Time travel plot lines are always a bit dicey. It is easy for an author to get caught up in the ‘how” and the rules of time travel and the plot line can stay focused on those things rather than developing characters or in getting a sense of the disorientation and confusion time travel must engender. Bradley avoids those pitfalls magnificently and gives a story that has soul, characters that are compelling and a plot line that is full of romance, mystery and betrayal.

Sometime in the future, a British civil servant is offered a dream salary to work on a special project. Once she is hired she finds out that a special government ministry is testing the feasibility of time travel. As part of that program they are gathering various “expats” from different times and she and a few others have been hired to be “bridges” to help orient, supervise, and assist these individuals in acclimating to their new time.

She finds that she will be the bridge for expat 1847, also know as Commander Graham Gore, who was a part of the Sir John Franklin’s doomed Arctic expedition. Disoriented to say the least, Commander Gore, a product of strict Victorian values and a believer in the British Empire, finds himself living with a woman who is not his wife who periodically shows her legs in clothing that comes above her knees! If that is not enough he now learns that he is living in the aftermath of the ‘collapse of the British Empire.” The bridge must also show him how to cope with a new world of technology like washing machines, vacuums and Spotify. But Commander Gore is an explorer and is more than up to the task of learning how to cope in this new world.

The bridge, on the other hand, is having trouble keeping her sense of detachment as she monitors her charge. What she imagined as being a rather uncomfortable rooming relationship gradually shifts into something more nuanced and deeper and she finds that she is being helped just as much as she is helping. As the projects’ purpose begins to come into sharper focus, the bridge is forced to confront her feelings and must decide whether she believes that she can change the future in order to save herself and Commander Gore.

Bradley has written a compelling and fascinating book, filled with interesting explorations of different times and different values. Her larger questions about history, change and its consequences are challenging, while at the same time reminding us of what we each owe each other as we face into those changes.

Brenda’s Rating: *****(5 Out of 5 Stars)

Recommend this book to: Sharon, Marian, Lauren, Ken and Keith

Book Study Worthy? Yes

Read in e-library format.