SHRINES OF GAIETY - Kate Atkinson

It is 1926 and London is still reeling from the Great War, but it is the age of jazz, booze, and gaiety as the people find ways to enjoy life after so much death. SoHo is where the liveliest action happens and it's there that Nellie Coker, ambitious and cut-throat nightclub owner takes charge.  She will do anything and everything so that her six children can get ahead in life.

But Nellie isn't subtle about anything she does and her ruthlessness may be the death of her. Steamrolling through life will bring about more than a few enemies who don't like being pushed out of the way.  And the best way to hurt Nellie Coker is stop her children from getting ahead.

The Roaring Twenties are in full steam and Nellie is the lion roaring loudest.

I've never read anything by Kate Atkinson prior to this, but I've seen her name as I've browsed the book stores. I don't know if this is the sort of book she usually tends to write (historical fiction/mystery) but I enjoy this time period (as do a lot of readers, apparently) and it didn't look like a book late in a series, so I decided this would be a good book to start.

While I've read more than a few books set in the 1920's, I can't recall off hand how many of them have been set in England. Perhaps because I'm American, I tend to think of the Roaring Twenties, with its jazz music and revelers and flappers, as uniquely American.  Clearly I'm wrong. (I blame history education classes.) But I liked this time-frame and I liked this location. Atkinson makes this sound like an energetic, fun Dickens story.

Except for the characters.

Nellie Coker is a nicely defined character, but everyone around her is quite bland. And that's a LOT of blandness.  There's a Dickens-worth of characters here but the people in Atkinson's book are ... well ... dull. Nobody other than Nellie stands out enough to care about them and the plot is generally slow enough that the characters aren't given anything to do until so late in the book that it doesn't matter anymore.

 I had hoped for a little more gaiety in this book, given its title and historical timeframe, but the book was quite a slog. It did not make me eager to read something else by Kate Atkinson.

Looking for a good book? Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson, set in 1926 England, disappoints.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

3 stars

* * * * * *

Shrines of Gaiety

author: Kate Atkinson

publisher: Doubleday

ISBN: 9780385547970

hardcover, 416 pages

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