My favorite book by Kate Atkinson was “A God in Ruins” ….I just loved it. “Life After Life” drove me batty…(most everyone in my local book club loved it) — but me — I couldn’t wait for the main protagonist to die….for finally the last time! I warn you: this one takes a while to get going. Which is not such a surprise once you realize there are approximately 15 main characters. There's at least 5 plots, probably more like 8 or 10, which sounds unmanageable but it's surprisingly breezy. Reading it felt a lot like an extremely well plotted prestige tv series, where you spend the first two episodes planting a lot of seeds and learning who everyone is, then you get to just watch it go from there. Atkinson]takes on London in the 1920s, masterfully capturing both its shimmer and its seediness…It’s a deliciously fun, absorbing read.” Atkinson on her finest form. A marvel of plate-spinning narrative knowhow, a peak performance of consummate control. ' OBSERVER The storyline is entertaining. I gave up trying to figure out where Atkinson was taking me (I should know better by now) and just went along for the ride. And what a ride! Several things about the ending surprised me, but perhaps shouldn't have. Not everything is neatly tied up at the end and Atkinson makes it quite clear that she has done this deliberately.

Shrines of Gaiety By Kate Atkinson | Used | 9781804991053 Shrines of Gaiety By Kate Atkinson | Used | 9781804991053

Kate Atkinson is simply one of the best writers working today, anywhere in the world' GILLIAN FLYNN Years ago, her husband had gambled all the family money away, so Nellie had taken her four children and joined forces with a disreputable man called Jaeger, who had been running ‘tango teas’ during the war, but by 1918, people were ready to really party. This book is one to savour, for the energy, for the wit, for the tenderness of characterisation that make Atkinson enduringly popular. GUARDIAN

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His real passions were esoteric, as a little interest to the common man or his colleagues in Bow Street, certainly not to his wife—the Berlin Treaty between Germany and the Soviets (how could that end well?) or a demonstration of a ’televisor’ to the Royal Society by a chap called Baird (like something from a H. G. Wells novel). He had an enquiring mind. It was a curse. Even sometimes for a detective”. In this fizzy, sprawling picaresque — filigreedwith outsize characters and the improbable coincidencesof a Victorian serial — the novelist imaginesa former combat nurse looking for a missinggirl in a London that’s shaking off World War I.” Whilst not containing a maternal bone in her body, Nellie will do whatever she can to ensure the survival and elevation of her 6 children. There is the war hardened sniper and his own man, Niven, the reliable book keeper Edith, the Cambridge educated if vacuous, Betty and Shirley, expected to marry into the aristocracy, the unrooted Ramsay with his pretensions of being a novelist, and the young Kitty. Upon being released from a stint in Holloway Prison, Nellie is the toast of the town, but some sense weakness, making plans to grab her business empire, willing to do anything to hasten her downfall, others pose a danger to her family, and some threats come from within. But Nellie is no pushover, she might be getting older, but she has not lost her guile and cunning. The honest DCI John Frobisher wants to ensure Ma Coker faces justice, and recruits an unlikely spy, a provincial librarian and ex-battlefield nurse, Gwendolen Kelling, with her charismatic spirit of adventure, to help him. She is in London to finally live a life, and to find the runaway girls, Freda, chasing her pipe dreams of dancing and fame, and her naive and more innocent friend, Florence.

Shrines of Gaiety: From the global No.1 bestselling author of Shrines of Gaiety: From the global No.1 bestselling author of

There are so many great characters in this book and it does take a while to meet them all and to really become involved, but once you are it is exactly what we expect from this author - brilliant! I cannot decide which character I liked the best. Niven, Nellie's oldest son, is intriguing. He appears just when he is needed, drives the ultimate car (for that time) and goes everywhere with his Alsatian dog. DCI John Frobisher is very likeable, so well meaning but a little too reserved. Gwendolen is excellent,and I loved watching her take on the world, as does Freda in a different way. And those are just a few. There are many, many more. MY THOUGHTS: It took me some time to become engaged in his book - purely a reflection of me and my state of mind, not Kate Atkinson's writing, I have come to realise. Atkinson captures both the glamour and the seediness of this heady period with consummate skill in a book teeming with memorable characters. Gorgeously vivid, often strange and always very funny, it should cement her reputation as one of our finest novelists. Jake Kerridge, SUNDAY EXPRESS Sharp, witty and fiendishly plotted ... you don't so much as read it as surrender to it FINANCIAL TIMES, 'Best books of 2022' As with many Atkinson novels, there are small elements of magical realism which add to the colour and atmosphere but which don’t detract from the main story. Around the Coker empire, and its police ‘associates’, clients, and suppliers, is a broad cast of characters ranging from young girls seeking their fortune in London to Distressed Gentlewomen living in a boarding house.We see how run down everyone is after the war, while most of the characters didn't serve at the Front, the ones left behind still feel the pain of it. And we see how the clubs bring a gaiety and a release after so much grief. I love Kate Atkinson. I have listened or read most of her books and she is a favorite. Yet of all her books this is my least favorite. I did get the audio from my library quite soon after its release and was anxious to enjoy it. So I started it right away and boy was it slow going. I never could engage with the characters or get really interested in the underlying mystery to be solved.

Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson | Waterstones Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson | Waterstones

THE AUTHOR: Kate Atkinson was born in York and now lives in Edinburgh. Her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and she has been a critically acclaimed international bestselling author ever since. The characterisation is exceptional. There are a lot of characters but in this author’s capable hands it matters not a jot as with a few deft strokes they are visible. I love Gwendolen, she’s one smart cookie as is Ma as you find you have no choice but to admire her guile and manifold abilities. You have to get up very early in the morning to catch her out and even then she’s probably two jumps ahead of you!! What a woman!!! of what I read in Shrines was useless to the plot. Many of the (parenthesis) was an “explanation” to the reader of what was previous stated with obvious intention. I don’t need an aside to explain why words were designated with a Capital Letter (the Knits anyone?). Maddox (promoted to inspector after the war), was in collision with Nellie Coker, He protected her from the law, but wasn’t sure what else he benefited from. This is a well-crafted combination of history and fiction, which begins in London in 1926 with the release from prison of Nellie Coker. Nellie is the well-known owner of infamous night clubs and the single mother of six adult children. There are many characters and intersecting story lines, which flow seamlessly.Frobisher (lived in Ealing-but prefer the police station to his Ealing terrace), had a fixation on the Cokers, particularly Nellie. But Bruce Katz (Goodreads great guy) is absolutely right —this book is certainly more like “A God in Ruins” than “Life After Life”….. At the heart of this glittering world is notorious Nellie Coker, ruthless but also ambitious to advance her six children, including the enigmatic eldest, Niven whose character has been forged in the crucible of the Somme. But success breeds enemies, and Nellie's empire faces threats from without and within. For beneath the dazzle of Soho's gaiety, there is a dark underbelly, a world in which it is all too easy to become lost. The novel grabs the reader from the outset. It paints a picture of the capital's glittering nightlife and its seedier underside so vivid, that it is almost possible to smell the stale cigarette smoke and taste the alcohol... the story of Nellie and her family, and the characters they associate with, builds to a satisfying ending as the strands of their lives are deftly woven together. INDEPENDENT

Shrines of Gaiety: A Novel by Kate Atkinson, Paperback Shrines of Gaiety: A Novel by Kate Atkinson, Paperback

In a country still recovering from the Great War, London is the focus for a delirious nightlife. In Soho clubs, peers of the realm rub shoulders with starlets, foreign dignitaries with gangsters, and girls sell dances for a shilling a time. Shrines of Gaiety is a witty romp of a novel that takes place in the dark underbelly of London during the Roaring 20s.

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Shrines of Gaiety" biggest problem is its characters. They're.. dull, would you believe? Most of them seem irrelevant to the story (I'm looking at you, Florence. Seriously, what was her purpose? It seemed like she was just there for the sake of being included in the story, but her impact on the story in nonexistent), and are not relatable. Freda and Gwendolen are the only characters who manage to elicit some emotion from the reader, while all the others seem superficial and lifeless. The plot also is a slow-burner, which on the one hand is quite understandable, as you have a huge cast of characters to contend with, so it takes time for the story to get going. It gets somewhat interesting as the you move along, with some great instances of humor and even some suspense, but for the most part, it's just boring and gets too long to get the point. Also, it was hard to even hate Maddox or Azzopardi, as they both aren't developed enough are just bland "Bad Guys". All of the characters are multilayered and unique. Gwendolen was my favorite, but I could have used more chapters from ruthless Ma Coker’s POV. It isn’t often that one reads the portrayal of a female gangster in the 1920s. True, the panoptic style trades mystery for buoyancy, yet who needs suspense when Atkinson can fell a key character with nothing but a careless step into a busy road? A stirring climax redeems the novel’s more nightmarish developments by giving centre stage to a vengeful act of solidarity by the real-life, all-female gang the Forty Thieves. Wish fulfilment, maybe, yet so deeply has Atkinson drunk from the history of the period (as an afterword attests) that you’re ready to give her the benefit of the doubt; either way, you’re left grateful for the gear change, even as the longed-for justice of girl power only serves to pave the way for the rougher justice of state power at its most lethal. The wonder – as the noose tightens – is the suppleness that enables Atkinson to segue from scenes of pitch-dark horror to a brisk “what everyone did next” coda without sugar-coating the tale’s bitter kernel: it’s a peak performance of consummate control. There is the perfect balance throughout of sweetness and heartbreak.And, as always, there is the unmistakable zest of Ms. Atkinson’s dry wit…Ms. Atkinson has perfected the comicwizardry that keeps us both airborne and immersed in her mosaic-like narratives.” Crime never sleeps — it was quite easy to be killed on the streets of London either by accident or design”.