Fun story: this book is massively backlogged at all my many libraries, but lo and behold it was just…sitting on the shelf at one of the local libraries that’s in consortium with my actual local (well, parent’s local) library. For some context, the library that had it is adjacent to another district that is much better funded with better schools, etc, which is a roundabout way of saying that I felt a bit like I should check there more often for books I’m searching for.
This is a funny book, made more so because I of course now live in London and have lots of context for things like how the civil service operates, their unions, random bits of British slang, etc. Our nameless MC is a British-Cambodian civil servant brought into a top secret project wherein definitely dead former British citizens are brought forward through time to become ‘time expats’ studied by the government for purposes unknown. She’s assigned Commander Graham Gore, a real person with a pretty slim historical record, who perished during a complete failure of an Arctic mission in the late 1800s.
This is best described as a genre mismash, and anyone looking for a singular scifi/romance/thriller novel will inevitably be disappointed. There’s just enough of each of these elements to make the book come together as a whole–a bit of an Impressionist painting of a novel, we could say, wherein the time travel doesn’t really make sense (does it ever), the romance is there but not the focal point, and the spy vs spy thriller elements are so obvious that we’re not at all surprised that the British government! is up to no good?? and perhaps taking resources from others to enrich themselves?!?!?!
If I’m being honest the humor in the novel was good but insufficient for me–I wanted more bits of humor, and a little less navel gazing from our (self insert??) protagonist. She spent a lot of time being uncertain and following orders and trusting anyone she came across in a way that was mildly annoying, but not enough so to take away from my enjoyment of this book.