When Will There Be Good News?: Summary and book reviews of When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson, plus links to an excerpt from When Will There Be Good News? and a biography of Kate Atkinson.
When Will There Be Good News? A Novel
by Kate Atkinson
Hardcover: Sep 2008,
400 pages.
Paperback: Jan 2010,
416 pages.
On a hot summer day, Joanna Mason's family slowly wanders home along a country lane. A moment later, Joanna's life is changed forever...
On a dark night thirty years later, ex-detective Jackson Brodie finds himself on a train that is both crowded and late. Lost in his thoughts, he suddenly hears a shocking sound...
At the end of a long day, 16-year-old Reggie is looking forward to watching a little TV. Then a terrifying noise shatters her peaceful evening. Luckily, Reggie makes it a point to be prepared for an emergency...
These three lives come together in unexpected and deeply thrilling ways in the latest novel from Kate Atkinson, the critically acclaimed author who Harlan Coben calls "an absolute must-read."
When Will There Be Good News is very readable, although complex, it is not the kind of complexity wherein you must go back and read and reread again. The characters and their unfolding relationships to each other become a part of you. You will yearn for everyone to end their lives happy and unscarred even as quite horrible actions and events unfold all over Edinburgh. Kate Atkinson’s newest book is not a quiet ride…it is a roller coaster of surprises and thrills and chills that will leave you feeling a bit breathless as you read its final chapter. (Reviewed by Patty Magyar).
The Washington Post - Carolyn See
Thank God, in these hard times, for a cheerful, ghoulish, gory book like this…This is a grand mystery, with plenty of misdeeds and overwrought coincidences, as well as quotes from Scots ballads, old nursery rhymes and the classics, so you can feel edified while being creeped out—as you wait for that happy ending we all long for, and think we deserve.
The New York Times - Janet Maslin
…[a] deliciously underhanded, echo-filled novel…good as it is, this latest Brodie book nearly bursts at the seams. It shows off an imagination so active that When Will There Be Good News? can barely contain it.
LA Times
Atkinson has turned the corner from writing wonderfully rich literary novels with mysteries at their core to writing mysteries with rich literary style.
Library Journal
Evocative, smart, literary, and funny...a book that will easily stand up to more than one reading; highly recommended.
Kirkus Reviews
Like the most riveting BBC mystery, in which understated, deadpan intelligence illuminates characters' inner lives within a convoluted plot.
Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. A lesser author would buckle under so many story lines, but Atkinson juggles them brilliantly, simultaneously tying up loose ends...and opening new doors for further Brodie misadventures.
The Scotsman (UK)
READER, SUSPEND DISBELIEF. Find something high-flown, and attach with care, then send your critical faculties hurtling. Kate Atkinson’s latest (darkest? bloodiest? most free-wheeling?) slice of make-belief has attitude and altitude in abundance. It pushes its luck in taking coincidence and outlandishness to levels of sheer unadulterated chutzpah, and by its stomach-curdling ending, it’s so accelerated that you’re waiting for the wheels to come off. They don’t.
The Sunday Times (UK)
It doesn’t really matter in which genre Atkinson chooses to write. Her subject is always the irrecoverable loss of love and how best to continue living once you have glumly recognised that that was what the world was like, things improved but they didn’t get better. Her gift is presenting this unnerving and subversive philosophy as a dazzling form of entertainment.
Toronto Star
Clever, wry and highly readable. . . . Almost every coincidence is delicious and not a little comic.
Recent Reader Reviews
Rated of 5
by JCS Brilliant I loved every page of this book. Brilliantly written and has a snarky sense of humor.
Rated of 5
by Lynn Love Kate Atkinson, but not this book I absolutely loved the books "Case Histories" and "One Good Turn" by Kate Atkinson and could not wait for the 3rd book in the series. Unfortunately, I just did not find it as interesting. Kate continues an write the best... Read More
Rated of 5
by Margaret McCrank Loved this book! I thoroughly enjoyed this book from start to finish, with my attention being held all the way through. All the characters are interesting, especially sixteen-year-old Reggie, who'd be a good one to have around in a crisis, believe me, despite her... Read More
About the Author Kate Atkinson was born in York, England in 1951 and studied English Literature at
Dundee University in Scotland. After graduating in 1974, she researched a postgraduate
doctorate on American Literature. She later taught at Dundee University and began writing
short stories in 1981. She started writing for women's magazines after winning the
1986 Woman's Own Short Story Competition.
Her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum (1995), won the 1995
Whitbread Book of the Year award. Set in Yorkshire, the book has been adapted
for radio, theater and TV. This was followed by Human Croquet (1977),
Abandonment (2000), Emotionally Weird (2000), Not the End of the World (2002),
Case Histories (2004), One Good Turn (2006) and When Will There Be Good News
(2008). The last three all feature former private detective Jackson Brodie.
She has written two plays for the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh: Nice (1996), and Abandonment, which premiered as...
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Loved this book. Magical, quirky, enchanting I could go on. All books do not have to be literary fiction, sometimes it is just so comforting to read...
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