This one made a lot of (early) end-of-year lists, and was recommended to me by a coworker, and (above all) just looked really up my alley. Science fiction and romance and spy thriller and workplace comedy all mashed together?! Yes, please. I am always here for a genre-bending read. 

 

In London, in the near future, a government worker gets a top secret job. She'll be working as a "bridge," essentially a guide/caseworker for an "expat" newly arrived from a historical time. Time travel has just been...found...and the Ministry of Time is trying to figure out whether it's actually possible (both physically, for the body, and metaphysically, for the fabric of space-time). Our (unnamed) narrator's assignee is Graham Gore, brought to the future from 1847, one of the members of Sir John Franklin's ill-fated (everyone died, of starvation and exposure, and there was probably cannibalism involved) 1845 Arctic exploration team. As the two spend all their time together, with Graham adjusting to all aspects of modern life (household appliances, streaming music, world wars, etc.), our MC finds herself falling for his self-assured and suave ways. And they both make friends with the cast of (mostly) charming and uniquely-voiced fellow "expats" and their bridges. When the full scope of the Ministry's time travel project/plans start coming to light, our MC, Graham, and the other expats/bridges find their lives in danger, with threats of moles, spies and conspiracies coming at them from (from within the Ministry) across time. 

 

This definitely delivered on the genre mix-match in the blurb. The time travel aspects were some hardcore scifi...to the extent that as a few points, I did my normal "zone out and just go with it" on the details because I was super into the plot but didn't care as much about the specifics of how it was working. Personal preference. But do know that, if you are someone that does care about those details, you may have to pay some very real attention. The romance piece was slowwwwww burn and I was here for it. Such a fantastic build in connection, the heat was hot, and, when the betrayal hit as part of the plot (spoiler-ish, but also the foreshadowing throughout was strong, so it's not really a surprise), it was just right. PLus, an ending of promise and distant, but possible, hope. Yes, yes. The tension build and spy thriller pieces also had a slower build (which I was ready for, when it hit, but glad for the delay on, because it allowed for a great depth of character build prior to its introduction), and came on strong at the end. To be honest, this was perhaps the most uneven part. There were a few hints that were dropped or that the MC figured out, that were so vaguely addressed/explained, that I didn't quite catch them. It all came together in the end, but it was the weakest written part, IMO. 

 

I have a ton of other things I want to say. Because, despite some of the confusing/less clear things, I really liked this book. First of all, I was captivated by the narrative as the MC and Gore’s relationship grows. Even though nothing really happens, for a long time, it was so compelling. And I mean, I have read my fair share of time travel (like Kindred and Outlander), but this is such a theoretical/philosophical perspective of it. Really thoughtful. Relatedly, the insights into humanity, with some moral and scientific musings (reminiscent of Real Americans, a bit), and cultural and social critique added a lot of depth to the story, but all of it is delivered with a dryly humorous edge (like an older Victorian or classic lit vibe, Austen-esque, which also fits the vibes of the expat characters well). 

 

Speaking of the expats, the character development, relationally and internally, was just fantastic. Each expat's voice was so unique. There was such emotional depth across such a range of experiences. And the diversity of takes on the ways people might adjust across time, based on changes in gender and racial and sexuality equality and how it’s different nowadays than in previous eras, plus what jobs/roles they had and how those equate to existences in the present day (what skills/identities are useful/transferable and what makes people feel obsolete) was so fully explored. As far as the bridges, there was an interesting moral dilemma...as part of their job was to track and report on the expats, yet (especially with our narrator) the emotional connections (and hints about more nefarious purposes for the work) were in opposition to the job requirements. So, how do you navigate that? What’s for a person's safety and what is a transgression? Just really, character development was a hugeeee highlight for me. 

 

I also appreciated some of the heavier thematic pieces. This look at refugee reality, through a sci-fi out-of-time look, is so original, but still has the familiar, clear and present (but not overhanded) truth of the parallels with the geographical version of refugees as we understand them. Similarly, what a fascinating exploration of the interplay of racial understanding and political correctness now versus in history. I always appreciate when an author can take a step back from something so recognizable, everyday, "normal," as see/describe it as an outsider would. Bradley does so in a spellbinding way (the Austen-esque vibes of the social writing hit well here too). And, the questions: Do we hope/work for change for the future or despair? And what route do we take to achieve whichever end we want? They hit pretty hard at the end.       

 

Finally, I loved the focus on the small people, the relationships that history forgets or doesn’t care about, the way that their stories can be altered, be made better...because the larger story of history will not change even if they get their happier endings, because history is written by those with power, who will continue to not care about those individuals and their loves and lives. Those small people are us and we see ourselves in them. What a message, what feelings for the reader. 

 

Phew, this was some real mind bending conceptualization of time travel, wrapped in a spy thriller, slow burn romance, character development piece.  What scope. What an undertaking. I’m so impressed it was all that and a page-turner. 

 

“I’d sat with the term "internally displaced person" until I'd broken it down semantically. I was wrestling with a ghost meaning: a person whose interiority was at odds with their exteriority, who was internally (in themselves) displaced.” 

 

“One of the many hypotheses coagulating in these early days of time-travel was that language informed experience - that we did not simply describe but create our world through language..." 

 

“History is not a series of causes and effects which may be changed like switching trains on a track. It is a narrative agreement about what has happened and what is happening. [...] History is what we need to happen. You talk about changing history, but you're trying to change the future. It's an important semantic differentiation in this field.” 

 

“Ah, love, life’s greatest catastrophe.” 

 

“This was one of my first lessons in how you make the future: moment by moment, you seal the doors of possibility behind you.” 

 

“It was so hard not to treat the expats like blank slates onto which I might write my opinions. […] There was something hauntingly young about all of them, a scarcity of cultural context that felt teenaged, and I didn’t know if my fascination with it was maternal or predatory.” 

 

“Her reasons were bad, half-veiled. Then again, whose upper management am I not describing? Who trusts their workplace? Who thinks their job is on the side of right? They fed us all poison from a bottle marked “prestige,” and we developed a high tolerance for bitterness.” 

 

***“You can’t trauma-proof life, and you can’t hurt-proof your relationships. You have to accept you will cause harm to yourself and others. But you can also fuck up, really badly, and not learn anything from it except that you fucked up. It’s the same with oppression. You don’t gain any special knowledge from being marginalized. But you do gain something from stepping outside your hurt and examining the scaffolding of your oppression.” 

 

“People liked him and so they imagined that he agreed with them - all likable people know how to be a flattering mirror…” 

 

“What was it like growing up with that? […] I don’t know […] What was it like growing up without it?” (so much exploration of the concept of how can we possibly, ever, understand/conceptualize another’s experiences) 

 

“Everything that has ever been could have been prevented, and none of it was. The only thing you can mend is the future.” (I mean, hot damn, this is hitting so hard.) 

 

“…after all, the things that happen between lovers are lost to the work of history anyway.” 

 

“I had always thought of joy as a shouting…know what to do.” 

 

“When something changes you constitutionally, you say: ‘The earth moved.’ But the earth stays the same. It’s your relationship with the ground that shifts.” 

 

“I don’t mean to sound pessimistic. I only do because I can see how wrong my choices were. Don’t do it like this. Don’t enter believing yourself a node in a grand undertaking, that your past and your trauma will define your future, that individuals don’t matter. The most radical thing I ever did was love him, and I wasn’t even the first person in this story to do that. But you can get it right, if you try. You will have hope, and you have been forgiven. Forgiveness, which takes you back to the person you were and lets you reset them. Hope, which exists in a future in which you are new. Forgiveness and hope are miracles. They let you change your life. They are time-travel.”