I started off a bit confused with this one but ultimately did end up enjoying it. I typically bond with the female characters in the books I read and this novel was no different. The story is written eloquently after you gather your bearings and get everything straight.

Kate Atkinson once again delivers in “Shrines of Gaeity”. The novel begins in 1920s London with characters awaiting the release from jail ofthe notorious Nellie Coker, a savvy business woman of London’s underworld. Nellie, the owner of several nightclubs, and her many children constantly are dodging the law while living on the outskirts of high society. Because of the Cokers’ lifestyle, they are under surveillance of Frobisher, a detective, and are in kahoots  with a crooked cop and his associate. Intermingled with Coker’s story is the mystery of dead girls floating down the Thames, a librarian hired to infiltrate the Coker family, and two runaways. Atkinson effectively shows the lasting effects of war since many of the characters were in WWI or lost someone in the war. It seems like WWI is a ghost who haunts all the characters.

Although I thoroughly enjoyed the novel, it would be beyond most of my high school students except for a few in Advanced Placement Literature & Composition. It is obvious that Atkinson researched not only the time period, as there are many allusions to historical events, literature, and people. 

Thank you to Kate Atkinson, Doubleday Books, and NetGalley for the ARC.

This book had so much potential. It is by Kate Atkinson! It is set in London! It has a (potentially) immersive plot and list of characters. Unfortunately, for me, it fell flat. It is as if you had all the ingredients for a great cake but somehow it was just okay. 
I could see what Atkinson was trying to do with the novel and at times it almost got there. However, it never quite achieved the levels of greatness that some of her other works have. The characters felt a little one-dimensional and the plot was convoluted. Ultimately, I didn't care about either plot or characters. 
That does not mean it is a terrible book. After all, even an okay cake is still cake and most of us love cake. It had some good elements. Atkinson has a way with words and any book she writes is going to be clever. 
This isn't going on my shelves to be read over and over as Life After Life is but I'll be eagerly awaiting Atkinson's next novel.

London of over 100 years ago is eager to recover form WWI’s carnage and nightclubs offer all kinds of vice.  Good times can be found in five establishments run by middle-aged Nellie Coker who at the beginning of the story has just been released from prison.  To keep her empire thriving Nellie relies on her network of sons and daughters plus policemen who are paid off the books to alert her to any trouble.   Entering Nellie’s orbit is Gwendolen Kelling, a spirited spinster of not yet 30 whose time in the trenches as a combat nurse seemed to suit her far more than her current job as a librarian.  Gwendolen teams up with straight arrow police inspector John Frobisher to clamp down on the nightclubs.   Lines between good and evil are blurred in Atkinson’s tale that is both complex and engaging.

Shrines of Gaiety is a rollicking novel with Dickensian-like characters that takes place in Soho after the Great War. Nellie Coker, mother of six grown children and clever entrepreneur, gets our of jail as the novel begins, and she proceeds to amass money at her various clubs and make some enemies at the same time. The plot is frequently dark but simultaneously funny and full of genius interactions. The children are all different, and they participate in the satire and romance with gusto. There is crime, humor, corruption, and secrets that lend the book many directions for the reader to proceed.

As well as the dysfunctional family, the book has detectives, with at least one with an intriguing, secret, and rather dark home life, There are also naive young women who come to London from the country looking for the proverbial fame and fortune. More than once, a deus ex machina is required to move the plot forward, and just when things seem to be proceeding fairly comfortably, they go off the rails. Certainly there is nothing comfortable or terribly logical about the book, but it does provide the reader with a certain sense of delight and interest in what will happen next.

I am a huge Kate Atkinson fan. This book got off to a bit of a slow start but I was very interested in seeing where we ended up. Atkinson clearly did a tremendous amount of research and it shows. While not my favorite of her novels, it was a fun way to pass a few hours and covered a subject I knew very little about previously.

Miss Atkinson is irreverent. Thank God. Her work is carefully researched, characters well-developed, and yet she is not at all stuffy. She is not overly serious, She knows her stuff and doesn't hide behind convention, and so are her characters.

Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson is a book about corruption in 1920's London club scene. It shows perspectives of the club owners, the cops trying to take them down and the people who get pulled down in the muck with them. The characterization has really clever tidbits about every character and what their hopes and dreams are. The story is a bit of a mess since we get about 20 character perspectives and the story is sometimes told out of order. I'm familiar with this approach and felt it was way better done in her novel Case Histories but that is only with 5 perspectives compared to 20. When you get 20 or so characters your going to get characters the reader doesn't care for and I didn't care for 7 out of the 20. The story was interesting but I did not gel with the way it was told pretty much from the beginning. This was one of my most anticipated books of the year because my favorite book of all time is Life After Life by Kate Atkinson. Where that book is pretty linear I prefer that writing style from her. This book would have been so much better if it followed 5 perspectives that up to 20. for those that read it I would have chose, Nelly, Frobisher, Niven, Gwendolyn, and Freda maybe add Ramsey , but that is it, cut out all the random perspectives, or family members that don't matter. The climax was okay it jumped around a lot because of all the perspectives so we just get bits and pieces of it I much preferred the club shooting to the climax. The pace was not bad but the changes in perspective slowed it down. Thanks to Netgalley and Doubleday Books for giving me a copy to review. Shrines of Gaiety is published on September 27 2022.

Plot Summary: Nellie Coker has just been released from prison, she a club owner of 5 of the premiere clubs of London, and rival club owners, ex-lovers, and the police are trying to take her and her clubs down. Nellie has 5 kids that have been running he business while she was out and likes it that way. Frobisher is a cop that wants to take her down mainly because of the clubs deals in prostitutions of young girls. Frobisher runs into Gwendolyn of York as she is chasing down to girls who left York for London and dream of fame. Frobisher thanks Gwendolyn would be a great undercover agent since she has to go into the clubs anyway and recruits her to spy. Gwendolyn catches the eye of Niven Coker Nellie's son and lets her get in close to the family and the clubs. Freda one of the missing girls will experience the mean streets of London as she finds out fame comes with a price.

What I Liked: Gwendolyn and Frobisher were by far my favorite characters and the most fleshed out. I did like the running gag of London is cursed by King Tut as his remains were recently found and on display in London. I thought the clubs were interesting and wish they were featured a little bit more. I like what happens to Freda and Ramsey's characters at the end. I liked the time period of 1920's London it is one I have not read a lot of.

What I Disliked: Too many characters ruin the momentum of the book and the extra perspectives just weren't needed. I felt the serial killer plot was a real letdown and could have been featured more but felt like an after thought.

Recommendation: This hurts me not to recommend but this book was a miss for me on many levels. I will say this book does have it's fans who enjoyed the book far more than me since it is nominated for Best Historical Fiction in Goodreads Choice Awards. But the book didn't work out for me and can not recommend it to my followers. Do please read Life After Life by Kate Atkinson the book will make you think and take perspective on your own life. I rated Shrines of Gaiety 2 out of 5 stars.

While I've liked most of Atkinson's other works--Life After Life is still one of my all time favorite books--this one just fell flat for me.  It was so long and, honestly, confusing.  I lost track of all of the characters and as a result had a hard time caring about any of them.

An intense novel set in Jazz Age London after World War 1.  You will find yourself immersed in the Nellie Coker Character.  More literary than I usually read

It's always a joy when I see Kate Atkinson has a new book out. I know I'll be burying myself in it late a night till I've finished and Shrines of Gaiety was no different. It has all the expected traits of her writing: deeply developed characters, descriptive locations and history, and a dark wit throughout it all.

My undying adoration for Kate Atkinson. I loved Life After Life . I enjoy her other works more than this one. When I finally got going, it was painfully slow. Neither the plot nor the characters ever interested me. In 1920s London, between the wars, a family operates several nightclubs. The mystery surrounds the club girls who have vanished and the detective who is determined to track them down. My disconnected listening slowed the conversation down. I listened to it, but I still couldn't follow the story. There was a lot of text to wade through, and the mystery was so buried that I often missed it until the author drew my attention to it. I had great joy in reading about Freda and Flora's travels. The closing message from the author was one of my favorite parts. It clarified her appreciation and allusion, and it left me wishing I had more of an appreciation for it. I give this 2.5 rounded up.

Thank you so much to #Netgalley and @Doubledaybooks for this advanced copy for an honest review.

A fun, fuzzy portrait of a family of nightclub owners in a London still dealing from WWI. And a detective who want to bring them down. Great characters. Better than your average historic fiction.

Kate Atkinson scores again.  1926 London is rather wild. Nightclubs abound and the darlings of society rub elbows with the rougher elements. Nellie Coker is taking full advantage of the times. She and her six children operate a number of clubs, each catering to  slightly different tastes. She is both notorious and successful. So of course she has enemies and is of interest to the law.  Kate Atkinson weaves a  delightful tapestry of intersecting lives and events creating another masterpiece of storytelling.

Quite possibly my favorite Atkinson yet. And that is saying something. I am so hoping there's a sequel. 
Kate seems like she was ready for some fun.

London, 1926.. the city and the country are in a party mode after the end of the Great War. People are flocking to nightclubs and bars. You never know who you could meet on any given night. The rich, the stars and the like mingle night after night and enjoy every excess they can find. Nellie Cocker, is the queen of the this nightlife. She has multiple clubs all over Soho and she is ringing in the money nightly. She has 6 children and wants to create this empire for them. So they can be elevated to a new social status. They are all flaws though and don’t seem to have the work ethic or the guts, to run this empire. In fact they are all a bit of a mess. The more successful she becomes , the more enemies she has. Anyone at anytime could be out there trying to bring her world down. I have read many books by Kate Atkinson and this story was one of her best. Her character development, her ability to make you feel like you are in 1926 London is amazing. She describes the nightlife as well as the depravity of the underworld of London. She doesn’t miss a thing. This was a 4 star read for me. I want to thank Netgalley & the author for my copy for an honest review.. I was an absolute pleasure reading & reading and reviewing this one. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

My first Kate Atikinson (SOMEHOW) but this will not be my last. 
There was alot going on in this one, ALOT, and now I want to see it on some sort of screen adaptation.
All the Roaring 20s feelings with enough crime and characters to keep me constantly wanting to pick this one back up whenever I wasn't reading it.,

An engrossing tale set in the underworld of post WWI London. Vividly imagined characters, an intriguing plot, and gorgeously described setting. I loved it!

This was a slow start to me - starting it at the beginning of the month and putting it down a handful of times before finally digging in. And, my oh my am I glad that I did. This is one of those amazing novels that twines so many characters into each other's paths - and I think perhaps this is where I struggled in the beginning - how is this all going to coalesce. But coalesce it does! 

Nellie Coker runs a handful of nightclubs in London shortly after the Great War with the protection of the police and the help of her children. But there is a new detective on the force, intent on rooting out corruption. A cat and mouse game ensues, but it’s not just between the Coker family and Nellie Coker. More plot lines appear in the story and wrap themselves tightly around each other. There’s librarian Gwendolyn, new to London looking for missing girls. There’s the mysterious people after Nellie and her empire. And then there are Nellie’s children themselves. Atkinson has done an admirable job stringing a compelling story together with at least 10 main characters and multiple plot points, something I am sure is incredibly difficult to do.

This is a marvelous book by Kate Atkinson.  Set in the Jazz era in London Atkinson weaves an atmospheric tale of loyalty, betrayal, love and corruption.  The characters are vivid as is the scenery.  I thoroughly enjoyed this book!