The Ministry of Time is a science fiction romance (with distinct thriller tropes on top of that), focusing on an unnamed civil servant working for the titular government agency in a near-future version of London. She is serving as a ‘bridge’ to one of an initial batch of time travellers, who have been ‘rescued’ from various significant points in history at the moment of their historical deaths. Her ‘expat’ (the name the government gives to the travelers, politically chosen in favour of ‘refugees’) is Graham Gore, a ship commander on board Sir John Franklin’s lost expedition to the Arctic in the 1840s.

Bel Canto takes place in the initially plush surroundings of a party held at the residence of the Vice President of an unnamed South American country, in honour of the head of a Japanese corporation, Mr. Hosokawa. The powerful businessman is there to be wooed into a potential investment in the country, and has been tempted to attend a birthday party in his honour by the presence of world-famous opera singer Roxanne Coss, with whom he is (artistically) obsessed.