Normal Rules Don’t Apply is a collection of skilfully-written (well, who would expect anything less from Kate Atkinson?) short stories. I don’t generally read a huge amount of short stories but I would read far more if they were all like this: captivating and intriguing!

Many of the stories are cleverly connected, with people and occasions from one popping up in others, as I took a little while to realise, and which delighted me. I think these interconnected threads added an extra sense of satisfaction can sometimes be sometimes missing in other short story collections.

There’s a great range of plots and styles here, from the opening story The Void, which takes us to the near future with apocalyptic results, to Blithe Spirit, where we watch Mandy, who is dead and watching her own autopsy – plus many more. There’s weirdness, happiness, humour, mysticism and much more, all brilliantly written. Some I liked slightly more than others, as I’d expect with a collection of stories, but each had its own flair for the reader to enjoy.

Normal Rules Don’t Apply is an incredibly strong, enjoyable collection with memorable characters. I’m a huge fan of Kate Atkinson’s novels anyway, but now I want to go back and read all of her short story collections too. Highly recommended.

Kate Atkinson is one of my all time favourite authors and will buy everything she writes. Thank you to Random House UK, Transworld and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity of reading Normal Rules Don't Apply prior to its publication date.

This is not the first Atkinson short story collection that I have read and although, not normally a fan, these were very cleverly & creatively tied together - 11 interconnected stories with some more puzzling than others and with some more fun than others, but for me, they worked well. I particularly enjoyed the stories that were linked by Franklin; he is such a likeable character, another one that Atkinson has acutely observed.

A really enjoyable, witty, wise & delightful set of stories.

Thank you.

I believe this is one of the best short story collections I've read. The first story; 'The Void' just blew me away and honestly the standard was high through every single one! AND....the sheer variety of stories is outstanding.

These stories evoked laughter, sadness, tension, reflection as well as being incredibly entertaining.

As well as the stories standing on their own there are some beautifully woven threads throughout. I will be securing myself a copy so that I can enjoy a reread with a physical copy.

Thank you so much for the advance reader copy, what a joy!

Kate Atkinsons collection of eleven interconnected short stories is a joy from.start to finish. The author writes with an indefinable lyricism and a dry humour. Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the arc.

Kate Atkinson writes a delightfully smart and spellbinding collection of short stories where the normal rules don't apply, with connections, of people, such as Franklin, and the vicar Matthew, and events that snake through the tales where, beware nothing is as it first appears. There is oodles of entrancing charm, wit, fantasy, betrayal and darkness, with a chilling apocalyptic opener, The Void, set in the near future, which given the current state of the world is terrifying. Stories that draw on the darkest of fairy tales, a desperate Queen who cannot do what she had agreed to do, and Mandy who roams restlessly in the afterlife, but how did she die? An American actress falls for a Prince, a royal spare like Harry, but does their love stand any chance?

There are talking dogs and horses, the Greenacres soap opera, an advertising creative who steps up as a creator, quests involving Jane Austen novels for middle aged women, the monstrous Tilly, Pamela's surprise, and I adored Franklin with his unsettling first name. Atkinson writes with style, in total command of the short story format, with her own brand of originality, highlighting absurdities, the surreal and strange, the offbeat, the frightening, humorous, human indignities, the magical, horror, twists, turns and so much more. I think fans of the author will love this selection of stories, as indeed will most readers who read her for the first time here.

Highly recommended. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

I am not usually a fan of short stories but I love Kate Atkinson so I had to request a copy of this book. Well I’m very pleased to say that I did the right thing as this book is fantastic!! The first story was my favourite and I’d love to see that fleshed out into a full novel but all the stories were unique and yet linked to the rest of the collection via subject matter, a character, a soap opera or a place. It is really very clever but let’s face it, there is nothing surprising about that as Atkinson has shown us in previous novels how clever her works are.
I will recommend this book to everyone I know and I know that most of them will tell me they don’t like short stories. Hopefully this will change their minds too.

Yes, Yes and Yes!
First off, I adore Kate Atkinson, I'd probably be absorbed if she sent me her shopping list. I've also long been a fan of the short story collection as a format - what a wonderful way to deliver a tale. And to have both rolled into one - in an advance copy? It's five stars all round.
These are, like other work by the author wonderful stories on character, with some small measure of coincidence, links to each other and added wit. They are as intelligent and original as you come to expect, a joy to read and I suspect be re-read in the not too distant future.
Thank you to the publisher and author for this advance copy - it is the short story collection of the year for me!

I was not sure about this having read the first story, but it got better, much better.

A collection of short stories with several links and threads running through them, which meant you could read one at a time, but then catch up with the thread in the next story or a later one.

I'm still not convinced by short stories, finding a novel a more satisfying read, but this was a good collection.

Worth a read.

Although I'm not a fan of dystopian fiction or short stories being a huge fan of Kate Atkinson, I was looking forward to this, and it didn't disappoint. The subtle connections between the stories took away from the jarring; disjointedness one can have reading short story collections when craving the consistency of a novel. The gaze here is similar to Life After Life more than any of her other novels, but there is a level of wit which I hadn't identified in her work before. There are some very funny one-liners.

Even for us dystopia cynics - this works!

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC

Kate Atkinson is a marvellously gifted writer with the skill and imagination to make whatever she writes original, engrossing and fascinating. Such is the case in this collection of short stories which draw you in from the beginning and themes and characters reoccur throughout in this series of interconnected tales.

The writing is lush and beautifully crafted with her sly humour and lyrical description of people, place and situations shining through.

I love short stories!

An author can write fifty number-one bestsellers and be the most popular wordsmith in the world, but is unable to write short stories. It takes a special kind of person to deliver a story in a few pages with no superfluous words. These people are a bit of a rarity, and always have been, I feel - however, I can now add Kate Atkinson to my list (along with my all-time favourite in sci-fi shorts, Jason Werbeloff).

I loved this collection of stories. The subtle (and not so subtle) interconnectedness, the fantastical, the ordinary, the extraordinary, and the apocalyptic. Normal Rules Don't Apply, indeed.

There will be stories that go straight to your heart, your head, your gut, and your funny bone (one in particular made me laugh out loud and read parts of it to my husband). You'll enjoy spotting the links in each story. In fact, I'm going to read the book again! An easy five star rating.

I was offered an ARC of this work, which I voluntarily and honestly read and reviewed. All opinions are my own. My thanks to NetGalley, the publishers, and the author.

Normal Rules Don't Apply is a collection of eleven interconnected short stories from Kate Atkinson, her first such collection in twenty years. While I have enjoyed several novels by this author , I had not read any of her shorter fiction and I was eager to give it a try. I certainly was not disappointed, the collection was a wonderful blend of whimsy and speculative fiction and I really enjoyed picking out the connections between the stories - while some were obvious such as recurring characters, others were more subtle but they were all cleverly woven together. I cannot but admire the craftsmanship and skill of the writing , often when I read a short story collection there are at least one or two that fall short in terms of my enjoyment of them, but here that simply was not the case. The book opened strongly with the mysterious, atmospheric and slightly ominous "The Void", and I loved that the idea was revisited in the penultimate story "Genesis" in a way that explained and expanded on it. Another favourite of mine was " Classic Quest 17 - Crime and Punishment" which features one of the aforementioned recurring characters , Franklin, in a tale that has elements of a classic Agatha Christie style murder mystery blended with a darker almost psychological thriller style that feels very of the moment. There is a strongly humorous tone throughout the book but it is not without moments that will make you think.
Overall this is a clever, well crafted collection that will appeal to many readers and I highly recommend it.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own,

Brilliant. These interconnected short stories are crafted perfectly.

We know Kate Atkinson as an excellent novelist, but short story writing is an entirely different skill. Here Atkinson demonstrates her terrific short story writing in stories that are compelling and frankly, dazzlingly good. Interconnecting stories is a tricky narrative task, but Atkinson sets most of the stories in North Yorkshire, so, for me, there's a gorgeous atmosphere and feeling of place and time. The same characters crop up in different stories, and reading them, thinking about it now, does bring to mind the reading of her novels, with threads of place and relationships flowing into each other.

Cannot recommend this collection highly enough. My thanks to NetGalley and to the publisher for the ARC.

A collection of eleven interconnected stories. As always, Kate Atkinson has produced a quirky and original book that makes you laugh and also makes you think. It contains beautiful and intelligent observations on life. A delight to read.

These cleverly interlinked stories are creative, beautifully written and thought provoking. Kate Atkinson continues to be a masterful storyteller and I love the hint of magic she has added to this collection of short stories. Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the ARC.

I’m very fond of all Kate Atkinson’s work, but following her last rather stodgy, over-researched novel and a much milder collection of short stories published about twenty years ago, I didn’t have high hopes for this one. Boy, was I wrong!

The collection begins with ‘The Void’ a story so terrifying you may well soil yourself, with the ‘darkness’ of Life After Life given terrifying shape and not just stalking one heroine but the entire land, like a rip in time crossed with a plague.

After this bravura beginning, the stories settle down into a more recognisably dark-comic style, with two or three of them featuring the hapless Franklin (or perhaps slightly different versions of him) a soap opera producer with a weakness for gambling whose encounter with the seemingly perfect good-girl Connie leads to him being framed for the murder of her hideous father, a specimen of inane, petty and cruel male middle-class Englishness instantly recognisable to anyone who’s worked with someone like that, or had one as an in-law.

Various motifs appear: fairytale quests, talking foxes, magic rings in the bellies of fish, women craving their own child, a woman (and a cat) named Kitty and a bargain-basement Scarlett Johansson lookalike actress who can’t escape her seedy past or addictions, even when she meets her own handsome prince (who somewhat resembles our own Harry).

This is a box of delights from a writer at the top of her game, unafraid to take risks, be naughty and leave the reader guessing. Normal rules don’t apply, indeed - not to Kate Atkinson’s writing, anyway!

I don't normally like short stories, but do like Kate Atkinson. I really enjoyed this collection of stories, very well written, with a connection throughout, subtle at times, but enjoyable when you worked it out. Would recommend.

Following on from the monumental and epic Shrines of Gaeity, Kate Atkinson returns with a new collection of interlinked short stories. There is much to admire here - and much to laugh at too (Atkinson has some great one liners). There is a mix of genres here too - all of which she shows mastery of - and though not every story will have the same impact as the other - and your favourite is unlikely to be mine - this is a very fine collection to savour. Fab stuff!

Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for the ARC.

When I reviewed ‘A God in Ruins’ by Kate Atkinson I wondered whether it was a good book if, after reading it, you had to go upstairs to make your teenage kids beds for them, pick up the dirty washing, fold their clothes and then burst into tears? The answer, of course, is yes, it was a classic.

I did something even stranger after reading ‘Normal Rules Don’t Apply’, I started reading it again, right from the start, immediately, without a break. I wouldn’t often do that!

Although at one level, this book is a series of short stories with vaguely overlapping characters and plots, at another it’s busy unpacking the metaverse, playing with multiple shifting realities, sorting out God and religion, while – all the time – gently mocking the absurdities of human existence.

The stories kick-off with The Void about a kind of bump in the space-time continuum which kills a lot of people for five minutes every day but happens to save people who are inside Waitrose! You don’t find out what’s going on here until the climax of the book.

In between, there’s a talking horse, a fairy story which crashes through reality and a sad interlude about the life of cuddly toys and dolls and what it might be like to be dead. It’s the talking dogs you need to worry about!

Some things persist. There’s a monkey called Mitch who keeps cropping up and a more central character called Franklin who has drifted through life and then drifts through the stories.

The book is very funny, not only at the expense of Waitrose shoppers but also vicars, women of a certain age, soap operas, film stars and anyone else who finds themselves and their peculiarities in Kate Atkinson’s gaze.

But it’s also a book to make you think about the nature of reality, the flimsiness of existence and the obvious fact that if we lived in an ever-changing series of alternative universes we wouldn’t have the faintest idea what was happening. It’s quite simply a work of genius from an outstanding writer.

An intriguing collection of eleven interconnected stories, which certainly do not conform the ‘normal rules’ of fiction writing.
This is what makes this collection irresistible. Kate Atkinson is always able to suddenly throw a curved ball, along the way, as she delivers a mix of the banal and the fantastical, which delight and surprise the reader.
The first story ‘The Void’ had me hooked, completely apocalyptic ….but then the other stories, with minor but deliberate echoes of the first, such as the smell of violets, takes the reader on a dizzying yet controlled whirl of romance, fantasy, the bizarre, the sad.
Many feature Franklin, hapless in love and prosaic but making a fortune with a soap opera. There is a talking horse ( or is there?), a witch, or rather several….and so it goes! Yes, literary references are there to such as video games based on Austen for Middle Aged women.
There’s enough here for two novels but one collection is a case of less is more. Stories work fine individually but together, are terrific.
Loved this book
Thank you to #NetGalley and #Transworld; Penguin Random House, for my ARC.