This was a fun, time-bending romp set not too far in the future!
I found the story flowed easily, partly due to the authors lyrical & expressive writing and to a fabulous cast of memorable characters

The premise of the story was appealing (to a fan of time-travel fiction) & allowed the author plenty of opportunity for witty and caustic observations of life in the 21st century. However at times it felt like the author lost her way trying to cover too many big topics (sexuality, racism, colonisation, generational trauma).

The last 70ish pages picked up the pace again and I suddenly realised it had morphed into a suspenseful, murder mystery and I couldn’t put it down until I found out who and why! (The thought-provoking, subtle twists towards the end were perfect!)

I feel I probably won’t remember many details of the storyline in a few months time but I will absolutely remember the main characters and for that reason I hope the author can find room for a sequel &/or preferably a prequel!

Thank you to NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I had a great time reading this, it had a great overall feel to it and blended the elements together perfectly. The characters were everything that I wanted and glad I was able to get to know them in this story. The plot worked with the time-travel and glad I was able to read this. Kaliane Bradley has a great writing style and I hope to read more.

An original take on time travel, The Ministry of Time moves slower but presents fascinating characters with really interesting backstories whose slow-burn romance—and how it ultimately plays out—is believable and bittersweet. I went in eager for the "fish out of water" elements I love when someone travels to the past or future, and while I thought that was well done and often funny, I also really loved the book's exploration of life as a refugee.

I picked this up because I love time travel books. This isn’t so much about time travel as it is about a gal keeping watch over someone who has arrived from another period of time. I wouldn’t consider it a romance. There is sex, but no relationship.

I had a really hard time getting into the story and was about 65% in before I was truly invested in the story. The dialogue is awkward and hard to follow, for three reasons. 1) Several characters are from another time and they speak in a different form of English. 2) Dialogue is delivered without attribution to the person speaking and it’s impossible to track who is saying which line. 3) Most of the text is the inner monologue and/or past tense narration by the primary character, so we miss out on the perspective of the other characters.

We are never given the name of the primary character. Why not? Other characters have 2-3 names, which makes it difficult to keep track of who is who.

Several bits of the story are left unresolved. Is this setting it up for a sequel?

Many thanks to NetGalley and Avid Reader Press for the opportunity to read and review the book prior to publication.

Excellent time travel novel. Really enjoyed the historical figures experiencing the near future. A real sweetness to it, while also the darkness of some possible futures and recognition of the ways governments are cruel. Satisfying. I would definitely read a sequel.

QUICK TAKE: the closest thing to OUTLANDER I've read since...OUTLANDER. Romantic, twisty, very entertaining.

The Ministry of Time is a time travel novel set in London at an unspecified date after the 2020 pandemic. The Ministry has discovered a way to extract certain people from history and bring them forward to live in the present day, but only if they were about to die so that history is not changed. The inaugural group of six travelers are each assigned a caretaker or "bridge" to assimilate them into the 21st century and to make reports to the Ministry on their progress.
Our narrator is assigned the traveler from 1847.
This story is pretty intricate and has a lot of issues to dissect. The narrator (whose name is never revealed) is the biracial result of a white father and a Cambodian mother. Living outside of either race is kind of drawn as a parallel to her charge's living out of time and her lack of an acceptance of the Cambodian side of her heritage to the six travelers' and their ability to reconcile their two time eras. Despite the clinical nature of the narrator's job, she is unable to not form an emotional attachment to 1847 (Commander Graham Gore). Ostensibly, the narrator is to ready her charge to live independently, but something more is afoot and when they discover a plot against the bridges and charges, things get serious.
I really liked this book by new author Kaliane Bradley. The mystery inside the narrative is done very well in that there is really no obvious clues about who the bad guy might be. The relationship between the narrator and Gore is set up nicely. The only quibble I might have with this book is the first half moves a bit slowly at times. Other than that - job well done.

(This is what I posted on Goodreads.) I'm sad to say that I am not enjoying this story. I wanted to, I really did. Time travel always intrigues me, but by the time I finished 21% (location 785 out of 3822), I was still bored. The story never seemed to take off. The technical jargon was tedious, the setting unremarkable, the characters lifeless. I'm really sorry that I did not care for this as soooooo many others did, but I am done. And so, because I stopped reading this, I give it a 1.

This is my first review in net Galley. The book is bout time travel . There were several different people removed from time that were going to die so they were not to affect the future. From the beginning I was rivited. There were a few slow moments in the book, but overall it was a pleasant and engaging read. The plot twist was. A surprise to me, and that is nice as I am usually able to predict what is going to happen. I really enjoyed this book!

I loved the premise of this novel - how would people from the past including the civil war, first world war and search for the North West Passage cope if they were brought to live or in a nearish future dystopian Britain by a not particularly reliable future government? The novel is mostly narrated through the eyes of one of the handlers (civil servants) brought in to explain, monitor and report back on the integration of her charge "1847". Both of them are damaged by their very different life experiences and whose relationship is the most intriguing plot of the many running this novel. I was less engaged ( and convinced) by the parallel thriller element and the final reveal but would definitely recommend this novel and I can't wait to see what the author writes next.

Thank you Netgalley and The publisher for this eARC!

DNF@20

I was super excited about this book! It had an intriguing and unique premise that I was ready to dive into. But I just don’t think it was quite for me. The writing wasn’t my favorite and it just felt a little clunky and slow. I would definitely want to try and read it again when it comes out. But for right now I think I’m gonna put it down!

Wow this book was so much fun!! If this isn't one of the most hyped books of 2024 I'll frankly be gobsmacked!

A genre bending mash up of sci-fi, romance, comedy and spy thriller. It's complex but fun. The world building is fabulous and once you are sucked in, it's hard to put this book down.

The writing is sensational but at times felt a bit heavy with some very advanced vocabulary that lost me at times.

The humor was balanced by themes such as racism and mental health that the author tackles head on.

Overall I think this was a very smart, original and fun story that shouldn't be overlooked. This book has a little bit of something for everyone!

DNF at 54%

The premise of this book sounded amazing and I was very excited to read it but I quickly realized it isn’t for me. The writing style is very strange. It’s a mix of classic literature and modern syntax with a lot of millennial type humor that was so difficult to get though. The characterizations and the plot didn’t progress they just happened. Like we only got a day of something and then the next chapter is just “it’s now the next month.” And even then nothing happened. It is mostly interactions between the two main characters or between them and the other time travelers. And it’s so incredibly boring. To me. I truly had no idea what was going on most of the time.

I was hoping for this to be more spy heavy but we only got some foreshadowing at 30% and 40% and between that nothing happened. I can tell from other reviews things pick up at the end of the book but that’s not what I like. Just so difficult to get though because of the writing style and because not enough plot progression was happening. I would be interested in reading another book with this premise but I did not enjoy this particular book. If you enjoy wacky stories that have unique characters just vibing for at least 50% of the book you may like this.

While an interesting read there are much better time travel books out there. This one took a while to get into and a while to finish. But because it’s time to travel I had to finish. The subplots didn’t quite mesh with the main plot in a cohesive fashion.

While I thought the premise was interesting, I felt the narration was confusing and kept me from being fully invested. Unfortunately the formatting was distracting and prevented me from understanding the story more fully. I had to DNF at 20% because I was confused and realized I still didn’t know the main characters name. The cover however is stunning and I hope the book gets a better edit before release.

Overall, I enjoyed the book; but it took a bit to get invested. The time travel concept was unique or at least I haven't read about pulling people from the past into our current time line. The concept of a Ministry for Time was protrayed in a way that was believable. People from different walks of life working in the Ministry being tasked with helping those time travelers to adjust to life in modern day. Beyond the initial time travel concept, the ending of the story was also very good. I like it when authors make me stop and think about what I just read and how it can change my life.

The downside to this book, is that it jumped back and forth in perspectives confusing me at times. We would be in the story and then the main character would start talking directly to the readers. I think more needs to be done to show when a perspective change occurs. I was reading an ebook, so maybe the change will be more noticeable in the paperback. Finally, I felt like the open door romance took away from the story. It felt like it was just checking a box for what is needed in today's novels. Spicy romance check. I think the romance should have been portrayed in a more subtle way, more in line with the personalities of the characters.

First off, this book impressed itself onto me on so many levels, and its ending left me at once hopeful and bereft, in a state of acute nostalgia. This review will not do the book justice, so you’d better read it yourself.

In the near future, time travel is discovered in the UK. Governing bodies are still working out the kinks around use and management, which leads to the creation of a new ministry, the Ministry of Time.
Our narrator (never formally named, but for the sake of ease, I will refer to as “Cat”) interviews with Vice Secretary of Expatriation, Adela, who briefs Cat on the work. The Ministry pulls people who would have died of specific, known causes in their time to the future, saving them from their fate and providing much-needed fodder for time-travel study effects on the human body, specifically to prove or disprove scientific theories. The Ministry’s reasons that the expatriated person, or “expat”, would’ve died anyway, so the harm is deemed net-zero. Once a year is up, and the expat has not only survived but thrived, the expat can expect to join society without further assistance from the Bridge, or handler, the person whose job it is to help the expat assimilate and report findings and concerns back to the Ministry. It’s all terribly exciting, and Cat takes the job.

Five travelers successfully arrive through the time door and undergo psychological evaluation and introductory repatriation (“ground-zero orientation”) to the modern world before they are released to their Bridges. Cat meets her charge, Commander Graham Gore, who was taken from the doomed arctic Franklin Expedition in 1847. We know that Cat has undergone rigorous training to be a Bridge; she’s also had access to all known historical data around Commander Gore. We also see that below the surface, Cat has a crush on her charge.

Cat’s narrative of their year is a memoir. The reader is exposed to the hilarious juxtaposition of time travelers reacting to and interacting with the modern era. Hero worship turns into a historical-fiction-loving girl’s hot fantasy when our man’s man decides it’s time to don motorcycle leathers: we who sit in the bleachers react the same way Cat does, blushing with desire, sighing and fanning our faces.

The reader is also exposed to extraordinary ethical challenges. While Cat is obsessing over Commander Gore, shit is going down. The time travel bit is used as a means to underline, to reopen commentary on imperialism, racism past and present, and human bonds. Noteworthy example #1: Our narrator refers to the acquisition of the time travel device as par for the course for a society built on Empire: finders, keepers. Noteworthy example #2: expats are lab rats, so what makes this project different from MK-Ultra? Noteworthy example #3: Expat Arthur struggles with understanding gender roles – even as modern society claims gender equality, why aren’t there more male caregivers? Last one: because it’s a first-person narrative, the reader gets a lot of reflection on what it means to be a marginalized person condoning experimentation on marginalized people “for the sake of humanity”. Simellia, one of the few Black people on staff, and a psychotherapist to boot, has a hard time in this role–what seems to be devolving into an accessory to a crime against humanity.

In other words, it’s complex. Ultimately, the novel’s quiet strength is that it’s a lesson in love. By reflecting on her part in the story, Cat learns to value forgiveness and embrace hope.

One of the reasons I love this book so much is because Bradley practices an economy of language I don’t encounter enough in modern writing. It’s graceful, tactful, and rich. I underlined extensively. My sincere thanks.

Thank you, Avid Reader Press, Simon & Schuster, and NetGalley, for granting me a copy of this book for review. Any opinions are my own; I’m not receiving any kind of douceur for my write-up.

I really enjoyed this book and the time travel story it laid out. The narrator gets a position with Britain's Ministry of Time and is involved with a project of bringing a group of people from different earlier time periods to the present time. She acts as a 'bridge' to one—Graham Gore—an arctic explorer. There are some twists and turns here and it ends up a part love story, part spy thriller that was very enjoyable!

There's a lot of historical details and humor in this book, like (imho) the best time travel novels. Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC. A solid 4.25 stars!

I loved this one! It reminded me of Connie Willis (which is the highest praise). I always enjoy SF books with an unrelated obsession at the core, in this case, The Franklin Expedition. If you like Connie Willis, This Is How You Lose the Time War, or the movie Kate and Leopold, then you should read this book.

Ministry of Time

I think the time travel aspect and the idea of an expatriation department was interesting. The humor was good and thought was given to the fantasy elements.

I didn't appreciate the author's note in the beginning, stating how they saw a daguerreotype of Graham Gore and basically developed a crush. This detail interfered with how I perceived the main character and her attraction to a dead guy who had no idea how to be in the present century. Given the narrator's job of being a "bridge" to help Gore navigate the 21st century, it felt on the creepier side of inappropriate.

This was also badly formatted for e-reader, so it was hard to fully enjoy the prosy writing.