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1926: Meet Nellie Coker, the notorious queen of the London nightclub scene
Shrines of Gaiety
What you need to know before your trail
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 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.
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Kate Atkinson’s London
Shrines of Gaiety takes us back to 1926’s London. This is a London where war has ended but the seedy underworld has grown. The glitz and glam of London is there for all to see but the other London, the seedy belly of the underworld is there for everyone as well.
This is a novel infused with jazz and the promise of a better life. A London where Nellie Corker has just been released from Holloway Prison. Where Nellie is coming back and reclaiming her London. But London has changed since she’s been inside…
Very Dickensian in style – along with the soot, clothing, habits and social mores of the time.
BookTrail Boarding Pass: Shrines of Gaiety
Destination/Location: London Author: Kate Atkinson Departure: 1926
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