Reading Skywards – Your Friendly Bookshelf

INFORMATION ABOUT THIS BOOK
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 2024
Format:  Hardcover, Paperback, audiobook, and ebook
Print length ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
Genre:  Literary Fiction

MY PERSONAL OPINION OF “The Ministry of Time” by Kaliane Bradley

I borrowed this book from Libby, after seeing it in Barnes and Noble and reading the premise of the book. I wanted something interesting, different, a mystery, but romantic… and this book seemed promising.

I really liked the beginning of the book, how the whole project was presented, the pace of it all. It was easy to believe the project as presented by the main character (a Bridge).

The plot developed quite quickly, from both the mystery side and the romantic side. I was really hoping the romantic side would fully develop in a love story, and it did, and it was perfect.

My favorite part was the characters, all of which were unique, special, well-developed, and their placement in the story was great. I read that this book is currently being filmed into a TV series and I can’t wait.

I liked the end from the romantic side; however, the “truth of the time traveling project reveal” was not what I expected. I felt like there were holes in the story, but the story needed to end, so there it is…

PREMISE OF THE BOOK AS FOUND IN AMAZON / GOODREADS:

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.

MY RATING: 4.0

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

• The Ministry of Time is her debut novel.