The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley - Book Review

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 The Ministry of Time is described as hard to put in one genre, which sounds like my kind of book. I'm going in with an entirely open mind and high expectations. Let's dive in together. 



This book follows a woman working for a time travel ministry, where they've taken people who would've died anyway and they've taken them through time to see what actually happens to them in the process. It is an unethical experiment, but they do it anyway, because if the people die in the process history is not changed. Our main character is paired with a man who would've died in the Arctic, unrescued. Her job is to both monitor him and orient him to his new reality. It is a forced proximity situation, a scifi romance if you will. It is about 25 percent romance and 75 percent thriller. 


The Review

Our main guy, Commander Graham Gore is witty, confused, and makes jokes every once in a while. He doesn't like the world he's now in because too many people are crammed into London. The main woman is trying to explain how the new world works - slowly, while dealing with the fact her "expat" is extremely overwhelmed by everything, having been practically kidnapped in order to be here at all. They develop a romance, as you can guess, and it gets complicated. Secrets don't make friends, or help romances bloom. 

This book reminds me of Where The Crawdads Sing because it is an unreliable narrator who's morally gray. Both books have cryptic comments and stories woven in. These are things that make you sit up and notice that your narrator might not be telling you everything. This turns out to be true. The ending is a bombshell of an ending. Crap has hit the fan and every single thing has gone sideways. Somehow it still has a weirdly wholesome, open-ended romance ending. No details. Read it yourself. 

I found it interesting that our main woman is more or less drowning emotionally. She had a lot of trouble with relationships. She's not okay, even at the beginning. She's a bit morally gray from the start. It becomes clearer that she messed something up majorly as the story goes on, and has struggled to fix it. Only she can't. By the time all of the things go sideways the romance is dying, but by the end she is going to meet him in another state. 


Conclusion

Fives stars, so memorable I can't immediately start another book. I have to process all this. When things went nuts, they went nuts. I'm fairly certain our main romance made it to fruition, but they do leave it open-ended, so think what you want. 


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Morrow is released! This novella is the story of two women writing a family history for the Morrow family. They find a nasty secret while researching. Will they survive their internship? 

Sign up for my newsletter at this link to get a free first chapter. All you need to plug in is your email. You'll also get a free first chapter of Wrenville, my first novel. 

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