I thought this was such an interesting science fiction mystery novel. The characters from the different time periods all felt fleshed out really well and i liked how they all had layers to them. The action scenes were balanced well with the quieter more tender ones too. I loved how it built up the world that made the time rescuing possible and i could easily see this getting adapted into a film or tv show.

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley is an imaginative and atmospheric journey through the intricacies of time and memory. In this unique narrative, Bradley explores how history, personal or otherwise, shapes and haunts the present. Blending elements of speculative fiction with deep emotional insight, the book invites readers to reflect on how the past continues to influence identity and destiny. Bradley’s writing is both lyrical and thought-provoking, crafting a story that’s as much about self-discovery as it is about the mysteries of time itself. This is a compelling read for fans of speculative fiction that tackles profound questions with elegance and depth.

This is a book about time travel, but my time travel is not explained. This is a book about romance, but you'll never understand where the romance comes from and the main character needs therapy to deal with her possessive tendencies. This is a book about cigaret, I won't comment on that one, but the narrator is obsessed with the smell of cigaret.

I choose this book because there was a huge hype around it and I still don't understand it. For me, the main flaw is that out of nowhere the narrator falls in love with whoever she was supposed to be protecting. OUT OF NOWHERE.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the Advance Readers Copy.

I didn't get a connection with the characters, they felt very flat.
The romance felt forced and didn't develop very natural.
The idea was great but unfortunately the execution was not.
The narration also was very monotone for the female parts.

I was really looking forward to this one. And it wasn't bad but is also did not live up to the expectations. This book maybe tried a bit to hard. The narrator did a good job though.

As a lover of Arctic stories and especially speculative stories set in the polar regions, I was the perfect audience for this book. I expected to love it, but found myself drifting off. The narration wasn’t spot on for me, and in the end I bought a copy and finished reading instead. This made the reading a lot better for me, interestingly, even though I’m such an avid audio listener.

I would have loved the story to have gone first her into the scifi and left some of romance at the door, as the mix of genres turned out to be a bit awkward for me-but clearly I am in the minority here as readers have loved it. I will look forward to the author’s future books!

Thank you for the audio ARC.

I actually loved it even though I’m not sure it totally accomplished what it set out to be. It tries to be a spy novel, a time-travel novel, historical novel, commentary of race and belonging in Britain, climate change, and so much more.

We follow a civil servant in the near future as she works as a ‘bridge’ which is to welcome ‘expats’ from the past who have been plucked from their timeline in history to be brought to the present. Her expat is from the Victorian era and was a navy commander. Just writing and thinking about it makes me want to revisit it! I think I might like it more the second time.

I gave it 4 stars and I think it might have a chance to be on the longlist of the Women’s Prize for Fiction next year – it’s an early entry on my predictions list, but we’ll see if it stays there!

I’m entirely unsure how to describe this book, except to say that it was easily the most unique and enjoyable read of the year for me. There’s something special about a book when you find yourself cackling within the first ten pages and reading passages aloud to your friends. A mix of literary fiction, science fiction, spy thriller and workplace comedy. I don’t know how it works, but it does. This is a must-read for everyone.

The Ministry of Time is set in the near future where the world is a different place. Time travel is possible and an experiment to bring people from history into the future goes ahead. Each person would have died at the time of being taken and their name is the year they were snatched from. Civil servants are recruited and trained as ‘bridges’ who befriend these historical figures and help them navigate modern life.
I loved the idea of this novel and found it unique and thought provoking. The characters are witty and the observations on how our modern life may look to people from the past is genius. I did find the storyline quite slow paced at times which was frustrating.

Such a great read. I found the beginning to be a bit of a slow burn but once I got into it a bit I was HOOKED! The characters and the story is wonderfully crafted. I loved this book. One of my top reads of 2024 for sure!

This is an incredibly unique romance/speculative fiction/literary comedy/time travel novel set in the near future, following a female civil servant who begins a job with a mysterious new government agency in which she becomes a 'bridge', living with, monitoring and aiding an expat from history - namely Commander Graham Gore who supposedly died on an expedition to the Arctic in the 1840s.

I really enjoyed this book; it feels distinctly unlike anything I have ever read before. The blend of mystery, romance, sci-fi and action works really well throughout, keeping you on the edge of your seat as you don't know what to expect from the narrative next. The prose style itself also feels quite unique - it is very dialogue driven, with little description, allowing you to fill in the gaps yourself, imagining the tensions and looks between the two central characters. I found this to be very effective and refreshing.

Ultimately this was a lot of fun, and an interesting reading experience. I'm not sure if it was slightly too unusual for me to fully connect with it, but nevertheless I would recommend this to anyone interested in trying something a bit different.

This one caught me by surprise. It’s intelligent, witty, able to engage with difficult topics with humour and grace. It’s incredibly well written and completely compelling. The main character is an interesting mixture of striving to be true to her own sense of morality and a tangle of personal insecurities, some of which are related to her mixed-race heritage and her struggle to reconcile her desire to be British with her understanding of her family’s background. I just ate this up and was completely immersed, however if you are someone who wants action packed time travel or time travel romance, this may not be for you. It’s instead a deep meditation on ethical dilemmas and where the weight of responsibility truly lies. Nuanced, clever and very readable, this is a bittersweet favourite for 2024.

The Ministry of Time is an odd novel for me; for it has all the right elements of time travel and includes a modern ministry to deal with time travel issues. At the same time, it cleverly connects to the ongoing climate change crisis that the world is being gripped in and foreshadows future wars and how the earth will become terrible to live in. As someone who studied politics at the University of Portsmouth from 2015 to 2019, I witnessed the rise of the Far Right in American Politics and how it spread to European shores. And the reason is simple: People want more. People want to feel safe, and they will follow the rules without saying a word. Yet, when the characters from the past are transported into the 21st century it is an overwhelming transformation from their old pasts.

At the same time, I didn’t feel I was a part of the Ministry, nor did we get much perspective on different Ministry agents or how they dealt with time travel. I watched the original El Ministerio Del Timepio on Netflix set in Spain, which I felt was a better version. The reason is that the agents were recruited from the past, and they were dealing with the past itself. I find that format much better. I would say that the British version adopts a modern approach, in fact, more similar to Sky’s The Lazarus Project. This is a crossover between the Lazarus Project and Doctor Who, except more serious sci-fi. The characters within this novel have bubbling personalities, that resonate with their pasts and have some serious contrasts to the 21st century. Plenty of romance and chemistry between the vast and vibrant cast of characters pulls you into the story.

In the end, I would say that some parts of the story didn’t win me over when it came to the modern-day section. The pacing was slow in some areas, and some prose could have been improved rather it felt more like raw prose that hadn’t been rewritten. But still, I want to see more different formats of Time Travel Ministries being adapted to different cultures. The British version is another adaptation of this brilliant format. But I wish we would stop going into the modern day, and explore history. History is far superior to explaining the problems of the past. After all, the 21st century is the most comfortable period we live in, with fewer wars, and fewer famines, but human greed and politics always play a role because we always want more. Despite this, this novel is 100% worth a read. I would recommend picking it up.

What a fascinating book! I enjoyed this book and found the time travel intriguing, mind bending, and also sad. It's historical fiction, romance, fantasy, and a suspense story as well, with many twists along the way. Engaging and intriguing--hard to put down.
It was well written and I loved the descriptive language and unique and thought provoking metaphors.
I went to google, to read about the historical figures mentioned, and found that this book had such a solid grounding in history. It was well researched as well as being well-written and extremely creative.
This is such a strong debut novel. It's written from the POV of the Bridge, the main character who is tasked with minding the time traveling hero Commander Graham Gore. The Bridge's chapters are interspersed with narrative from Graham's original time line and the story is woven between those two narratives, slowly giving us bits of information that eventually make the story clearer. The format worked very well and kept a tension going that made the novel feel very well paced.
Gore is transported from the 1800s to modern times set in the not too distant future, He and a cast of other "ex pats" (s they are called here) have been brought to the present for closely guarded reasons that begin to be exposed as the book progresses. There is an ominous undercurrent throughout the book, a thread of unease woven through the narrative, intertwined with the wry humor, awkward juxtaposition of historical figures into modern times, and the mystery/thriller aspects of the story that also give us a bit of romance as well. These genres mix well together.
There is also such a well written study of colonization and colonialism, brought out in the narrative by the time travelers but also deeply rooted in the main character of the Bridge as well. It left me thinking about this book for days after I finished it.
Thought provoking, entertaining, riveting, extremely well written, and overall deeply engaging. A stunning debut. I will gladly read more by this author.
The narration was excellent.
My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this digital ARC. These are my unbiased opinions.

Really enjoyed the premise of this book and the interplay between refugees of time and place. The second act felt less developed and rushed sadly.

I really wanted to like this one as it has some of my favourite elements, like time travel, and I had seen many glowing reviews on social media but I just could not get into and I found myself bored. I am hoping this was just my mood a the time and if I revisit I the future I enjoy it more.

Fascinating! I really enjoyed the initial disparity between the “ex-pats” and their handlers, known as their Bridge.

Imagine travelling to the present day from the 1800s, where there is no internet, no Spotify, single men and women live together out of wedlock, women go to the pub, indoor smoking is prohibited and everyday words from your time, like “negro” are racist and you just don’t understand why! And as for no servants? Oh, but there’s a dishwasher and a washing machine, so no need to panic!

Commander Graham Gore is one of the few chosen to be transported from the 1800s to 20?? something in the near future. With a young, disgruntled civil servant as his “bridge”, the present day person responsible for helping the wide eyed time traveller transition into the current time. Their initial awkwardness grows into friendship and then a far deeper, romantic relationship.

This is a well researched, brilliantly written and serious book, but with a generous smattering of dry humour, which I loved. A refreshing and original book, which deserves every one of it's FIVE STARS. The mix of historical fact and fiction worked perfectly in this mixed-genre gem of a read. A time travel, spy, suspense thriller with romance and a bit of spice. Fabulous!

The audiobook was well narrated by George Weightman and Katie Leung, who brought the characters to life brilliantly.

5 ⭐️ Thanks to Netgalley, Kaliane Bradley and Hodder and Stoughton for an ARC in return for an honest review.

'We have time travel. Welcome to the Ministry.'

I'm a bit of a junkie when it comes to time travel novels, and where Kaliane Bradley's debut departs from the likes of Jodi Taylor and Genevieve Cogman is that - in my opinion - it is perfused with a darkness that eclipses the wry tone that can typify the genre. Something very dark is in the cards, and it's inevitable.

'Their love is both meaningless and Sisyphean.'

Bradley employs a slow-drip divulgence of  Gore's story to heighten this, and her style - very Historical Biography, much like Diane Preston's biography of Captain Scott's Antarctic Expeditions (I haven't read Simmons) - handles foreboding and looming tragedy adeptly.

But, really, where all my stars go is to Katie Leung, who voices 'the Bridge'. I wasn't enthralled to George Weightman who embodies Gore, but Leung - whom I know from Murder Most Unladylike audiobooks can effectively cup a narrative in her hands without spilling - does a singular job of channelling the whole story like some exceptional spirit medium.

More of the serious-mindedness, we come to realise, comes from 'the Bridge', as she confronts the legacy of her British-Cambodian female biracial identity. Bradley opens up a space for socio-anthropological debate, yet this is a space the dimensions of which are rigidly set by Bradley's cast of characters elected to inhabit it.

They can talk about colonialism, they can talk about modernity and cultural context, but I do think that 'The Ministry of Time' could have been twice the length; I certainly enjoyed and was much more comfortable with the pace at which these issues were investigated at the start of the novel. I eventually found things being glossed over and made flippant. And I would have rather Maggie's coming to embody her sexuality was not treated as comic relief with so many quips made at lesbians' expense.

Ultimately, for time travel novels, there needs to be a clear gimmick that justifies the author's own unique 'wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff'. Otherwise,  an author tends to need to spend an entire series establishing and iterating all the workings-out of the sciency bits, so that the worldbuilding can withstand interrogation. I think here, we missed out on either of those, and it unfortunately felt at times as though suspension of my disbelief was frankly demanded of me because the plot requires it. In that respect, 'The Ministry of Time' wasn't a wholehearted success for me.

Yet, huge thanks to Hodder & Stoughton Audio, for the delight of listening to Leung's terrific audio performance of this debut novel.

This was really good! It was a cool concept, which was executed really well,, both humorous and profound! The characters were endearing in their mundanity, and the way they interacted was really interesting!

Overall, I really enjoyed it and the narrators were fantastic! The narrators definitely added to how much I liked the book :)

The ending gutted me- the little note at the end of the book??? Yeah I’m glad i read this,, I’ll be thinking about it for a while

A got The Ministry of Time off NetGalley audios ages ago nd swore every week since ad start it, but summit came up each time, anyhow av eventually smashed it nd a honest duno why ad waited

It revolves round this proper mysterious government agency that collects up “expats”, people from across history so they can test what time travel does, they are paired with a Ministry worker called a bridge and the story centres around their relationships

There’s loadsa dialogue nd a reckon it will make a great Netflix series. Reminded me a bit of Tenet and Looper

If ya like a soft scifi with characters who have a lot to say, nd summit that examines the intricacies of relationships ya will live this

It’s also super well researched nd includes some key points in history woven into the story making it way more realistic

The characters were really brought to life by the audio narrator, and if ya can do paper and audio, do it for this one, aye it’s canny

It’s a dystopia,, a quirky read, kinda Liam Brown, John Marrs or Christina Dalcher stuff. Just my bag of spec fic

It was a 5 star til the last couple chapters where a thought it fell just short, a duno it felt a bit disjointed there, as if the ending cudda been more, but it didn’t spoil it too much, ad still defo recommend it and a want more from the author

Ad probs change the cover if it were my shout as a don’t think it conveys the quality of the read

#theministryoftime