Best Selling Books by Kate Atkinson

What if you could live again and again, until you got it right? On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in a variety of ways, while the young century marches on towards its second cataclysmic world war. Does Ursula''s apparently infinite number of lives give her the power to save the world from its inevitable destiny? And if she can -- will she? Darkly comic, startlingly poignant, and utterly original: this is Kate Atkinson at her absolute best.

Cambridge is sweltering, during an unusually hot summer. To Jackson Brodie, formar police inspector turned private investigator, the world consists of one accounting sheet—Lost on the left, Found on the right—and the two never seem to balance. Surrounded by death, intrigue and misfortune, his own life haunted by a family tragendy, Jackson attempts to unravel three disparate case histories and begins to realize that in spite of apparent diversity, everything is connected…

Iconoclastic detective Jackson Brodie returns in a triumphant new novel about secrets, sex, and lies. Jackson Brodie has relocated to a quiet seaside village, in the occasional company of his recalcitrant teenage son and an aging Labrador, both at the discretion of his ex-partner Julia. It''s picturesque, but there''s something darker lurking behind the scenes. Jackson''s current job, gathering proof of an unfaithful husband for his suspicious wife, is fairly standard-issue, but a chance encounter with a desperate man on a crumbling cliff leads him into a sinister network -- and back across the path of his old friend Reggie. Old secrets and new lies intersect in this breathtaking novel by one of the most dazzling and surprising writers at work today. "Thank goodness the long Jackson Brodie hiatus is over." --Janet Maslin, New York Times

With Dickensian brilliance, Kate Atkinson creates plots peopled with unlikely heroes and villains. It''s a day like any other for security chief Tracy Waterhouse, until she makes a purchase she hadn''t bargained for. One moment of madness is all it takes for Tracy''s humdrum world to be turned upside down, the tedium of everyday life replaced by fear and danger at every turn. Witness to Tracy''s Faustian exchange in the Merrion Centre in Leeds are Tilly, an elderly actress teetering on the brink of her own disaster, and Jackson Brodie, who has returned to his home county in search of someone else''s roots. All three characters learn that the past is never history and that no good deed goes unpunished.

INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER WELCOME TO ROOK HALL. THE STAGE IS SET. THE PLAYERS ARE READY. BY NIGHT’S END, A MURDERER WILL BE REVEALED. Ex-detective Jackson Brodie is staving off a bad case of midlife malaise when he is called to a sleepy Yorkshire town and the seemingly tedious matter of a stolen painting. But Jackson soon uncovers a string of unsolved art thefts that lead him down a dizzying spiral of disguise and deceit to Burton Makepeace, a formerly magnificent estate now partially converted to a hotel hosting Murder Mystery weekends. As paying guests, impecunious aristocrats and old friends collide, we are treated to Atkinson’s most charming and fiendishly clever mystery yet, one that pays homage to the masters of the genre—from Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers to the modern era of Knives Out and Only Murders in the Building. Brilliantly inventive, with all of Atkinson’s signature wit, wordplay and narrative brio, Death at the Sign of the Rook may be Jackson Brodie’s most outrageous and memorable case yet.

A dramatic story of WWII espionage, betrayal, and loyalty, by the #1 bestselling author of Life After Life In 1940, eighteen-year old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathizers, she discovers the work to be by turns both tedious and terrifying. But after the war has ended, she presumes the events of those years have been relegated to the past forever. Ten years later, now a radio producer at the BBC, Juliet is unexpectedly confronted by figures from her past. A different war is being fought now, on a different battleground, but Juliet finds herself once more under threat. A bill of reckoning is due, and she finally begins to realize that there is no action without consequence. Transcription is a work of rare depth and texture, a bravura modern novel of extraordinary power, wit and empathy. It is a triumphant work of fiction from one of the best writers of our time.

Ruby Lennox, born above a pet shop in York, narrates the story of four generations of women, from her great-grandmother''s affair with a French photographer to her young sister''s efforts to upstage the Queen on Coronation Day.

International Bestseller When Will There Be Good News? is the brilliant new novel from the acclaimed author of Case Histories and One Good Turn, once again featuring private investigator Jackson Brodie. Thirty years ago, six-year-old Joanna witnessed the brutal murders of her mother, brother and sister, before escaping into a field, and running for her life. Now, the man convicted of the crime is being released from prison, meaning Dr. Joanna Hunter has one more reason to dwell on the pain of that day, especially with her own infant son to protect. Sixteen-year-old Reggie, recently orphaned and wise beyond her years, works as a nanny for Joanna Hunter, but has no idea of the woman’s horrific past. All Reggie knows is that Dr. Hunter cares more about her baby than life itself, and that the two of them make up just the sort of family Reggie wished she had: that unbreakable bond, that safe port in the storm. When Dr. Hunter goes missing, Reggie seems to be the only person who is worried, despite the decidedly shifty business interests of Joanna’s husband, Neil, and the unknown whereabouts of the newly freed murderer, Andrew Decker. Across town, Detective Chief Inspector Louise Monroe is looking for a missing person of her own, murderer David Needler, whose family lives in terror that he will return to finish the job he started. So it’s not surprising that she listens to Reggie’s outrageous thoughts on Dr. Hunter’s disappearance with only mild attention. But when ex-police officer and Private Investigator, Jackson Brodie arrives on the scene, with connections to Reggie and Joanna Hunter of his own, the details begin to snap into place. And, as Louise knows, once Jackson is involved there’s no telling how many criminal threads he will be able to pull together—or how many could potentially end up wrapped around his own neck. In an extraordinary virtuoso display, Kate Atkinson has produced one of the most engrossing, masterful, and piercingly insightful novels of this or any year. It is also as hilarious as it is heartbreaking, as Atkinson weaves in and out of the lives of her eccentric, grief-plagued, and often all-too-human cast. Yet out of the excesses of her characters and extreme events that shake their worlds comes a relatively simple message, about being good, loyal, and true. When Will There Be Good News? shows us what it means to survive the past and the present, and to have the strength to just keep on keeping on.

This stunning companion to Kate Atkinson''s #1 bestseller Life After Life, "one of the best novels I''ve read this century" (Gillian Flynn), follows Ursula''s brother Teddy as he navigates an unknown future after a perilous war. "He had been reconciled to death during the war and then suddenly the war was over and there was a next day and a next day. Part of him never adjusted to having a future." Kate Atkinson''s dazzling Life After Life explored the possibility of infinite chances and the power of choices, following Ursula Todd as she lived through the turbulent events of the last century over and over again. A God in Ruins tells the dramatic story of the 20th Century through Ursula''s beloved younger brother Teddy -- would-be poet, heroic pilot, husband, father, and grandfather -- as he navigates the perils and progress of a rapidly changing world. After all that Teddy endures in battle, his greatest challenge is living in a future he never expected to have. An ingenious and moving exploration of one ordinary man''s path through extraordinary times, A God in Ruins proves once again that Kate Atkinson is one of the finest novelists of our age.

A dazzling collection of eleven interconnected stories from the bestselling, award-winning author of Shrines of Gaiety and Life After Life, which offer the gimlet eye and delightful social critique that have made Atkinson one of the most lauded writers of our time. In this brilliant volume, nothing is quite as it seems. We meet a queen who makes a bargain she cannot keep; a secretary who watches over the life she has just left; a lost man who bets on a horse that may--or may not—have spoken to him. Everything that readers love about the novels of Kate Atkinson is here—the inventiveness, the verbal felicity, the sharp observations on human nature and the deeply satisfying emotional wallop. Witty and wise, with subtle connections between the stories, Normal Rules Don''t Apply is a startling and funny feast for the imagination, stories with the depth and bite to create their own fully-formed worlds.

Arthur is a precocious eight-year-old boy whose mother is a B-list celebrity more concerned with her bank account than with her son''s development. Then an enigmatic young nanny introduces him to a world he never knew existed.

From the NUMBER 1 bestselling author of LIFE AFTER LIFE, SHRINES OF GAIETY and NORMAL RULES DON''T APPLY On a peat and heather island off the west coast of Scotland, Effie and her mother Nora take refuge in the large mouldering house of their ancestors and tell each other stories. Nora, at first, recounts nothing that Effie really wants to hear, like who her father was - variously Jimmy, Jack, or Ernie. Effie tells of her life at college in Dundee, where she lives in a lethargic relationship with Bob, a student who never goes to lectures, seldom gets out of bed, and to whom the Klingons are as real as the French and the Germans (more real than the Luxemburgers). But strange things are happening. Why is Effie being followed? Why is everyone writing novels? Is someone killing the old people? And where is the mysterious yellow dog? ''Sends jolts of pleasure off the page...Kate Atkinson''s funniest foray yet...it is a work of Dickensian or even Shakespearean plenty'' SCOTSMAN ''A brilliant and profoundly original writer'' DAILY TELEGRAPH

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The award-winning author of Life after Life transports us to a restless London in the wake of the Great War—a city bursting with money, glamour, and corruption—in this spellbinding tale of seduction and betrayal. A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: WASHINGTON POST, TIME, THE GUARDIAN, BOOKLIST "Set during Jazz Age London, in all its fizzy madness and desperation.... As dark as [Atkinson''s] stories can get, within them always shines a beacon of humanity.” —Gillian Flynn, bestselling author of Dark Places 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.

A twenty-fifth anniversary edition of award-winning, bestselling author Kate Atkinson’s debut novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, a deeply moving and deeply funny family story of happiness and heartbreak National Bestseller Winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year Ruby Lennox begins narrating her own life at the moment of her conception and from there takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of the twentieth century as seen through the eyes of a girl determined to learn more about her family and the secrets it keeps. Kate Atkinson’s dazzling first novel, named the 1995 Whitbread Book of the Year in England, is a darkly comic, deeply moving story of family heartbreak and happiness.

The narrator, Isobel, 16, is a time traveller, while her brother is afraid of abduction by aliens. They are abandoned by their parents, then seven years later the father returns with a new wife. Where is mother? The grandmother who looks after them won''t answer. An English tragicomedy by the author of Behind the Scenes at the Museum.

"Atkinson''s bright voice rings on every page, and her sly and wry observations move the plot as swiftly as suspense turns the pages of a thriller."--San Francisco Chronicle.

New Thought Healing Made Plain is a self help book by Kate Atkinson Boehme, first published in 1918. A book about the law of attraction, the belief that positive thinking can bring about positive events into your life.

The perfect Christmas gift: three festive tales from the brilliant pen of Kate Atkinson. ''Lucy would have challenged anyone not to cry at the sight of their child in a Nativity play. Even a sheepish Maude, even a scowling Beatrice - currently attempting a Chinese burn on an adjacent angel. A shepherd shouted something incomprehensible to Joseph. One of the Wise Men wet himself. Beatrice waved enthusiastically - a little too enthusiastically - at Lucy from the angelic choir. It was better than any religion, Lucy thought.'' From the Costa Award-winning author of LIFE AFTER LIFE

Kate Atkinson Boehme was a New Thought writer whose articles were published in Elizabeth Towne''s magazine Nautilus. In 1918 she was associated with the Radiant Center of Philosophy in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Her book "New Thought Healing Made Plain" was published by Elizabeth Towne in 1918.

Kate Atkinson Boehme was a New Thought writer whose articles were published in Elizabeth Towne''s magazine Nautilus. In 1918 she was associated with the Radiant Center of Philosophy in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Her book "New Thought Healing Made Plain" was published by Elizabeth Towne in 1918.

Kate Atkinson Boehme was a New Thought writer whose articles were published in Elizabeth Towne''s magazine Nautilus. In 1918 she was associated with the Radiant Center of Philosophy in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Her book "New Thought Healing Made Plain" was published by Elizabeth Towne in 1918.

Kate Atkinson Boehme was a New Thought writer whose articles were published in Elizabeth Towne''s magazine Nautilus. In 1918 she was associated with the Radiant Center of Philosophy in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Her book "New Thought Healing Made Plain" was published by Elizabeth Towne in 1918.