• Shrines of Gaiety

  • A Novel
  • By: Kate Atkinson
  • Narrated by: Jason Watkins
  • Length: 16 hrs and 2 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (7 ratings)

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Shrines of Gaiety  By  cover art

Shrines of Gaiety

By: Kate Atkinson
Narrated by: Jason Watkins
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Publisher's summary

NATIONAL BESTSELLER
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The #1 internationally bestselling, award-winning author of Life after Life transports us to the dazzling London of the Roaring Twenties in a whirlwind tale of corruption, seduction and debts that have come due.

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.

The notorious queen of this glittering world is 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 gives us a window in a vanished world. Slyly funny, brilliantly observant and ingeniously plotted, Shrines of Gaiety showcases the myriad talents that have made Atkinson one of the most lauded writers of our time.

©2022 Kate Atkinson (P)2022 Bond Street Books

Critic reviews

"Breathtaking. . . . A sprawling kaleidoscope of a novel—both giddy and glamorous, despite being rooted in squalor and violence. It's an impressive feat, one which Atkinson achieves with seeming effortlessness. . . . Shrines of Gaiety is truly a buffet of dark delights, all of it handled with Atkinson's light, deft touch." —Toronto Star

"I will read anything this woman writes. Kate Atkinson is simply one of the best writers working today, anywhere in the world. . . . She's a global treasure. . . . [Shrines of Gaiety] is set during Jazz Age London, in all its fizzy madness and desperation of the new, the better, the hustle. Atkinson has a magician's ability to switch a reader's mood within a few paragraphs, and as dark as her stories can get, within them always shines a beacon of humanity." —Gillian Flynn

"A sprawling picaresque. . . . Atkinson vividly conjures the post-Great War London of a century ago. . . . [A] tangible warmth suffuses her storytelling. . . . She remains a keenly sympathetic observer of human foibles, one who can sketch a character in one quicksilver sentence. . . . Light refreshment; a cocktail of fizz and melancholy, generously poured." —The New York Times

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A One-Man Play in Your Head

Loved Jason Watkins’ performance, and a performance it was! I began to read this novel myself and lost interest but Watkins brought it to life. Perfect adaptation to a talking book.

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