Our Noble Selves

by Kate Atkinson

It’s the summer of 1951 and everyone is looking to put the dark days of the war behind them. The government’s The Festival of Britain, a celebration of the country’s creativity, grit and ingenuity.

For foreign correspondent turned war reporter Harry Flynn, it might offer the chance of redemption after a bad war in the Far East and a peace that is proving no easier to negotiate. Having failed to resume his journalistic career, he reluctantly joins an oddball team of misfits, ne’er-do-wells and downright chancers helping to ready the Festival of Britain for launch.

Flynn’s attempts to resume some semblance of a romantic life also founder when one of his dates goes missing and he is deemed to be the last person to have seen her alive. Could he have been in some way responsible for her disappearance?

Little does he realize that the answer to some of his mounting problems may lie in the hands of a precocious, straight-talking thirteen-year-old called Veronica and a rather scruffy terrier who goes by the name of Mrs Betty…

Brilliantly plotted, witty and compelling, Our Noble Selves reaffirms Kate Atkinson’s place as one of the greatest chroniclers of our times.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, Mystery, Literary Fiction, British Literature, Novels

352 pages, Kindle Edition

Expected publication September 10, 2026

About the author

Kate Atkinson was born in York and now lives in Edinburgh. Her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and she has been a critically acclaimed international bestselling author ever since.

She is the author of a collection of short stories, Not the End of the World, and of the critically acclaimed novels Human Croquet, Emotionally Weird, Case Histories, and One Good Turn.

Case Histories introduced her readers to Jackson Brodie, former police inspector turned private investigator, and won the Saltire Book of the Year Award and the Prix Westminster.

When Will There Be Good News? was voted Richard & Judy Book Best Read of the Year. After Case Histories and One Good Turn, it was her third novel to feature the former private detective Jackson Brodie, who makes a welcome return in Started Early, Took My Dog.

Reviews

[Daren Kearl · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s no future for us, so they’re making one up out of the past…

Kate Atkinson’s Our Noble Selves fictionalises the planning of the 1951 Festival of Britain, celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2026. At a time when phrases like “Britain is broken” are frequently bandied about, the novel feels particularly resonant. It brings to mind Twenty Twelve, the mockumentary about Olympic planning, in its satirical take on a national project designed to showcase “this sceptered isle.”

The story follows a cast of quirky characters tasked with creating a grand pageant on the South Bank. Atkinson blends humour with meticulous historical detail: the narrative is enriched with real events and even maps of the exhibition layout. From a modern perspective, some of the displays—focused on industry, agriculture, and empire—might seem underwhelming. Yet the novel captures a post-war moment when such exhibitions offered a much-needed sense of optimism and collective purpose.

Atkinson is in her element here, with her wry and sharply observant style to the fore. A central theme is the tension between pageantry and truth: can carefully curated nostalgia truly evoke national pride, or does it merely gloss over more uncomfortable histories? The book suggests that these grand celebrations often sidestep the darker aspects of Britain’s past, even as they attempt to construct a unifying narrative.
Running alongside the Festival preparations is a lightly sketched murder mystery and espionage subplot. While competently handled, this strand feels somewhat incidental. Notably, Atkinson has said she originally intended to explore Flynn’s wartime experiences in Singapore and Japanese POW camps in greater depth, but ultimately omitted this material to preserve the novel’s tone—a decision that is understandable.

Fans of Atkinson will love this book, as will anyone interested in British history and culture.

Overall, Our Noble Selves is an engaging and intelligent novel that balances humour with thoughtful reflection on how nations remember—and reinvent—themselves.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC

[Pooja · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kate Atkinson is one of favourite authors so I was really pleased to get an advance copy of this book. I raced through this and really enjoyed it, a welcome return to form for Ms Atkinson after Shrines of Gaeity which I found quite hard going. The story is all about post WW2 Britain, in particular the Festival of Britain. Running along in the background is also a murder mystery / political conspiracy. I hadn’t known about the Festival before so it was super interesting to read all about how it was set up and the different exhibitions. Her observations are witty and on point as usual - in particular it was fascinating reading about the different characters’ war experiences. I also learnt something new about the POW Railway in Asia too.
Definitely recommend.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

[Nancy]

Was redemption possible? That was the question, wasn’t it? For any of them. from Our Noble Selves by Kate Atkinson

Wit and humor, dread and suspense, and a nation recovering from a devastating war—all wrapped up in one book!

War correspondent Flynn survived the horrors of a WWII Burma prisoner of war camp. His parents have died and his brother’s plane went down. His ‘ossified’ heart is unwilling to ever again suffer love with its concomitant grief.

Flynn takes a government job for the Festival of Britain, a celebration planned for 1951 to raise morale. It would feature the latest technologies and inventions, inspiring hope and belief in a better future.

He works with a colorful cast of characters. The woman who asks to meet him for a drink, then rushes off only to disappear. The man who blackmails him into theft. The mysterious, upper crust woman who takes him to bed. An ignorant but engaging ‘Boy’ gofer.

Flynn is an everyman who get caught a web of lies and spies and secrets and murder, on the way to being collateral damage. Meantime, his ex has left him with her daughter, who he raised, a spunky teen who bends rules.

We have the false impression that after war life suddenly returns to normal. We learn of the office boy’s poverty during the war. How Flynn aids his widowed neighbor with coins for the gas or a bottle of milk left on the doorstep. How what happened in the war doesn’t go away in peacetime, but leaves its legacy.

We tell ourselves stories to make ourselves fell better. The past absolves itself with this kind of fiction. from Our Noble Selves

In the end, Flynn discovers what was worth surviving for, worth living for.

I loved it.

Thanks to Doubleday for a free book through NetGalley.

[Helen Haythornthwaite · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have awaited this new story of Kate Atkinson’s with much anticipation, ever since I heard it was on its way, and what a masterpiece it is! It encompasses my favourite genres - historical fiction and literary fiction, with the plot including a murder mystery too.

It’s set around the Festival of Britain which took place in 1951: to provide a tonic for a nation hard-hit by war. It’s told in the third person with the most marvellous and endearing main character - Harry Flynn. He’s invited to help organise elements of the festival, two years prior to its opening, and the narrative follows his and his quirky colleagues’ endeavours to bring the festival to life.

Flynn finds himself bowled along into some rather awkward situations, forever seeming to be at the whim of others, until he finds himself framed for murder and steadily begins to unravel the truth - together with his 13-year-old, ‘daughter’, Veronica.

To me, this book is a modern day classic. It’s a book written in the inimitable style of Atkinson, sparkling with sardonic humour, and peppered with the sharp, witty prose of hers which I find exquisite. It’s a book you read to enjoy the sheer pleasure of the written word. It’s not a style which will suit everyone but, to me, it’s literary genius.

The narrative moves seamlessly from the present to reflections of the past, as characters reminisce about their childhood or their time during the war. Flynn, a journalist by trade, was captured and forced to work on the Burmese railway, while a colleague of his was involved in the D-Day landings.

Atkinson has perfectly captured the brash righteousness of the upper classes, and the resourcefulness of those who had little. ‘Boy’ was such a brilliant character, and his anecdotes had me chuckling away.

I was completely fascinated by the scale of the exhibition; it’s a cornucopia of 1951, and such an intriguing setting for this novel. I loved that it transported me back to fond memories of my childhood too, as many things mentioned were still around in the mid-1960s.

I savoured and adored this book!


I was sent a proof copy by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

[Dogeared · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75 stars rounded down. I was so excited to be approved for this new Atkinson book, and the blurb sounded great. Perhaps it’s just me, but the book I read didn’t really match the mystery implied in the blurb. It was great to read about the Festival, and it’s clear there was a lot of research done. But it felt like it was the main topic of the book with the mystery a very small sub plot… someone goes missing early on, but then there’s an awful lot of Festival stuff with only occasional mentions of the disappearance. And then all the action happens fairly quickly at the end.

A lot of others seem to have really loved this, which is good - and a few who felt similarly to me. Give it a chance, and decide for yourself, as it’s a pleasant enough read if you approach it more as a historical slice of life novel, rather than a mystery.

I received a free ARC copy of this in return for an unbiased review.

[Dogsandbooksanddogsandbooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to the publisher for my early uncorrected proof.

Our Noble Selves is set in post WWII Britain during the recovery and a period of low morale. The government's answer to that? Create a Festival of Britain: a huge undertaking that is meant to improve the morale, if not confidence, of its people.

Wrapped around this historic undertaking, is a group of unlikely survivors of the war, now co-workers in an office dedicated to bringing about the Festival's construction. These characters are the heart of the story. Three of them are quite damaged by their personal experiences. A fourth, an older woman, has secrets of her own. Then there is The Boy. The innocently naive, comic relief within the office filled with hope and enthusiasm for the Festival. He becomes a reader's favorite and the office mascot, of sorts.

Office worker, Harry Flynn, ex-journalist, living with PTSD (before we had a name for it), is finding his encouragement in the bottle. So, when a woman he's been seen with disappears, he can't remember what happened. This is when things pick up from office banter and talk of the pavillions to be displayed at the fair to a more plot driven narrative.

Our Noble Selves starts at a leisurely pace that picks up urgency with the addition of a missing woman and ancillary characters of questionable behaviors. The back third was highly entertaining. This one is for the reader who is willing to wait for the reward.

[Nic · Rating 4 out of 5]

4* Our Noble Selves - Kate Atkinson. A hugely enjoyable romp through the Festival of Britain with added espionage and drama. Few could pull this off. Kate Atkinson never fails.

To rally the post war nation, the Festival of Britain is devised. An extravaganza of the past, present and future to celebrate has been achieved and what is to come.

Harry Flynn, former journalist and POW, joins a hodge podge of folk collating a massive list of items to display in the various rooms and pavilions which will be celebrated. There are few people in the UK who won’t recognise a local business sending their wares (shout out to the linens from Woods of Harrogate for me!). When Flynn goes on a date with a colleague, she leaves the pub early, never to be seen again. The gossip starts and Flynn finds himself in way over his head.

I’ve let Our Noble Selves settle for a day before writing a review. What started off as great fun with well developed characters and a nod to the British love of process waned a little around the a third of the way in. However the plot continued to build and by half way it had gone off like a rocket. Superb capers with some fabulous dialogue and people who I’ll remember for a long time, not least Mrs Ogilvie with her handbag and Veronica. It’s a wonderful book.

Thanks to Random House UK, Transworld and Netgalley for an ARC.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is just something so effortless about reading a Kate Atkinson novel. I don’t mean that the book is simple in terms of language, structure, plotting, or syntax. I mean that it takes next to no time for you to fall into the world of the story and its characters and before you know it, you’re reluctantly noticing you’re almost done. That’s held true for just about every one of her books I’ve read, and it continues to do so with her newest, Our Noble Selves, a kind of sort of historical mystery in its setting and trappings, though as is usual with Atkinson what wins me over is less the mystery — which is fine — but the characters, detailed immersive setting, and the writing itself.

The book is set in 1951 as post-war Britain is preparing to celebrate itself with The Festival of Britain, a sort of smaller World’s Fair or Expo, meant to bolster the nation’s mindset. As one character describes it:

This is our story . . . we’ve new things to show — new industries, new inventions, new techniques . . . New freedoms as well . . . There’ll be room for everything in the Festival. For fun as well . . . The country’s stuck in the doldrums; we need to see the future and to know we’re in touching distance of it. We hope the whole thing will be a beacon for change, a sort of tonic for the nation after . . . you know.”

This is part of a recruitment speech to our main character, Harry Flynn, a former foreign correspondent/war reporter who suffered horribly after being captured and placed in a Japanese POW camp. Flynn accepts a job in the Festival Office working to help put together a particular segment of the Festival alongside a wonderfully eccentric and engaging group that includes a young irrepressible scamp almost exclusively called “The Boy” by everyone; “Badger”, a “bonhomous clubbable sort tight-lipped about his own war as he was loyal to the Official Secrets Act which he had signed; Evans, a Welsh man and former preacher who lost his religion due to his own war experiences, and — recently joining them — Maud Ogilvie, a typographer and hyper-competent woman who sort of acts like a house matron in the office. After some scene setting and character introductions, the story hits its crisis point when a young woman (Delphine) that Flynn went to dinner with ends up missing. Flynn himself woke up the next morning after a blackout he attributes to heavy drinking (not the first time that’s happened) remembering nothing and sporting a black eye. Eventually there is suspicion of foul play in Delphine’s disappearance and Flynn becomes caught up in the investigation, first more benignly but then as a prime suspect. Flynn’s life becomes more complicated by the appearance of his young teen daughter from a failed marriage, dropped off when his ex-wife heads off on her honeymoon.

The mystery as noted is fine as a mystery, with a nice rise in tension throughout, an increase in stakes, and a sense of things closing in on Flynn as one moves through the book. It’s well plotted and the villain eventually becomes clear but with some nice twists even past that point. The historical setting, as one expects by now from Atkinson, is brought vividly and wonderfully to life. As is the Festival itself, a real event that Atkinson clearly spent a lot of time researching. The work on the Festival serves as a means to bring these characters together, allows for some exploration of British society at the time, and adds some needed humorous balance to the more tense part of the story, as Flynn and his compatriots collect “eccentricities” to show off in the Festival and Flynn more specifically has to deal with some horrible poetry for an anthology he writes the preface to and then an even more horrible “cook” whose prize-winning cake (the victory stuns all) will be part of the Festival.

But as I mentioned, the best part of the book are the characters. They’re all just great creations, individually and in their interactions, and I would have been happy to spend twice as many pages in their presence. Throwing his acerbic daughter Veronica into the mix was a brilliant addition, and I loved how she pushed Flynn into more aggressive action. He needs that push because he is suffering from what we’d today call PTSD. And the way the war haunts the nation and these characters is a major theme that is deftly handled by Atkinson. The men have their own horror stories that remain inside them for the most part—Flynn his experience on the notorious Burma Railway, Evans spending “a week in an open lifeboat in the dark of a freezing winter, watching everyone around him die,” their boss with his own hidden trauma. None of them, as Flynn muses, were “whole, he would never be whole, but like the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of men before him who had returned from a way, he was getting on with his life as if it barely existed . . . The past broke through occasionally, usually in the form of nightmares or a recurrent bout of malaria, but Flynn had determined to cast off both quickly.” But it isn’t just the men nor the veterans. Everyone in London of course had the Blitz, but beyond that, nearly everyone Flynn speaks to mentions a loss from the war. Here is a conversation between him and Maud.

“I miss him.”
“Your brother?”
“Mm. Overdue and presume lost.”
“My brother too. On the Tigris, south of Capri.”

And here is another with one of the girls helping put together a Festival room:

“She’s German.”
“Do you hold that against her?”
“Very much so. I was on ack-acks in Hyde Park. Thought I was going to die every night. I had a cousin killed in the Sheffield raids. A boyfriend who went down on the HMS Hermione in the Med.”

All these references are subtle in their moments but pack a major punch in their cumulative impact. Atkinson has long been a master at mixing the wry and the tragic, the absurd and the dark and she’s just as good here.

I loved this book start to finish. As noted at the top, I fell right into Flynn’s world and was disappointed to leave it at the end. And if Atkinson decided to somehow write another following this group, or a spin-off as she’s been known to do, I’d grab it immediately. Highly recommended.

[Meg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. This one was a tough read for me. Had I not requested the ARC it probably would have been a DNF. But I plodded along and while it didn't wow me it did get more interesting. The beginning was a real slog. The description of the book is wholly misleading. I was expecting a plot focused on the investigation of a missing person case happening with the Festival of Britain as a backdrop. But instead what I got was a book that for the first half did little more than endlessly detail the Festival. While some of the oddities submitted for the festival and the various contests that were held were interesting it in no way was enough to hold up a thin plot. The second half of the book picked up considerably with the missing person case being investigated in earnest and the main character finding himself in several tight spots that required delicate handling. If you are a fan of historical fiction, British history, the aftermath of WWII or if you are intrigued by the Festival of Britain itself then this book is for you. If not and you are looking for a police procedural or a mystery then you should probably look elsewhere.
Harry Flynn survived a prisoner of war camp in the Far East but hasn't fully recovered from the experience. He returns to life in England but he isn't really living. He enters into a failed marriage with a woman wholly unsuited for him and spends more time with his stepdaughter Veronica and her dog Mrs. Betty than he does with his wife until one day he leaves and doesn't return. He runs into his old boss who hires him to work on the Festival of Britain, which sounds like a cross between a World's Fair and an annual summer festival. He works in an office with 2 veterans, Evans and Badger, an errand boy name Terrance but routinely referred to as The Boy and Maude who is a cross between a headmistress and a secretary. Dangerfield is one of the higher-ups and he wants there to be a Festival cake contest and Flynn is put in charge. On the day of the contest, he is surprised when the worst cake wins and it is only later that he learns that Dangerfield knows Mizzi and that the contest was rigged from the start. He is appointed as Mizzi's babysitter and is ordered to go to her house for dinner where he meets her husband Archie and daughter Cynthia. He soon realizes that Cynthia is Dangerfield's daughter because they have the same eyes. The dinner is awful and Flynn realizes that Mizzi can't cook a thing. Hoping to avoid future evenings, he makes plans for a date with a woman also working on the festival. Delphine is French and Flynn can't work out why she is still in London since she clearly seems to hate it. The date is a disaster with the two having little in common and after he puts her into a cab Flynn gets so drunk that he blacks out and can't remember much of the night the next day. He wakes up with a black eye and is confused about how he got it but assumes that he got into a fight at the bar. He spends the day with Badger interviewing women to portray Nell Gwynn at the Festival and he meets one of Badger's childhood friends. Livia is coy and flirts with Flynn but then ignores him later when he sees her out with Dangerfield. When Delphine goes missing and Flynn is the last one to have seen her he is under suspicion from the police along with the women at the Festival office. He thinks nothing more of it until Archie blackmails him with Delphine's bloody scarf and forces him to break into an apartment to steal compromising photos of Mizzi. When Flynn enters the apartment and finds the photos he realizes that the flat was the love nest of Delphine and her lover and he assumes that the man that she was having an affair with was Archie. Just as he is sorting things out, his wife Ivy shows up and dumps Veronia and Mrs. Betty on him so that she can travel with her new boyfriend. Veronia is a savvy teenager who helps Flynn investigate Delphine's disappearance so that he can clear his name. He eventually puts the pieces together and figures out that Delphine was having an affair with Dangerfield and he tried to end it because he wants to run for parliament. But she was using the photos of Mizzi as leverage. Livia, Badger and Maude were all government spies and wanted Delphine to turn Dangerfield in as a traitor but she was killed before she could. But Dangerfield didn't kill Delphine, so who did? Flynn assumed that it was Mizzi but really it was Cynthia and Archie was trying to protect her by framing Flynn. A good spy/domestic drama but it took way too long to get there.

[Veerle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very fascinating book, this. Kate Atkinson's Our Noble Lives is set against the backdrop of the 1951 Festival of Britain, a real event that I initially assumed was one of her inventions. Instead, it proves to be the novel's perfect metaphor. The Festival was Britain's attempt to present itself as a modern, optimistic nation after the devastation of the Second World War. Britain was trying to reinvent itself after the war had left it scarred. Harry Flynn, the novel's protagonist, is engaged in much the same project on a personal level.

Harry is trying to rebuild his life after working as a war correspondent. Like Britain itself, he has been irrevocably transformed by the war. Throughout the novel, Atkinson turns Harry into a mirror of post-war Britain: both carry visible and invisible scars, both struggle to move forward, and both discover that rebuilding does not mean returning to what once was. It means inventing a new identity while learning to live with loss.

What impressed me most was Atkinson's understated style. Harry's grief is rarely expressed in dramatic scenes. Instead, it floats in and out in seemingly insignificant observations. His dead brother remains present not through grand declarations of sorrow, but through the thought that he would never have wanted a stuffed rabbit in his room, a prop Harry is using for the Festival. Those tiny details reveal more about love and absence than pages of explicit introspection ever could.

The Festival itself is brought to life with the same understated precision. I loved the authentic touches: suppliers' names for historical props, exhibition plans, diagrams and maps that capture the post-war faith in science, technology and progress. As someone who regularly visits London, I particularly enjoyed seeing familiar places through new eyes. The South Bank, where I've attended concerts at the Royal Festival Hall, suddenly became more than a cultural venue—it emerged as one of the lasting legacies of the Festival of Britain and a monument to post-war optimism.

Although the novel is fundamentally historical fiction, Atkinson has great fun borrowing from detective fiction. A missing woman, a bloodstained scarf, suspicious behaviour, MI5 agents, former SOE operatives, hidden pasts and shifting identities gradually accumulate into a mystery worthy of Agatha Christie. At one point, Harry's stepdaughter is even reading Christie herself—a delightful wink to the reader that Atkinson knows exactly which genre she's playing with. The eventual solution arrives in classic Christie fashion: the culprit turns out to be someone you never seriously suspected. Yet the mystery never overwhelms the novel's larger concerns. Instead, it reinforces one of Atkinson's central ideas: in post-war Britain, almost everyone is hiding something.

That, ultimately, is what Our Noble Lives is about. The detective plot is not simply a puzzle to solve but another reflection of a society learning to live with secrets, trauma and reinvention. Just as the Festival of Britain offered the nation a carefully curated story about its future, many of the characters are quietly rewriting their own pasts.

As always with Kate Atkinson, relatively little happens on the surface for the greater part of the novel. Much of the novel consists of conversations, walks, memories and apparently trivial observations. Yet beneath that understated style lies a rich exploration of grief, identity and the stories—personal and national—we tell ourselves in order to carry on.

It is a quietly rewarding novel that works as historical fiction, psychological portrait and detective story all at once, while never losing sight of the ordinary lives that history leaves behind. Thank you NetGalley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers for the ARC! I really really enjoyed it!

[Lady Fancifull · Rating 5 out of 5]

Indubitably a glorious and outlandish collation

Kate Atkinson has always been a joyous, lip-smacking ingester of language, as though words were the tastiest and most sustaining of morsels. And so it is here, in this dizzying, twisty-turny extravaganza of many things, set around and within the post-war horrors of PTSD experienced by surviving military veterans of the second world war, and the preparations for the 1951 Festival of Britain.

A group of these damaged ones, managing as best as they can, are colleagues in the organisation overseeing the Festival, design to lift the spirits of a population still feeling the effects of war on the home front. Central is Harry Flynn, ex journalist, and survivor of the conflict in the Far East, and its camps. Flynn, as he is known to all is a tender soul, deeply despairing, strangely attractive to women, possibly because he is, despite everything, without malice or harmful intent, even though he did walk out of a bad marriage, undertaken after the war was over, with Ivy, a forceful woman with her own agenda for making a marriage which was never going to benefit either of them. Flynn left behind not only Ivy, but his stepdaughter teenage Veronica, who appeared to disapprove of Flynn as much as her mother did, and her scruffy dog, Mrs Betty, the only one Flynn really regrets leaving.

The first half of the book is a slow weaving of a huge cast of eccentric characters involved in the Festival. And is wonderfully detailed, absorbing and sparkling with Atkinson’s delectable, seemingly effortless and precise humour. However…………..what, once the scene is properly set, ratchets up the page-turn is that the random disappearance of a stroppy and unpleasant Frenchwoman, Delphine Dubois, leads to a suspicion that she has been murdered, and the Flynn is the murderer, as he appears to be the last person to have seen her alive, and various other pieces of evidence, whether witnesses or material, point to him. The reader knows from the off that Flynn is not the culprit.

Veronica and Mrs Betty re-appear, and in their own, ridiculous and wonderfully Atkinsonesque way, turn out to be a marvellous and quirky solver of crimes. Both Veronica, and an equally wonderful, intelligent but linguistically challenged office boy ‘Boy’ become the clever and seamless way in which Atkinson’s playfulness with language can take wings and fly.

I have, hopefully, whetted some appetites here, whilst avoiding all spoilers. Having read, fairly recently, several books by writers who reminded me (to their detriment) of Atkinson, because they appeared, in their cases, effortfully to be trying to do what she does as if it were as simple as breathing, I ended up reading those authors with a sense of deeply missing Atkinson. Being offered this book by her, I have fallen on it like a woman fed a diet of porridge, who had been dreaming of a cornucopia of fresh and tasty fare, put together by a chef who understands flavours, piquancy, and how food should delight as well as nourish.

These gustatory overloads of this review are not out of place. Much is made, within this story, of the making of a cake, and also, as at the time this book is set, rationing was still in force, there is an understandable yearning for lashings of all things rich and tasty!

My only sorrow (boo!) is that the book had to end. Hint to readers, there are line drawings at the start of each chapter which show the way to walk round the exhibition’s various themes and rooms. Don’t ignore them, their subject matter and their relationship to chapter titles!

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is not my usual kind of read, admittedly. But I was determined to give it a go, and hopefully find a historical character-based story that I liked. I was quite hopeful that this book would give me some details of the Festival of Britain in 1951, an event I’ve always had an interest in. Although before my time, I have always thought that the event represented a determination to make things better for Britain after WW2, a positivity that I have found charming and uplifting.

Sadly, this wasn’t. Instead, we got what was possibly more realistic, a depressing depiction of how grimy, sleazy and squalid the world of post-war Britain really was – rationing still in force, employment high, many men and women feeling lost and unfulfilled after service in the war. It’s all rather miserable, the title being notably ironic.

Atkinson manages to give some idea of what the rationed 1950’s were probably like, but I couldn’t help feeling that it was all seen through the lens of a sneery 2026, something the writer even admits to in her Afterword that she may have been unfair on the Festival by populating the novel with many characters who seem less than enthusiastic about it.

The mystery element – that of the French lady who disappears after one date with Harry -attempts to create suspense, but really didn’t. I did feel some sympathy for Harry after his wartime experiences mentioned in flashback, but unfortunately the two things that impressed me most in the book was how many dates miserable old Harry managed to go on, and how much he drank. Much of the first half of the book involves him doing just that, whilst scornful at the Festival of Britain and his colleagues.

To counter this, at times Atkinson tries to inject a certain degree of light humour, a sort-of Ealing Comedy ‘jolly hockey sticks’ kind of derring-do, around his co-workers at the Festival of Britain. The characters that I think I was meant to laugh at, I could only feel pity for. Some early reviews have referred to it as witty, I was less enamoured; I felt that it was always disdainful, and felt both forced and flat to me, if not wrong-footed. Events at the end bordered on farce, which did little to impress me.

Comments on class and wealth throughout the book showed how much they are still part of the English/British establishment in the 1950’s, although they felt unsubtle to me.

Generally, the book felt unbalanced. The first part of the book is slow, the first hundred pages having little to do but have Harry be miserable. Things gain a little more pace when he is suspected of murder, and then it all takes an odd left turn with the sudden arrival of a character briefly mentioned at the beginning who then takes over the book.

Would I recommend this book? Hmmm. That depends - was I meant to admire the situation? If so, I didn’t. Was I meant to find it humorous? If so, no. If nothing else, it did make me realise that looking at historical events from the present does tend to emphasise that we are only seeing one view of events, and often through rose-coloured glasses. Things were really not as nice as I imagined they were.

Add to that the uneven pacing, the unlikely coincidences and cliches that destroyed my sense of disbelief and most of all the horrendous winding-up-the-plot information dump at the end in that “Oh, Freddy you mean this, then this, then this?” kind of way that even the most basic crime novel avoids, I have to say that this was not for me, much as I wanted to like it.

Other readers may like it.

[Helen_t_reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you so very, very much to @doubledayukbooks for sending me a proof of Kate Atkinson's upcoming novel, Our Noble Selves, which comes out on 10th September. Here's what it's about:

It’s the summer of 1951 and everyone is looking to put the dark days of the war behind them. The government’s solution: The Festival of Britain, a celebration of the country’s creativity, grit and ingenuity.

For foreign correspondent turned war reporter Harry Flynn, it might offer the chance of redemption after a bad war in the Far East and a peace that is proving no easier to negotiate. Having failed to resume his journalistic career, he reluctantly joins an oddball team of misfits, ne’er-do-wells and downright chancers helping to ready the Festival of Britain for launch.

Flynn’s attempts to resume some semblance of a romantic life also founder when one of his dates goes missing and he is deemed to be the last person to have seen her alive. Could he have been in some way responsible for her disappearance?

Little does he realize that the answer to some of his mounting problems may lie in the hands of a precocious, straight-talking thirteen-year-old called Veronica and a rather scruffy terrier who goes by the name of Mrs Betty…

I completely and utterly loved this book. It's another absolute triumph of a novel from Kate Atkinson and I just know that nothing I write in this review is ever going to do it justice. Instead, you'll just have to believe me when I say that it's totally brilliant and you absolutely need to read it! A definite contender for my book of the year.

I'm not going to give anything away, and I shall avoid all spoilers, but what I can reveal is that it positively sparkles with Kate Atkinson's trademark dry, sardonic humour, her literary quirk and her sheer inventiveness, as she shapes her story around the real life Festival of Britain, which she uses to frame it, as well as use it as a springboard.

As ever, her writing is sharply and acutely observed, witty, and comedic, and her dialogue is absolute perfection. I found myself chuckling so many times at the things her characters say, or at their -and the author's - little asides.

The plotting of the novel is deftly and brilliantly done, so that we have a murder mystery quietly embroidered into what feels, at first, simply a historical novel chronicling a real life event, but then the mystery - and Harry Flynn's jeopardy - slowly grows, and gathers momentum, until it takes centre stage.

Our Noble Selves is rich in the vital detail needed to build a convincing and enveloping sense of place, time and atmosphere. There is so much historical detail within the novel that it really feels like you're walking round the Festival site, and you know just how the atmosphere in Flynn’s office feels, but, it never once feels superfluous or overloaded.

Kate Atkinson is a genius in the way she always highlights the quirky, the eccentric and the downright absurd, whether it's in her setting or her characters, and she doesn't disappoint this time either. Whether it's the festival emblem rendered in 604 gallstones (all from one patient - true story!) or the various foibles of her characters, she never fails to delight.

And speaking of characters, her cast is superbly drawn, and they are all truly memorable. In the Festival Office, there is a ragtag assembly of eccentrics and misfits. We have our hero, Harry Flynn, who is flawed and multilayered, scarred by his horrific wartime experiences, which he buries deep; Evans who always looks on the worst side; the uncouth Office Boy, Terence, who is taken under their wing; Badger the Norfolk toff; and the redoubtable Maud Ogilvie, who, 'in my defence', is perhaps my absolute favourite character. (IYKYK).

Then there's Veronica, Flynn’s precocious step daughter; the awful Mitzi and Archie Blinkhorn, who positively exude Fanny and Jonny Craddock energy; not to mention a whole bevy of Flynn’s lady friends, and and his colourful neighbours.

All of these ingredients combine to make a clever and compelling tale about a war-scarred journalist and an equally war-scarred country rebuilding itself, and how they have to learn to face the future with purpose, ambition and optimism.

It's a crackerjack of a read. Never mind 5 stars, it deserves an absolute galaxy.
Unreservedly recommended, and you can thank me later!

[Amy Gentry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kate Atkinson is an insta-read for me; at her best she's sublime, but she's always light on her feet and has the trick of being caustic without cynicism.

Our Noble Selves is no exception. Yes, it occasionally has the feel of being written to showcase all the fun tidbits someone found researching the Festival of Britain. But 1) the tidbits really are fun, and 2) I found protagonist Harry Flynn an easy hang, and his wrong-man woes engaging enough to pull the story along. I enjoy Atkinson's fixations on the relationship between class and language; it's merely decorative here, a running gag, but given the themes of creating a unified (if sham) Britain, highly relevant. Why is the Welshman so interested in teaching the Cockney urchin the correct words for things? Three guesses.

Back to Flynn. I can see some readers being turned off by his passivity, but I found him almost Chandler-esque. Like Philip Marlowe, he's a punching bag who attracts dames without lifting a finger. He's constantly on a date, but he's never the one asking. For some reason this cracked me up. If you want to know why he's like that, the backstory explains it all, right up front. If you don't, you're welcome to forget about it. Either way, he ends the book on a note of emotional growth that was unexpected, and not, for me, unwelcome. There's something floating around here about the next generation, those tough-talking, gum-chewing, parentless kids born into a world that makes no sense. They represent a future very different from the rose-colored past the Festival is trying to sell. Yet they, too, can be charmed by Festival Rock and roller coasters. There's something comforting about that.

In the afterword, Atkinson reveals that she cut a much more substantial plotline about the POWs on the Burma Railway, because she felt she couldn't do it justice without weighing down the book. I think she was probably right, but I wish she could have let just a touch more of it in. Every time these horrors entered the book, Flynn's character came to life, and the cartoonish spy plot with its multiple McGuffins felt less flimsy and more thematically on point. There's just something missing in this book; it never quite gets out from under the shadow of Flynn's war-trauma stupor. The "wrong man" plot is driven by Flynn's failure to remember one crucial night; it's a natural step from there his refusal to remember things so much more awful, even Atkinson doesn't want to go there. Surely the antagonist is the Festival itself, with its insistence on planting false memories of English (oops, British!!) identity after the fall of empire, to cover up their humiliating failures and collusions. There's just so much here to explore. To include it would have made for a much longer and riskier book, perhaps even a duology, like the incredible Life After Life/A God in Ruins.

But then, she already wrote those incredibly ambitious books, so maybe she gets a pass for life. Even Jackson Brodie goes in for cozies these days (c.f. Death at the Sign of the Rook). With Atkinson's accomplishments (three Costas--one for a debut!) she can write anything she damn well pleases. I can't help hoping Flynn gets a sequel, with Maud Ogilvie as his handler; I'd like to see him come into his own. And maybe Burma will get its own Life After Life, you never know. In the meantime, I'll happily chomp on minor Atkinson like it's Festival Rock.

[Ceecee · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s 1951 and the British government wants to put the dark days behind us and focus attention on the Festival of Britain. It’s a celebration of creativity as well as grit and determination. For war correspondent and POW Harry Flynn, it might just be the focus he needs to re-find what he lost in the Far East and so he joins an oddball bunch aiming to launch the Festival. It is indeed just the ticket, a harbour and a tonic for him and it helps restore some humour as well as camaraderie. He even attempts a date, albeit somewhat reluctantly, with Delphine Dubois and her subsequent disappearance suggests he may have been the last person to see her alive. Is he involved in someway? His problems mount but maybe these can be resolved thanks to Veronica, a very resourceful 13-year-old and her constant companion, a terrier called Mrs Betty.

I’ve read everything Kate Atkinson has written as she’s a truly fabulous writer and she’s come up yet again with a novel which is sure to be a best seller. There’s the usual trademark lively writing with humorous asides against the backdrop of the potential exhibits at the Festival – some weird, some eccentric, some whimsical, some futuristic and so on. The sense of time and place is terrific, the post war atmosphere of a country desperate to recover with the Festival of Britain symbolising that.

As for the plot, it’s a very entertaining blend of a mystery thriller, combined with an actual historical event, extraordinarily colourful characters, all delivered with the optimistic tone set by the Festival and a great deal of wit, especially in the dialogue. This is how we learn the origin of the title. Cheers. The author strikes a perfect balance between all the elements.

The characterisation is outstanding, especially of Harry and all those he works with, and those he meets along the way throughout the pre-festival months. Some are hilarious such as Veronica whose hollow legs and capacity for food is quite admirable, and Terrence, the office boy, and of course Mitzi Blinkhorn, a thinly disguised Fanny Craddock. Other characters have motives that are slightly more nefarious or secretive but they are all colourfully depicted.

The plot is busy but always clear as all the different strands meld together. I’m glad Harry‘s story in the Far East is only referred to peripherally, it’s there but not overdramatised. It’s perfectly in keeping with most World War II survivors and of course, the spirit of the festival. It’s a shame the festival buildings are removed bar the Festival Hall as there had been a great monument and sign post for the future.

Overall, I love everything about this book and was highly entertained from beginning to end. It also enables me to learn more about the Festival of Britain as that is so well researched. Highly recommended.

With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Random House U.K. Transworld for the much appreciated early copy in return for an honest review.

[Yvonne · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you enjoy well-researched historical novels, believable but slightly larger than life characters, and intriguing mysteries, this book ticks all the boxes. It's set in early 1950s London as the Festival of Britain is under construction and follows one of the workers, Harry Flynn, as he does his best to keep up with the demands of the job while also getting more and more involved in a murder investigation in which he's slowly becoming the prime suspect.

Like most of the people in his office, Harry is a World War II veteran. A journalist on assignment in Singapore, he was captured by the Japanese and forced into railway construction under appalling conditions, something he obviously hasn't recovered from. His office mates had their own wartime experiences in the armed forces or the intelligence services, and their work on the Festival of Britain is an almost comical counterpoint to their recent history. Men who were recently torpedoed in the North Sea or injured on D-Day or risked their lives doing surveillance behind enemy lines are now trying to source butterflies and plaster doves and cake recipes for the various pavilions of the festival. In the meantime, one of Harry's female colleagues goes missing the day after a date with him, and he finds himself deeper and deeper in this mystery without understanding what's going on. He soon realises that he's been set up to take the blame and needs to save himself because he has no idea who he can trust. Fortunately for him, his streetwise 13-year-old stepdaughter and her elderly dog are staying with him and are a great help in getting to the bottom of the mystery.

The descriptions of what it takes to get a large event like this up and running are so entertaining (and informative - a huge amount of research has obviously gone on) that the mystery aspect of the story is almost unnecessary. However, it soon becomes clear that the disappearance, followed by a death and then another death or two, links back to unfinished business during the war and that several of Harry's colleagues are involved. This gradually changes the focus of the story from the optimistic postwar narrative that the Festival is supposed to represent to a bittersweet tale of wartime score settling and political intrigue. The (mercifully short) descriptions of Harry's experiences as a prisoner of war also remind us that people in particular and society in general are carrying deeper scars than the Festival of Britain can cure, although it's a good first step on the road to postwar recovery. This mixture of forward-looking optimism and backward-looking tragedy is beautifully explored in this story.

With thanks to Doubleday and NetGalley for a prepublication ebook.

[Tanya · Rating 4 out of 5]

He wasn't whole, he would never be whole, but, like the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of men before him who had returned from a war, he was getting on with his life by treating the past as if it barely existed. [loc. 217]

Before the war, Harry Flynn was a reporter; then, very briefly, a war reporter; and finally a POW working on the Burma Railway. In post-war London he drifts miserably, only vaguely aware of the planned Festival of Britain. One day he encounters his old boss in St James's Park, and is offered a job in the Festival Office, 'sopping up all the bits and pieces of Festival business that no else else cared to'. He shares his office with 'Badger', a.k.a. Mr Badgley, who doesn't talk about his war work; Evans, who survived shipwreck in the Arctic; and 'the Boy', who is 14, illiterate, working class, and a delight. 

One night Flynn goes for a drink with a rather obnoxious Frenchwoman named Delphine Dubois. He wakes up the next morning with a black eye and a gap in his memory -- and Delphine has disappeared. Naturally, suspicion falls on Flynn. Even under suspicion of murder, though, he still has a job to do -- dealing with a celebrity cook and her nefarious husband, a stepdaughter and a dog, a Festival anthology of appalling poetry, and a plethora of plaster doves...

There is a lot of detail about the Festival here, but it's woven around a thriller about spies, double agents and fascists. As usual with Kate Atkinson, it's easy to get sidetracked by the asides, the characters, the setting: London in 1951 is a city still emerging from the horrors of war, and though the Festival is intended as a boost to morale and a taste of a peacetime future, there are plenty (including the Daily Express) who fulminate about the cost, the inherent classism, the London-centric nature of the main event. Plus ça change.

Flynn is somewhat naive but generally a good man: the novel is told, third-person, from his perspective, and the attentive reader will find significance where Flynn does not. This is a hopeful novel, despite its gentle mockery of British art and attitudes.  I found Atkinson's afterword -- where, as well as describing her research, she sets out her reasons for not writing about Flynn's war -- interesting, too. 

Read because: spotted it on Netgalley and was intrigued by the premise and setting: I generally enjoy Atkinson's novels, and this was no exception.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy, in exchange for this full honest review. UK Publication Date is 10th September 2026.

[Denis Wheller · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s 1951and Harry Flynn, ex journalist, ex Japanese POW, is now collator of artifacts for the Festival of Britain, a murder suspect and a target. Quite a mixture, but then its not long after WWII and Britain was full of people with colourful backgrounds. Take, for example, the other people in Harry’s office: Evans, survivor of a torpedoed ship on the Arctic convoys, Badger, dismissed civil servant, Denholm, ‘resting’ actor, Terrence – known as The Boy – illiterate gopher, and Maud, a soi-disant ‘maiden aunt’ sort of administrator (but with hidden depths). Between them, this team must organise The Festival of Britain, designed by the powers-that-be as a way to brighten the lives of the post war population and introduce them to the wonders of the future world. Along the way, we also encounter a cast of other colourful characters, notably: Mitzi, Britain’s most famous – but basically useless – TV cook, her husband Archie – known as The Major but actually a cashiered Captain – Lydia, beautiful, glamorous, posh, SIS agent, and Veronica, Harry’s barely teenage stepdaughter, with a wisdom beyond her years, an acerbic wit, and a glorious joie-de-vivre. Not to mention, Delphine Dubois, a mysterious French woman who invited Harry for a drink, then did a runner, disappeared and is assumed to be dead and probably murdered – by Harry!
This is a murder-mystery/spy thriller, at the extremely eccentric end of those spectra. It is also quite light-hearted in many ways, but with an undertow of post-war, stiff upper lip British phlegm. The characters are all well drawn and believable, with a standout performance by Veronica who deserves a further book of her own (dragging Flynn along in her wake). Kate Atkinson is justly feted for being an accomplished exponent of the English language, faultlessly flitting through common and rarer words and phrases without obvious contrivance; a joy to read. Here the first half is largely scene and character setting, bringing the (deeply researched) Festival to life through language and the second half starts to pull the various strands together through cunning planning. And of course, as Veronica points out, there’s always a twist, in fact many twists, as the resolution powers its way to the dénouement . I could be picky, but I’d never get below 4.5, so 5 stars is clear.
I would like to thank NetGalley, the publishers and the author for providing me with a draft proof copy for the purpose of this review.

[Jessica Gilmore · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is one author guaranteed to give me a book hangover and that is Kate Atkinson. Every time I finish a new book (always binged, there is no restraint, no eeking out the pages) I get hit with a melancholy that it's over, that I have to leave the characters behind, sure that no book I read in the next few months will measure up. What is it about Atkinson? The superbly sharp characterisation? The dry, dark wit? The unexpectedness of the plotting, often racheted up to almost unbearable tenseness? The way she evokes time and place? The point perfect writing? Tick all of the above. She never descends to sentimentality and yet her books can be devastatingly sad if often, in the end, hopeful. I usually cry at least once.
So, as the tik tokers say, I was today old when I realised that the Royal Festival Hall on Southbank, a brutalist building I have walked past many times was, and you may be as surprised as me, built for a Royal Festival! If only there was some kind of clue in the name. A festival held in the early fifties to celebrate all that was Good About Britain in the dreary, still-rationed early 50s Britain. This is the setting for Our Noble Selves. Working at the festival is Harry Flynn, just about functioning probable alcoholic. irresistable to women for reasons he cannot fathom. survivor of the Burmese Railways. He shares an office with several other men, all with their own war scars buried surface deep, working against the clock as the opening date ticks nearer, heading back to his one room flat every night to drink whisky and try to forget the past. But when an evening out he doesn't even want to go on ends with a blackout and a black eye for Harry and the disappearance of his French date things turn very dark. The police and some colleagues seem to think he killed her despite the lack of body and Harry knows he is being set up. he just doesn't know by who or why but he didn't survive starvation and brutality to go down without a fight.
This is Atkinson at her best, unreliable and shady and twisty, superb sense of time and place leaving me feeling like I had set foot in the Festival, peopled with real, unforgettable, startling original characters. What she did superbly was convey the utter horror of Harry's past without it ever veering into exploitation with just a few never to be forgotten horrific details. A masterclass. Read it.

[Pam Elliott · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have always been excited to sit down with a Kate Atkinson novel – primarily her Jackson Brodie series but at times the stand-alone novels as well. But the last several novels by Atkinson show a decided switch in writing style, and I am not sure I like it.
Atkinson’s latest is Our Noble Selves, which like the last novel Death at the Sign of the Rook, is more of a satire about mysteries than a mystery itself. Though I did enjoy the book once I understood that it was written tongue in cheek, rather like a Thin Man novel combined with a cozy. The quips are there and the unrealistic plot and characters, just like an old black and white movie.
The story is set in the aftermath of WWII in England in the offices of the Festival of Britian with our main character, Flynn, a rather unlikable, passive man back from the war with little interest in life. The real main character though is The Festival itself. Atkinson spends almost 80 percent of the book’s first half describing The Festival, which she certainly did a great deal of research concerning. For historians, The Festival detail is fascinating.
About midway though, things begin to pick up when a French woman working at The Festival goes missing just after our hero Flynn has drinks with her. He is obviously being framed for her disappearance, but the police and Flynn’s workmates just blunder along without any real concern for the woman. It isn’t even Flynn who looks into the matter, but his step-daughter who is 12 years old. Only when Veronica joins the story does the plot move along. She is a clever smart mouthed girl with more character than almost everyone else in the book.
Not all the characters left me cold – another who made me smile was The Boy, as he was called by the office workers. (Apparently, I mostly enjoyed the young teen characters!) The witty dialogue kept me reading, even if the mystery was minimal – though in reality, this is an espionage novel as you will discover upon reading.
If you like witty repertoire, British history and a pleasant cozy spy novel, this is your book. Atkinson can certainly write; I just prefer the way she wrote earlier in her career.
My Rating: 3.5 of 5
This ARC title was provided by Netgalley.com at no cost, and I am providing an unbiased review.
Our Noble Selves will be published on September 15, 2026.

[Shari · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's 1949 and in London, Harry Flynn is sitting on a park bench. A journalist before the war, he's been drifting since he returned. Today we'd say he was suffering from PTSD due to his experience not as a soldier but as a journalist who was taken as a POW in Asia. He tried at first to settle into life again, thinking that marriage and possibly children would help him heal. That didn't work out and he has just sort of meandered through his life ever since. As he sits on the park bench, the guy who encouraged him to go to Asia to cover the war appears and is surprised to see him--since Flynn was considered missing, presumed dead, this is understandable. This guy offers him a job as a poetry judge for the Festival of Britain, to be held in 1951. Flynn takes the job. The story then jumps to 1951 and the ever more frantic preparations for the festival. Harry's jobs have multiplied well beyond being a poetry judge and as more and more ideas are tossed out there, his responsibilities grow. New people appear in the office. He is still puzzled by some things and misses nonverbal cues when communicating with people, but he's a little less aloof now and has even developed some tentative friendships. Soon though, weird things start happening and he finds himself in the middle of a mystery. Plot ensues.
I love Kate Atkinson, so I was thrilled to read this book. It did not disappoint. It's a page turner both for the development of the mystery and for character development. It's actually a funny book--I laughed at various times throughout. In an author's note at the end, Atkinson described how, when doing research for the book, she realized that it was meant to be a humorous book and so she decided not to include a lot of gruesome details of what a POW's experience in Asia was like. It's there, but just enough to help readers understand what makes Flynn who he is. The Festival of Britain is a historical event, but details are fictionalized here. It's a Kate Atkinson book, so of course the writing is excellent, the characters are well developed, and the historical setting is interesting. I wholeheartedly recommend this book.

Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for a digital review copy.

[Randy · Rating 3 out of 5]

British war correspondent Harry Flynn spent his WWII years working on the Burma Railway as a Japanese POW, after which he entered a disastrous marriage with an unsympathetic harridan named Ivy Spears. Deciding that it’s time for a change, the somewhat milquetoast Harry simply walks away from the union and joins the oddball staff of the Festival of Britain, a 1951 celebratory exhibition mounted to lift the downtrodden spirits of the Mother Country’s post-war residents as they pass through a series of pavilions that signal optimistic faith in the future while telling the story of England’s past.
Ordinary folk and various shops submit cricket bats, pudding dishes, and ceramic critters for display, a burgeoning stock of artifacts that are overseen by Harry and his co-workers—a decidedly oddball bunch, including the dapper Badger, Evans-Jones (just Evans, please), the Boy (Terence, but known by all as The Boy), and the mysterious Maud Ogilvie.
One night, Harry has a drink in a bar with a Frenchwoman, later waking up in his own bed from a blackout with a black eye, and quickly becoming the primary suspect in the woman’s possibly fatal disappearance. Nothing, of course, is as it seems but as the evidence starts to pile up against our hero, he is unexpectedly joined by a sassy, teenage ally in his efforts to clear his name. As the opening of the Festival nears and the metaphorical noose around poor Harry's neck tightens, the puzzle pieces begin to fall into place with some unforeseen twists.
While some will find the initially slow-burning plot a bit meandering—Atkinson stuffs in a lot of Festival-related detail (of varying interest to be honest)—readers will appreciate the entertaining office banter featuring the trademark droll humor known to fans of the author’s wonderful Jackson Brodie private eye novels and her standalone WWII bestsellers (including "Life After Life” and “Transcription”).
Serving up solid historical fiction, colorful characters, and a deliciously intricate mystery, this is recommended. Thanks to Goodreads and Doubleday for providing an advance reader copy.

[Cleopatra Pullen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve been reading Kate Atkinson every since Behind the Scenes at the Museum, and one of the great pleasures of following her work is how confidently she inhabits different eras while keeping her trademark warmth, wit and emotional acuity. Our Noble Selves is no exception. Using the Festival of Britain as its backdrop, the author brings 1951 to life with such colour and texture that I found myself learning so much about The Festival of Britain, absorbing its spirit of post‑war hope through the characters.

At the centre is Harry Flynn, a war‑scarred journalist whose life has stalled somewhere between regret and reluctant reinvention. He’s very much one of those “English” characters Kate Atkinson draws so well: slightly baffled by his own circumstances, quietly bruised, and unexpectedly endearing. His attempt to resume a romantic life becomes the novel’s mystery thread, as he tries to untangle what really happened to Delphine Debois, the date who vanishes after an evening with him. But while the disappearance gives the story its momentum, I think the true joy lies elsewhere.

The author’s gift for character shines through in the people who gather around Harry. I grew genuinely fond of Veronica, whose precocious clarity cuts through the adult muddle; The Boy, whose presence adds both humour and heart; Evans, steady and understated; and of course Miss Betty, the scruffy terrier who steals scenes with ease. These characters aren’t just supporting cast, they’re the emotional architecture of the novel, each one adding warmth, eccentricity and humanity.

What I loved most was how Kate Atkinson balances the tragicomic with the tender. The Festival of Britain becomes more than a setting: it’s a symbol of a country trying to rebuild itself, and of individuals doing the same. The novel feels both playful and poignant, full of the author’s unmistakable charm and her ability to make even the smallest interactions feel meaningful.

A delight from start to finish it is witty, humane, and quietly moving. And for me, it was a pleasure to learn more about the Festival of Britain along the way, a piece of history I'd only vaguely heard of before reading this novel.

[Rachel N · Rating 5 out of 5]

A new Kate Atkinson novel is always a cause for celebration. Much as I love the Jackson Brodie series, her standalone books are exceptional and I’ve particularly enjoyed those set around World War II (Life after Life, A God in Ruins, Transcription). Our Noble Selves is set slightly later, centred around the Festival of Britain in 1951, but the aftereffects of the war are very much in evidence.

Harry Flynn, returned from several years as a prisoner of war in the Far East, has struggled to return to work as a journalist and is instead part of a team trying to ensure the Festival is ready for launch despite the lack of time or money. An ill-fated date ends in disaster for Harry when the woman disappears and he is suspected to be the last person to see her alive, leading him into a much deeper plot and the need for help from a precocious thirteen year old girl, Veronica.

It’s an eclectic cast of characters and the usual wonderful mix of laughs (especially Veronica and ‘the boy’, the young dogsbody in the office who seems to know everything and everyone) and the occasional glimpse of all that the adults have suffered through their wartime experiences. The atmosphere in London, bomb damaged, still rationed, struggling to recover, and the aim of the Festival to try and lift spirits and give a glimpse of the future is beautifully done. Many of the quirkiest items to be suggested are taken from historical records and Atkinson does a great job of representing the Festival and its aims with humour but not mockery.

The plot is well devised and keeps you guessing but it’s the characters and the atmosphere which are always the highlights of Atkinson’s novels and this one is no different. Her books always manage to bring people, places and times to life and, as always, I raced through this one. Highly recommended.

Thanks to Netgalley, the author and publisher for an advance copy in return for an honest review.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The setting of Our Noble Selves is the organisation of The Festival of Britain, a four month event which was held in London in 1951 to bring a dowdy post-war Britain out of the doldrums by highlighting British achievements in science, arts, technology and industrial design.

The Festival of Britain staff are depicted as a series of idiosyncratic characters. The main character Flynn is struggling to regain his pre-war confidence and sang froid. Briefly married after the war he soon realised that it was a mistake, so one day walked out of the marital home leaving his wife and young step-daughter. He was previously a journalist but has not settled into a steady career since coming home from incarceration in the East. Despite all this trauma his appeal to women is strong, he seems to have no issue at all being propositioned by various women whom are Festival organisers.

However, there is much more to the story, which includes quirky and fascinating real life stories and facts from the Festival, when a French woman with whom Flynn was having a drink the previous evening goes missing. She is presumed dead when she fails to turn up at work. The finger of blame is seemingly pointed at Flynn by the police and Festival community. Flynn presumes he is innocent, but even he is not entirely sure as events after a point at the end of the evening are a complete blank. He has awoken in the morning sporting a black eye and many facial bruises …

The story is a caper despite post-war trauma, many shady characters and dodgy dealers. I found it great fun, but I am biased as I have read everything Kate Atkinson writes. I love her sense of humour and knack for highlighting farcical situations. She’s made me want to go to find a London pub to see if plaster doves really are in-situ still and I’ve found myself Googling images and stories from the Festival of Britain 1951.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an advance copy.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Readers familiar with Kate Atkinson’s novels expect memorable attention to detail, quirky characters, vivid settings and a carefully plotted narrative. ‘Our Noble Selves’ does not disappoint. Set in 1951 and focusing on a disparate group all involved in the organisation of the Festival of Britain, Atkinson reminds us of a country still fantasising about lashing of butter on tea cakes and with a general demeanour of beige and grey.

Harry Flynn, one time journalist and survivor of war in the East hopes to live a quiet life. A failed marriage under his belt, he is surprised when his adopted thirteen year old stepdaughter, Veronica, is foist upon him whilst her mother goes off to the Continent. Hurrah for Veronica. A pragmatist, comedian and quick thinker, she brings Harry unexpected joy. And he needs some joy in his life. For some reason, the police suspect him of the murder of a woman he hardly knows and clues to implicate him keep turning up. Has he become violent whilst under the influence of the many whiskeys with which he self-medicates?

Veronica is partial to murder mysteries and ‘Our Nobles Selves’ mimics this genre in some respects. We are not encouraged to become emotionally involved in this comic novel; the deaths are written more as plot convenience than horror. The hero Harry Flynn attracts women aplenty but goodness knows why. MI5 come and go; the police bungle and good overcomes evil.

Atkinson’s latest novel certainly entertains and it is interesting to learn something of the Festival of Britain. However, it’s the portrayal of the children that stands out for me. Veronica is enterprising, funny and tough, as is her counterpart the Boy. Would love to see them in Sixties London!

My thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK Transworld Publishers for a copy of this book in exchange for a fair review.

[Sarah Benjamin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m a huge Atkinson fan and I was delighted to be preapproved on NetGalley galley UK to read this new novel. It went straight to the top of my reading list.
I was reminded quite early on a thing I noticed when I’m reading all of Kate‘s books that she uses some more English words that I recognise but can’t use myself I’m left to checking them in the Kindle dictionary on multiple occasions during reading this book
It’s rather timeless book written perhaps in the style of a 50s novel which follows a group of people who are all working together at the festival of Britain organisation offices in the 1950s we mainly follow Harry Flynn who works in this office. It’s a spy novel really I suppose one of the women that he has been seeing informally disappears and he gets a few accused of murdering her. We meet a whole selection of other characters, some of whom turn out to be spies, there’s a lot of double crossing and daring does going on. I’m not much good at keeping up with stories where there are lots of different characters and I did find myself lost on a few occasions reading this one. It moves along quite speedily and is an enjoyable fast paced read.
I didn’t really find myself loving the main character and felt that the character definition in this novel was not as great as I would’ve liked

I loved several Atkinson‘s previous novels in particular life after life and I’m afraid this one doesn’t quite get the same amount of love from me as that.
I read an early copy of the novel on NetGalley UK in return for an honest review. The book is published in the UK on the 10th of September 2026 by random house UK Transworld publishers
This review will appear on NetGalley UK, StoryGraph, Goodreads, and my book blog bionicSarahSbooks.wordpress.com after publication it will also appear on Amazon and Waterstones

[Maine Colonial · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here it is, 1951, and Britain is crawling along in its recovery from the war. The country is deeply in debt, there is still rationing, there isn’t enough housing, and it’s hard to see a promising future. So many have returned home with what we would now call PTSD, but it isn’t something that anybody wants to talk about. Certainly not Harry Flynn, a journalist who was captured by the Japanese in Singapore and made to starve while slaving on the railway in Burma, where over 100,000 POWs and civilian captives died. Harry thought marriage and an acquired family of wife, stepdaughter, and a dog named Mrs. Betty would jump-start his postwar life, but that didn’t take.

In the spirit of moving on and capturing what is best in British invention, farming, industry, and entertainment, the government concocts the Festival of Britain. Harry is hired to work on preparations, where he and his co-workers have many adventures, some amusing, some appalling, some astonishing. Once again, though, Harry becomes a prisoner of fate, as he is suspected of having done away with a Frenchwoman working at the Festival, and is tangled in a blackmail plot. Only when his wildly precocious stepdaughter and Mrs. Betty are dumped on him by his ex-wife, does he begin to see some hope of escaping his predicaments.

Like so many Kate Atkinson books, this story is filled with quirky and endearing characters, and strong feelings, but without sentimental tones. Sure, you can say it’s that typical British understatement, and that’s true, but no other writer is such a genius at subtly building and revealing a story and its meaning. One layer is a lighthearted caper, another is espionage tinged with satire, but overall the plot reveals people recovering from trauma through their connections to each other and to their country.

A work that should be read and re-read.

[Candace Siegle, Greedy Reader 2.0 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kate Atkinson is back with another wry, sparky, tender novel of mid-century Britain, featuring a band of characters who are working on the Festival of Britain, the 1951 event aimed at looking ahead to the country's future, moving on from the painful past.

Harry Flynn went to SIngapore as a war correspondent but ended up as a slave laborer on the Burma Railway. He survived (although he was reported dead) and returns to England wondering what his future will be. He marries and abandons his wife and step daughter, works as a printer, and is scooped up to work with the Festival of Britain. In the office, he's among people who could be described as characters which Harry is not.He's mild, without malice and attractive to women. He considers leaving his wife an act of kindness and has no plan to start another relationship, but he does enjoy the occasional drink with a female colleague. His brief drink with Frenchwoman Delphine is not terribly pleasant and she has to leave early, so imagine his surprise when suddenly his colleagues are calling her his girlfriend and asking if he killed her, since she has not been seen since their drink at the local. The Festival is hurtling toward its Grand Opening--disorganized, crazy ambitious, and hopeful in a very Kate Atkinson- friendly way..

No spoilers, because part of the pleasure of reading Atkinson is to be tickled by the twists and turns and the unlikely heroes and villains. With her sprightly hand with language she presents us a feast of a time when so many needed the joy of something.

Many thanks to Doubleday publishing and NetGalley for a digital review copy of Our Noble Selves. These are my honest opinions. 4.5 stars rounded up.

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Take one part Hitchcock, one part Alice in Wonderland, a smidge of Cary Grant and a twist of orange peel, stir and strain through the lense of time, and you’ve got this latest offering from Kat Atkinson. Harry Flynn is a former printer/war correspondent who just happened to be in Burma at the wrong time. Now back in England/Britain he and three additional citizens of the crown, find themselves crammed into a tiny basement office and tasked with assisting the planning of great Festival of Britain 1951. Over a four-month period, Flynn learns that all the rats are not located in the rubble and they are more than likely to walk on two, not four legs.

Packed with a rather large cast of characters, more twists than a pretzel factory, murder, secret security officers, and mild mayhem (after all, this is Britain), the action takes a while to really get aloft, but once it does, it leaves the reader feeling sated over this piece of Anglican history. I was somewhat shocked to learn that the Great Fair was indeed based on fact and that with names altered, more than a few characters actually existed. Delightfully descriptive in its narrative (I loved the mini blueprints of each pavilion and the minutia involved in their construction and furnishing), I did however, find myself in need of a character chart and a good dictionary (thanks to my e-reader); a Yank such as I was unfamiliar with numerous terms (i.e. furbelowed, flaneurs, nippy, recce and doodlebugs, to name a few). But as the Shakespearean phrase (though not actually from Shakespear) goes … “Oh what a tangled web we weave …” this one is a real beaut’.

Thank you to @Netgalley, @doubleday and Kate Atkinson for the opportunity to read and review this ARC. Opinions stated are my own.