Quick Synopsis

A time travel romance, a spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all: Welcome to The Ministry of Time, the exhilarating debut novel by Kaliane Bradley.

Publisher’s Synopsis

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats” from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.

She is tasked with working as a “bridge”: living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as “1847” or Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calves, surrounded by outlandish concepts such as “washing machines,” “Spotify,” and “the collapse of the British Empire.” But with an appetite for discovery, a seven-a-day cigarette habit, and the support of a charming and chaotic cast of fellow expats, he soon adjusts.

Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic, evolves into something much deeper. By the time the true shape of the Ministry’s project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined. Forced to confront the choices that brought them together, the bridge must finally reckon with how—and whether she believes—what she does next can change the future.

An exquisitely original and feverishly fun fusion of genres and ideas, The Ministry of Time asks: What does it mean to defy history, when history is living in your house? Kaliane Bradley’s answer is a blazing, unforgettable testament to what we owe each other in a changing world.

Book Review

The Ministry of Time is a debut novel that follows an unnamed protagonist as she takes a job as a “bridge” to a time-traveling expatriate as part of a British government project. She is tasked with living with and assisting Lt. Graham Gore, taken from 1847 just prior to his death, in assimilating to the 21st century. Over the course of 1 year, she comes to know Gore… and falls for the tender-hearted, charming Victorian polar explorer.

The Ministry of Time is a humorous, moving story that Bradley first wrote for her friends during the pandemic. After seeing Graham Gore’s daguerreotype, she channeled her lust for the polar explorer into a unique take on fan fiction. From reading the gleeful novel, it is apparent that Bradley had a lot of fun writing the story, making it a pleasure to read.

Bradley strikes a unique note with The Ministry of Time; it is part speculative fiction, part science fiction meets rom-com and historical thriller. Sometimes combining a few too many things can lead to chaos in the worst way. However, the chaos Bradley crafts is both delightful and gripping. The idiomatic storyline is a new take on time travel with the most unusual of characters. The narrative is self-aware and self-deprecating as it cleverly addresses old, tired time travel tropes with humor and imagination. The only bit I found not as well done was the ending. For a novel that generally took its time exploring nuance and developing, the ending felt rushed in a manner that left things jumbled. I felt additional explanation was needed so that readers can easily follow the complicated nature of time travel. And for this, I deducted half of a star.

In reading The Ministry of Time, I loved the thought exercise of how historical figures from the 16th through 19th centuries would acclimate to the near future. In crafting this narrative, Bradley offers commentary on colonialism, the diaspora/displacement created by imperialism, inherited trauma, and how the dominate historical narrative controls the present. She manages to seamlessly weave in this commentary without it ever feeling preachy or extraneous to the story.

One of my favorite parts of The Ministry of Time is the characters. I adored the “expats” and their distinctive personalities. From the curmudgeonly to the humorous, the expats breathed life and adventure into the story. Each was well-developed based upon the actual historical figures in a jolly, yet believable manner.

However, the writing is the reason I could not rate The Ministry of Time the 4.5 or 5 stars the story deserves. You could argue it is the editing that is problematic; but either way, I was extremely frustrated by some of the text’s peculiarities. There are points in the book where things are not explicitly stated and readers are supposed to know what was implied… well, I did not nor did I think it was clear. The biggest issue for me was Bradley’s inflated diction. In addition to needing to look up words that fell out of fashion in the last 100-300 years, the addition of Bradley’s unnecessarily extensive vocabulary meant that I stopped reading at least every other page to look up a word. And that is an exhausting way to read an otherwise great book. Fortunately, the grandiloquence did not completely overshadow the storyline, but it made it a much less pleasing reading experience. (Please note that I read an advance copy and some changes may have been made to the text prior to publication.)

Overall, The Ministry of Time is a fun yet heartbreaking novel that draws a parallel between the expatriation from a place or a homeland and the expatriation from time. Apart from the frustration of Bradley’s overinflated vocabulary, it is a delight, albeit not for everyone. I highly recommend this book so long as you go into with few set expectations.

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