Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson

Due to be published on 27th September 2022.

This is the perfect novel for uncertain times.' THE TIMES'I can think of few writers other than Dickens who can match it' SUNDAY TIMES'A rich cast of characters, an elegantly intricate plot - this is classic Atkinson' OBSERVER'This book is one to savour, for the energy, for the wit, for the tenderness of characterisation that make Atkinson enduringly popular' GUARDIAN____1926, and in a country still recovering from the Great War, London has become the focus for a delirious new nightlife. In the clubs of Soho, peers of the realm rub shoulders with starlets, foreign dignitaries with gangsters, and girls sell dances for a shilling a time. 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. With her unique Dickensian flair, Kate Atkinson brings together a glittering cast of characters in a truly mesmeric novel that captures the uncertainty and mutability of life; of a world in which nothing is quite as it seems.