anticipated novel of 2024' and it definitely lived up to the expectations. I am grateful for the advanced copy from @Netgaley.
Written from a first person perspective of a British-Cambodian civil servant, a 'bridge' , it was a mixture of romance, service, comedy and time travel. I loved al the different characters and how they identified with the period they had come from.

It was a great read and I especially loved the twist at the end.

The Ministry of Time is a clever, unique story. Part sci-fi, part romance, part history, the story is set around a time machine and how today's world might seem if you were brought here from another time. When the Ministry decides to bring people from various times to the present, each person needs "a bridge" to explain the modern world to them. Told in the first person by Commander Gore's (a 18th century arctic explorer) bridge, this tale is funny, romantic and exciting. Along the way, we explore racism, health, environmental issues in an engaging way.
Definitely one to read

This is such an imaginative novel with a mix of sci-fi, thriller and romance, but it is the romance that truly stands out. The tension between Graham Gore and the narrator is so brilliantly done, and their dialogue so funny that it makes for compulsive reading

I went in not knowing whether I was going to love it or hate it. I have such relationship with science fiction. But I ended up really liking that book. It's so much more that sci-fi time travel story, it's partially historical fiction, it's love story, it's complex and different and I'm a big fan.
The language is beautiful. There's a lovely quality to writing, sentences just flow and flow and the story just gripped me and I was struggling to put it down.
The complexity of characters, their individuality, a dystopian future female bridge, Victorian explorer, they become alive in the novel and I was fully invested in their story.
Graham Gore, you're dead, you're alive, you're the shining star of that story. The journal parts of the novel giving us better understanding of who Gore is, were my favourite parts of the book.
The Ministry Of Time is a tender, beautiful and captivating story and I really enjoyed it.

What an original, fun novel! The Ministry of Time captures the very best bits of history, sci-fi, thriller and even (dare I say?), romance genres. An ingenious mish-mash blending the modern with characters rescued from history in an attempt to see if they will acclimatise to the everyday, here and now. It is gut-splittingly funny, touching, thoughtful and even tense. I couldn't foresee where this might be heading, apart from the romance (which is fully warranted) and was blissful on the journey back in time and into the future, as well. Characters are sumptuously crafted and pure delights. The Ministry of Time fell into my lap at just the right time and gave me all I could want. Loved it.

This was a fascinatinghstory about bringing people from the past to the present ans seeing what happened. Very confusing at times and I expected more from the conclusion but it was very interesting.

Time travel is one of the most– if not the most – science-fictional tropes of all time. Thanks mainly to good ol’ H. G. Wells, the idea of travelling through time and changing events has been used in thousands of books over the past hundred or so years.

With that in mind you might think there’s little left to tell using the trope. And to some extent I too thought that it’s an idea been done already, there’s little left to tell.

But then I was given The Ministry of Time to review – a book that takes all those ideas but then gives them a 21st century spin.

The plot’s not too out-there. Imagine that there’s a secret British organisation run by MI5 who have, as an experiment, picked up a number of people from various time periods, referred to as ‘expats’, that were about to die, and bring them to the present. On their arrival and as part of an experiment, the expats are given an acclimatisation programme which means that for a year they co-habit with a ‘Bridge’– a handler who is there to help them settle in, adjust and hopefully eventually assimilate into today’s world.

This story is told from the perspective of a biracial British-Cambodian translator who is given the chance to participate in an exciting new Government project by being the handler for Commander Graham Gore, a sailor who in real life dies on the fateful Franklin expedition to the North Pole in 1847. (The Afterword explains that Gore was a real person and the details of his life in the book that are used in this story.) Other expats include Anne Spencer from Robespierre’s Paris in 1793, a lieutenant Thomas Cardingham from the Battle of Naseby in 1645, Arthur Reginald-Smythe, an army captain from the Battle of the Somme in 1916 and Maggie Kemble from the Great Plague in 1665, although the focus is mainly on Gore and our narrator.

This may all sound rather grim and doom-laden, depressing or at least heavy with message, but it isn’t. Bradley manages to suffuse the drama with humour in a way that it balances out nicely. The narrator has that modern level of snark that I think readers will appreciate. I was pleased that this was so good – I’ve not read such a delicate balance since first reading Connie Willis or Jodi Taylor. What The Ministry of Time does is take these ideas and give them a modern perspective that involves PTSD, mental health, climate change, changing sexual habits and gender fluidity.

The result is surprisingly good – funny, scary and engaging. Obviously, there are the amusing comedy of errors caused by the refugees’ adjusting to the 21st century – the first sighting of an aeroplane, or their understanding of movies, or their experiences of Powerpoint, Tik Tok and Tinder, but at the same time the author also manages as well to discuss more serious issues – of the changes in attitudes towards colonialism, race and sexuality and of changes in general society whilst simultaneously managing to negotiate a contactless economy and a gender-fluid culture.

Of course, there’s a thriller aspect to create tension – as the book progresses and we get to know more about the characters, the concern over what happens to the experimental refugees once the experiment is over increases, not to mention that there’s all those activities by secretive paper-pushing bureaucrats in the background that come to a head by the end of the novel.

There is also romance – perhaps inevitable, although much of the tension in the book is created by the determination for it not to happen before bowing to the inevitable. Readers may enjoy this aspect, although for those less, erm – enamoured, it may be a dealbreaker. (Having said that, if you’ve got to that part of the book without expecting that something is going to happen… I would have thought you would have bailed before!)

The Ministry of Time may not use the newest science-fictional ideas, but it uses well-known tropes to their advantage. The reader doesn’t need detail on how these things work, the reader has read The Time Machine or The Time Traveller’s Wife or seen Doctor Who to not have to worry about explaining too many of the details.

The only minor issue I really had with the book was the cliffhanger ending, which may make some readers groan, whilst others will want to continue the story as soon as possible.

At the end I was reminded of Jodi Taylor’s St. Mary Chronicles series, which I love, and I hope that when I say that The Ministry of Time is as good as those, that is high praise indeed. The Ministry of Time is an astonishing debut novel, a great page-turner with engaging humour and characters you get to care about. I suspect that this will be the major genre hit of the Summer.

I really enjoyed this books. Definitely will recommend it to other people, but I struggled a bit with the ending because it felt quite rushed.

I absolutely loved this book! I recommended it to my partner (who has very different taste in books!) and he loved it too!

Commander Gore is brilliant and hilarious and the love story was entertaining and heartfelt. The side characters are all different but I genuinely loved them all.

Not a genre I would usually choose to read but I’m thoroughly glad I did!

I do hope there’s a sequel somehow?!

Thank you to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.