After the end of the Great War, this book focuses on the corrupt underworld of London. A very large and complex group of characters in this book. A witty tale focused around post war socialisation and the corrupt people wanting to take over the lucrative empires. Very corrupt but highly entertaining.

"Crime paid, fighting it didn't."

It's 1926 and Nellie Coker has just been released from Holloway women's prison in London, where she spent time for breaking licencing laws at her five nightclubs. Watching her release among the crowd is Detective Inspector John Frobisher, who is not only determined to see her back behind bars (he suspects her nightclubs of disappearing young girls who later turn up dead), but also wants to clean out the rot among police officers, some of whom are in Nellie's pocket.

Frobisher isn't Nellie's only problem. Some of her six adult children, all of whom are involved in managing the various clubs, are downright fools and might be her undoing. Also knocking at her door is a criminal mastermind who's out for revenge, while one of the officers in her pay is coming for all she's built.

This rip-roaring tale of gangsters, glitz and glamour takes a deep-dive into Jazz Age London, the time of the gaudy and ridiculous Bright Young Things who frequented the clubs and held bizarre parties, the post-WWI age which saw a scarred people cling onto anything that made them forget.

'Shrines of Gaiety' is luminous, providing the reader with lush descriptions befetting the time in which it's set. It's a kind of roman a clef – which – I learnt from the book itself – features fictional characters based on real people. Kate Atkinson based Nellie on another night-life doyenne of the time, while Frobisher also took inspiration from a detective of the time.

I've always loved the Jazz Age and books set during this time of excess and headiness. This book does not disappoint. Nellie is a marvellous character – fun (even though she hates having any herself), complex and totally likeable despite heading a criminal empire. A romp of a read.

Absolutely loved this book. The strong female characters were fantastically written and the atmosphere of the time drew me in straight away. Would definitely recommend.

I have to confess I had a bit of a hard time getting into "Shrines of Gaiety" which has probably something to do with the multiple string of characters and the parallel stories it needs to built up this terrific 450 page plot. The story reminded me in its complexity of Dickens novels,  but once i got into it and the story gathered speed,  I had the best time, particularly during the second half of the book. Set in the 1920ties world of seedy Soho clubs, run by the formidable Nellie Cocker and her more or less capabable six children, it is a fabulous portrait of the underbelly of London after WWI,  the damage it did to a lot of men who found work as policemen or gangsters and the desire it left for entertainment, drugs and diversion amongst the wealthy. A fresh supply of innocent young runaways looking for adventure often end up as hostesses in Nellie's clubs but then a few turn up dead suddenly with corrupt policemen showing little interest to solve their murder. Enter Inspector Frobisher who is installed to take down Nellie and corrupt fellow policemen. A great story of betrayal, seduction, innocence and crime, ended up loving it!

Kate Atkinson is one of my favourite authors, so I was expecting to enjoy Shrines of Gaiety. But it took me a while to settle into this book and for quite a while I wasn’t at all sure that I wanted to carry on reading. But I persevered and finished it, because I wanted to find out what happened.

The novel begins just before the General Strike in May 1926. What I liked about it is that it does give a good idea of life in the 1920s, the atmosphere and attitudes after the First World War. There’s the nightlife, the new nightclubs, gangsters, corrupt police, and missing girls, drugs, drinking, crime and murder. The ‘dark belly’ of Soho’s underworld was very dark indeed and the gaiety superficial.

However, my problem with it was I found it confusing, with several plot lines and lots of characters, in lots of different locations, and at different times, and the narration jumps around between all of them. I had to keep backtracking to work out who was who and how they interacted. It was hard work! And some of it was boring, with quite a lot of padding, making the book as a whole far too long. It’s a sprawling story that could probably have been better spread between two or even three books.

In her Author’s Note Atkinson explains that inspiration for her novel came from the life and times of Kate Meyrick, who for many years was the queen of Soho’s clubland. Many of the details for the novel are taken from her autobiography, Secrets of the 43 Club and Atkinson also cites Barbara Cartland’s autobiography, We Danced All Night and several other works as sources for the novel. But although based on fact and including real people this is very much a work of fiction and she lists several details that she has invented.

Shrines of Gaiety has all the ingredients I love in a novel, but for me it didn’t hold my interest. Sometimes timing is everything and this may be just a case of the wrong book at the wrong time for me.

Set in 1920s London, this novel is based loosely on some real characters. The characters are brilliantly portrayed - from Nellie Coker, who is the owner of many clubs, to young runaways looking for fame and fortune. There are philanthropic characters - Niven and Gwen; coppers who are on the wrong side of the law looking to make their fortune; Frobisher, a good Policeman trying to do his best. This is written with humour and cleverly portrayed, evoking 1920s London.
Many thanks to Netgalley/Kate Atkinson/Random House UK for a digital copy of this title. All opinions expressed are my own.

Firstly, let me say this is not at all my sort of novel, it’s historical for one (set in the roaring 20’s with Nellie Coker heading an empire of slightly nefarious night clubs. The character of Nellie is based strongly on Kate Meyrick the real life queen of ‘Soho’s clubland’). It’s complex for two, there are many characters, normally this puts me off, not necessarily because my simple brain can’t cope (although there is probably some truth in that) but I often find that over abundance of characters is a plot device to bolster the lead, not always of course and certainly not here. We spend time with each of the characters, exploring their individual stories, so much so that none of them feel like minor characters, and you never get lost within the dialogue.

So, I picked Shrines of Gaiety up purely because Kate Atkinson wrote it, she is a master of her craft and I respect her authorship enormously, she drew me in with the amount of research she put into this novel and how much true life crosses fiction.
I’m so, so glad I didn’t pass it by because it was a fascinating read, full of glitz, glamour and plenty of dead bodies. I loved it with a capital ‘L’.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

An entertaining historical novel set in 1920’s London. There are lots of vivid characters and the story jumps from one to the other a lot. It took a while for the story to come together and often I was confused about the timelines (especially Freda and Florence). It mostly centres around a character called Nellie Coker who is just released from jail at the start of the novel. Based on a real person she runs a collection of nightclubs and her children are involved in running them. There’s police corruption, prostitution and drugs, murder and missing girls all of which should’ve made this novel much darker and I probably would’ve preferred it if it had been (more like Peaky Blinders maybe?) but the tone is light throughout and there’s a lot of references to The Green Hat, a novel I had never heard of before, making me wonder if I should have!

An intriguing tale of 1920’s London, everyone is pretending and nothing is quite as it seems. Kate Atkinson has you caring for all the characters good and bad . As always with her books it was a delight to read.
Thank you for the opportunity to read this book.

London, Soho in the 1920's. Nellie Coker is the queen of her underworld. She owns a vast array of nightclubs The Amethyst being the jewel in her crown. It is often frequented by celebrities, sports stars and royalty.

Nellie is a notoriously wise businesswoman with her head screwed on.
In this book, we are taken through the streets of London as they were then, with the slums, and poverty. We mix with criminals and the glitterati.
It is a good book but I found the vast number of characters lost me and I couldn't follow the storyline as I tried to figure out who was who. I did finish it though and am grateful to NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this book. xx

Whenever I see a new Kate Atkinson novel, I know it will be one I’ll find myself completely immersed in, and Shrines of Gaiety is no exception. Set in London in the 1920s – an era and location I always love reading about – the novel follows an array of characters (many of which are women). There’s gangster family matriarch Nellie ‘Ma’ Coker and her six children; librarian Gwendolen Kelling who is searching for two runaway girls; Freda and Florence, the two teenagers who Gweondolen is looking for, both of whom best friends lured away from their hometown by the bright lights of London; and Detective Frobisher, who is investigating the crimes and dodgy dealings of the Coker family.

It’s quite a cast to keep track of, and at the start of the novel, I admit I found it tricky at times to remember who was who but that soon became easier. Each person felt like a real, well-rounded character with their own quirks and flaws. I loved reading about them all, and slowly unravelling how exactly they might be connected to one another. It’s particularly interesting to read about Nellie Coker, as I haven’t really read any other novels set during this period which focus on female gangsters, and certainly not of Nellie’s age!

London feels like its own character in this book – you can’t help but become immersed in this fantastic city’s grit, grime and simultaneous wonder during such a tumultuous time. There’s plenty going on but the pace manages to avoid feeling too rushed. For me, the writing, characters, setting and content make it a hugely enjoyable piece of historical fiction. Kate Atkinson never lets me down!

Happy publication day to Kate Atkinson! Shrines of Gaiety is out now, and thanks to @netgalley and @penguinrandomhouse for the early copy to review.
Life After Life is one of my all time favourite books so I was really excited to read this.

Set in 1926, post WW1 London, we meet Nellie Coker, just getting out of prison and ready to be reinstated as the undisputed queen of the London nightlife. Nellie owns several upmarket clubs, where all sorts take place, most of which is not completely above board.

She’s been training her six kids in but only a couple of them are really capable of taking over from her, and she finds her position has been weakened after her prison stay. Other notorious gang leaders are out to take her down and steal her empire.
Added to that, local detective Frobisher is determined to rid London of gang crime and the Coker’s are number one on his list. He involves plucky librarian/war nurse; Gwendolyn Kelling in his plot, and she gladly becomes his spy, infiltrating the Coker clan.

There’s a lot of characters in this one, with each chapter told from a different perspective. The true grittiness of London in that era is fully revealed and is a great character in itself.
As with all of Atkinson’s work, there’s so much attention to detail; she’s a real master of world building and I felt fully immersed in this story. It’s a long enough read and definitely one to curl up with during the colder weather and get stuck into!

Another triumph! If you’re a Kate Atkinson fan, I think you’ll absolutely love this one! I was hooked, and would love to read more from some of these characters.

#IrishBookstagram #Bookstagram #KateAtkinson #NewBook #Books2022 #AutumnReads #ShrinesOfGaiety #LifeAfterLife #BookReview

Shrines of Gaiety is a lovely read, a sweeping saga told with wit and a keen eye for historical detail. It is a very satisfying read with all threads of the narrative equally followed and resolved. From a matriarch in 1920s London to a Yorkshire librarian, a world-weary policeman and a few runaways there is a wonderful array of characters here.

It brings the events to life in vivid detail and will look wonderful on screen. Kate Atkinson is on top form

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC

It’s 1926 and Nellie Coker is just out of Holloway after spending 6 months doing time. While she has been away, her six children have been looking after her network of London nightclubs, with varying degrees of success.

London is buzzing with a post war enthusiasm for anything that is bright and glittery and helps to blot out the pain of the recently ended war. Dancing girls, drugs and lounge lizards abound. All of this is Nellie Coker’s bread and butter. Her nightclubs include the elite ‘The Amethyst’ where royalty and film stars gather to party, though her personal favourite is ‘The Crystal Cup’ with its pristine pink palace rooms above the shop.

Criminals and dignitaries mingle and Nellie’s empire runs smoothly with the help of cops on her payroll and her sharp instincts for any sense of betrayal. She brooks no opposition and her intelligence network is formidable. In her quieter moments she reads the future through her playing cards and is haunted by a ghost– a young girl named Maud who used to work for her – just one of the recent young women who drowned in the Thames but this one comes back to visit her.

As well as Nellie and her children, most notable of whom are the debonair Niven, dashing and devil-may-care and the scribbler Ramsay, a hopeless incompetent who dreams of writing a successful novel but lacks both application and ability and has an unhelpful cocaine dependence. Her daughter Edith is bright but not handsome; Betty and Shirley have half a brain between them and poor Kitty is the runt of Nellie’s litter.

Freda and Florence have run away to London from Yorkshire. Freda has dreams of making it on the London stage and Florence just wants to be away from her dreary life. It won’t be long before both girls realise that the streets of London are not paved with gold or dream employment opportunities.

As more young women go missing, what’s in store for Florence and Freda in their run down lodgings which double as a dubious refuge for girls in a particular kind of trouble.

Chief Inspector Frobisher is an honest man, which makes him a poor one. His marriage to a French woman, Lottie, is not easy, for Lottie suffers badly from depression and is not in the least interested in him or the rest of the world.

When librarian and former war nurse, Gwendolen Kelling comes to London to look for Freda and Florence at the behest of her friend Cissie, she finds herself in a difficult position – wanting to help Inspector Frobisher as an aide to finding the two young women but also finding herself captivated by Niven Coker, despite herself. She is divided between the devil and the deep blue river.

Added to this cast of characters are a bunch of even more unsavoury characters, some of whom have designs on Nellie’s Soho empire which was weakened by her absence.

Kate Atkinson presents a dazzling portrait of 1920’s London as a place where glitter is everything, living life to the max is all that matters and where young women are likely to be eaten up by a culture of brutal sexism, hedonism and debauchery, wrapped up in a gangland culture that is nothing more than brutal exploitation dusted with sparkle as a shoddy disguise.

Atkinson’s London is a heady mixture of life lived to the max and that goes hand in hand with corruption, exploitation and drug running. These are people struggling to find their place again in the aftermath of a horrible war and finding themselves in the grip of an equally vile culture dressed up as entertainment.

And yet Kate Atkinson makes all her characters irresistible; these are people you warm to, in the main and can even feel sorry for. These are vivid, sometimes rough, but often appealing characters and so you become fascinated by what their fate has in store for them.

Atkinson has used a broad canvas for this work and painted it in dazzling colours overlaid with some gold leaf and sparkles and it really works. Underneath though, the Thames is just as murky as ever it was and the deaths of so many young women are more than just collateral damage on the battlefield of gangland corruption and betrayal.

Verdict: It’s a brilliant, captivating read and well researched – some of it based on characters of the time. The tone is spot on, an omniscient narrator offers a witty and warm overview to this cast of disparate and often dissolute characters. It’s easy to see why it has been described as Dickensian. This book is teeming with larger than life characters in a chiaroscuro painting that is brimming with exuberance. I really loved it.

'Shrines of Gaiety' is an intricately plotted and meticulously researched romp through 1920s Soho which is one of the most purely enjoyable novels I have read recently.

Kate Atkinson deftly alternates between perspectives to build intrigue and suspense as rival gangs battle for supremacy in London's clubland, introducing us to an almost Dickensian gallery of characters, including matriarch and night-club owner Nellie Coker, recently released from six months in prison for breaking licensing laws; Inspector Frobisher who is investigating police corruption, vice and the disappearance of numerous young women; and enterprising librarian Gwendolen Kelling who has travelled down to London from York to track down two missing teenage girls.

The novel is also bursting with evocative period detail, from sumptuously described nightclub interiors to the hysteria around the curse of Tutankhamun and the long shadow cast by the Great War which continues to affect many of the characters. There is no doubt that this novel will make a brilliant TV adaptation!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC of this novel to review!

I thoroughly enjoyed my time in post First World War London via Kate Atinson's Shrines of Gaiety. I cared about all the characters even when I didn't like them.

I thought the writing was excellent, especially where Atkinson played with the form of writing, breaking the fourth wall. Frobisher's metaphors were definitely a highlight. Atkinson had a knack of drawing me in and painting sensory filled experiences with her words.

There was such a wonderful atmosphere captured; a world of partying and people trying to find themselves, or lose themselves after the previous harrowing years. Behind the glitz and glamour we glimpse behind the curtain a sinister and dark underbelly always threatening to rise.

I can't believe this is my first full novel of Kate Atkinson's that I've read. It will not be my last.

Shrines of Gaiety is an absolute pleasure to read, you’d expect nothing less from Kate Atkinson. A trip back to the 1920’s where Nellie Coker nightclub owner extraordinaire and her family are taking full advantage of the wealthy patrons of her various nightclubs. Nellie rules her empire with a rod of iron and people underestimate her at their peril. So when people try to overthrow her empire nothing good can come of it. Add some murders and runaways. So when Detective Inspector Frobisher decides enough is enough he enlists former librarian Gwendolin Keeling to help him catch Nellie up to no good. An enthralling read that had me hooked from the first chapter

Kate Atkinson's latest novel is set in 1920s London. The country is still recovering from the impacts of the war, and there are no shortage of people seeking fun in the city's nightclubs, many of which are run by crime matriarch Nellie Coker. Nellie is assisted (or not) by her many children - four daughters ranging from Edith (chip off the old block) to Kitty (almost as silly as her Austen namesake), and sons - dreamy Ramsay and enigmatic Niven. Into this seedy world comes Gwendolen, a sensible wartime nurse and peacetime librarian, newly arrived from York in search of teenage runaways Florence and Freda. Gwendolen's search brings her into contact with Frobisher, a police inspector charged with tackling the corruption in the force that enables the Coker family to operate with impunity. All of the characters' stories intertwine in this clever novel as the Cokers try to hold on to their empire and everyone else tries to rid them of it - and others simply try to survive.

This novel is a reminder of what a brilliant author Kate Atkinson is - I am less keen on her Jackson Brodie books, but for standalones like this she really is hard to better. The characters are all fascinating, the writing is compelling but also fun, the plot twisty and unexpected. The 1920s setting is evoked brilliantly and is always a rich tapestry for the backdrop to a novel - they were such extreme times. As I read I noticed some parallels with our current situation - industrial unrest, a country reeling from an unprecedented upheaval, the rich enjoying hedonistic times whilst the poor struggle in bad conditions.

It's a novel that transports you to another world - one that is inexplicably alluring. There's nothing attractive about organised crime - but transport it back a century and suddenly it becomes strangely glamorous. I've never watched 'Peaky Blinders' but I imagine it's a similar sort of appeal. Despite her being a hardnosed criminal, you can't help wanting Nellie to retain the empire she's built up. In fact, as is often the case with novels like this, the real villains are the corrupt policeman rather than the 'honest crooks'. It's not necessarily a very realistic view of the world, but it's one that works well in fiction.

Gwendolen is a particularly sympathetic character and a great heroine - intelligent, capable and interesting. Young Freda is also a well drawn and sympathetic character, and I found myself drawn to Niven without being able to quite understand why (exactly as the author intends). Plot wise there was only one loose end that was never fully explained, although it wasn't a major thing.

Anyone who enjoys literary fiction and reading novels should like this I think - it is so well done and has all the elements necessary to make a strong book. Great plot, characters and writing.

Kate's prose transports you to 1920's London. The seedy back streets, the gangsters and nightclubs, and the moneyed and poor. Part historical fiction, part detective drama we are handheld through Soho by an array of characters, my favourite being Gwendolen! Portraying the relief and 'gaiety' that Londoners were feeling after the first world war and the crime that was rife within the streets. I devoured this book and it will stay with me for some time.

I have always found Kate Atkinson books hard to review, they are so rich, deeply layered with detailed events, backdrops and characters that to do it any form of justice would take someone much more literary than me.

Shrines of Gaiety is no exception – set after the First World War, the Bright Young Things of the Twenties is all anyone is focusing on. In this book in the depths of Soho nightclubs, we are subjected to women, dance, song, drugs, debts, criminals, gangsters, money, corruption, gambling and sex.

Nellie Coker is the matriarch, released from Holloway back into her family, to her six children. Her stay in prison clearly an oversight by the policeman in her pay to keep this sort of thing happening. It seems Nellie Coker has other plans for the future. And the world and her family need to look out.

DCI John Frobisher, is brought in to clean the streets up and has a special interest in the vast amount of young girls going missing. He believes they are being somehow sucked into Nellie Coker’s world and her nightclubs. When Gwendoline Kelling arrives in his life, herself looking for two teenage girls from York who have come to seek their fortune in London, he thinks he may have a plan to finally clear up these streets.

When these worlds collide, it seems that all is not what it should be and actually are they all simply pieces in a very elaborate game.

Very rich in character, with many people to learn about in the first few chapters to see how they all interact the book then gets going through twists and turns. I couldn’t think of one character who wasn’t well thought out or well rounded., each of them playing a part, no matter how small or big. From Nellie Coker herself to the maid in her own house. Everyone is important to show London and the underbelly of life there in the Twenties. It works and I was enthralled to see where it was all going to take me and I wasn’t disappointed. Neither will you be.

This book is full of romance, history, murder and mystery to name a few genres that it could possible fit into. It doesn’t need to, it fits in as a Kate Atkinson genre.

Think P.G. Wodehouse meets Peaky Blinders.

Think this is the book you must read this year.