It's a mystery! It's a love story! It's ... it's ... hmm

        The Ministry of Time, by Kaliane Bradley, is a well-written science fiction novel with well-developed characters and an interesting concept, a concept, however, that tends to get muddled throughout the book. A story that seems to start out like a humorous satire takes turns being an everyday Sci-Fi time travel book, a romance, and a spy story. Some of these elements don’t come as a surprise – it is a Sci-Fi story after all, and you can see the romance coming from a mile away, but what starts as a relatively light-hearted novel takes a few very serious turns, culminating in a very serious ending the reader might not see coming.

            In short, an English government agency, heretofore referred to as, “The Ministry,” has somehow come to master the science of time travel and has decided, for reasons not entirely clear, to “rescue” people from various periods of English history. The “Expats,” as they are known, are assigned a “bridge,” a ministry employee charged with acclimating them to 21st-century life as well as monitoring them for any irregular behavior. If this sounds like a dangerous proposition (Back to the Future taught us that meddling with the past was bad, after all), the ministry is in essence “saving” these people, all of whom died (at least according to history) prior to the ministry taking them to the present. Our narrator (unnamed), seems in many ways out of her element and unqualified to be a bridge; it seems as if she’s practically fallen into the job of taking care of Graham Gore, an expat from 1847.

            The chemistry between Gore and the narrator is charming and well-written. The novel starts out somewhat light-heartedly, leading the reader, at least this reader, to believe that perhaps what we’re reading is Time Travel, Actually, a story with some serious undertones but one that pokes fun at itself when appropriate. Later on, the novel becomes a full-blown mystery and thriller with a couple of surprising twists, some that are kind of cool and one in particular that is just plain unfortunate.

            For my money, the best parts of the story were early on, especially the expats’ reactions to learning certain things about the modern world. Bradley handles these deftly, reminding us 2st-century folks just how good we have it while at the same time, pointing out that perhaps the past wasn’t always as bad as it seems. The expats, the book focuses on Gore, are complete fish out of water, leading to some humorous scenes. What becomes less believable, as the story unfolds, is the gradual acclimation of them into modern society. While their bridges are there to help them do this, they take to things such as motorbikes and Spotify more like people who happened to be in a coma for a decade or so and not snatched through the centuries.

            There is an undercurrent of mystery, even menace to the ministry – they are clearly hiding something and have some ulterior motive for bringing the expats to the modern world, but not enough to foreshadow the confrontations to come. Perhaps I missed something, but the change of tone in the last part of the novel seemed a 180 to me.

            That is not to say that the book is bad; it’s not. It’s actually a good, easy read with some fun moments and a few dark ones. Readers should be aware, however, that if they’re looking for “Happy Ever After,” well, maybe they should try time travel.