“The Ministry of Time” is not like other romance novels. It’s more of a mashup: science fiction time travel meets spy novel lite with some history, romance and a dash of spice.
The protagonist is an unnamed young woman eager to rise through the ranks of the UK Home Office. After six rounds of interviews and pointed questions about her mother’s experience as a Cambodian immigrant, she’s assigned to the Ministry as a “bridge” — a person who helps assimilate time-traveling “expats” the British government have extracted from historical time periods. Having developed the means to travel through time (but not the understanding of how it works nor how it affects the people traveling), the Ministry has fashioned an elaborate experiment to observe the expats and catch them up on what life is like in the 21st century.
The narrator is a millennial and technologically savvy, socially awkward, politically naive, and unable to maintain a professional relationship with her new housemate, Commander Graham Gore of the doomed 1847 Franklin Expedition to the Arctic. Graham may be completely bewildered by modern mores and the whole circumstances of his extraction to modern London, but he possesses unlimited charm and alluring dimples. They bond over cigarettes and music, get-togethers with the other expats, and bicycle rides.
Graham maintains an even disposition at all times, taking his MRI scans and tests at the Ministry in stride even as he battles bleak and terrifying memories of his Arctic experience. Though unversed in how to woo a liberated woman, he teaches himself Southeast Asian cookery to feed his “little cat” until slowly she realizes that in his stilted, formal way he is as obsessed with her as she is with him.
That’s when the plot kicks up a notch. Our narrator’s supervisor, Quentin, goes AWOL, then sends her a cryptic message. A mysterious duo, The Brigadier and his sidekick, turn up at unexpected moments. Shots are fired. There’s a mole at the Ministry. Is the Ministry’s work on the level? Our heroine is slow to cotton on, unsure of who to trust and how to separate her feelings for Graham from the work she has been assigned to do.
If you are literal-minded or fixated on the scientific possibility of time travel, this book is not for you. The mechanics of movement through time are only vaguely referenced and do not hold up under close scrutiny. As our narrator explains, “I exist at the beginning and end of this account simultaneously, which is a kind of time-travel, and I’m here to tell you: don’t worry about it.”
If you adore spy novels, understand the intricate workings of MI-6 or can track the elaborate plots of “The Day of the Jackal,” “Slow Horses” or “The Diplomat” with ease, “The Ministry of Time” may also not be your cup of tea. The political intrigue is just not as fleshed out as it is in other novels and shows.
However, if you loved “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” this will be more up your alley. The budding relationship between the 20-something narrator and 30-year-old Graham is awkward and complicated and angsty, their friendships with the other expats are humorous and genuine, and there are some splashes of insight about love and belonging. As our heroine notes, “Forgiveness and hope are miracles. They let you change your life. They are time-travel.”
Christine Perkins is executive director of the Whatcom County Library System, wcls.org.
