The Ministry Of Time by Kaliane Bradley

Book Review Feb 12, 2025

My review

4/5 stars

A civil servant is offered a new job working in the Ministry of Time department. Her job is to live with an 'ex-pat' for a year and help them acclimatise to a new culture - that 'ex-pat' has been plucked from 1845 and bought to live in modern-day England as an experiment, along with 4 others from other time-periods.

This is not the type of book I would normally go for, as it leans far more heavily into sci-fi than normally holds my attention, but I'd seen so many positive reviews for this book that I was intrigued enough to give it a go. I was pleasantly surprised - the concept was very easy to wrap my head around (something I normally struggle with in sci-fi stories) and the writing style was very inviting.

It was a slow starter, with a lot of world-building happening at a very leisurely pace, to the point where I wondered whether or not I was going to keep reading. BUT... the characters started to really draw me in as things progressed. The author focused strongly on developing whole, real, meaningful characters at the heart of this story and it paid off. Graham was, by far and away, my favourite character, but no one felt short-changed in terms of personality or plot.

I found great enjoyment in the exploration of how our modern world would look and feel to someone plucked from a random point in history. The author handled it with a wit and levity that was much-needed in an otherwise deep and challenging story. Seeing the various reactions of the different ex-pats to things like Spotify, movies, living conditions and situations, etc was both hilarious and thought-provoking, and really was my favourite aspect of the book.

I didn't feel invested in the ministry drama for a chunk of the book, as I was much more interested in the characters and their exploration of the modern world, but there was an invisible tipping point somewhere along the line where it caught my attention. The twist-filled, action-packed culmination of all the plot points came speeding out of seemingly nowhere like a freight-train and really captured my imagination. Did it feel a little rushed? Yes. Was I totally on board anyway? Also yes.

I struggled with the open-ended nature of the ending. The author has rolled so many different genres into one story (historical fiction, sci-fi, romance, political thriller, social commentary) that I think it would have been near on impossible to satisfactorily wrap up all those threads in one ending, so I understand why it was left open, but I am someone who likes a solid conclusion so it took something away from the reading experience for me.

An interesting exploration of a different type of story for me, and a fascinating debut from the author.

Book blurb

In the near future, a disaffected civil servant is offered a lucrative job in a mysterious new government ministry gathering 'expats' from across history to test the limits of time-travel.

Her role is to work as a 'bridge': living with, assisting and monitoring the expat known as '1847' - Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin's doomed expedition to the Arctic, so he's a little disoriented to find himself alive and surrounded by outlandish concepts such as 'washing machine', 'Spotify' and 'the collapse of the British Empire'. With an appetite for discovery and a seven-a-day cigarette habit, he soon adjusts; and during a long, sultry summer he and his bridge move from awkwardness to genuine friendship, to something more.

But as the true shape of the project that brought them together begins to emerge, Gore and the bridge are forced to confront their past choices and imagined futures. Can love triumph over the structures and histories that have shaped them? And how do you defy history when history is living in your house?