My Thoughts: I very much liked the premise of Transcription, but for me the story had trouble getting off the ground. It’s told in alternating timelines, ten years apart. In 1940, Juliet Armstrong is 17, recently lost her mother and is recruited to work for MI5, first as a transcriptionist, but later doing some light spying. Interesting, but not very exciting. In 1950, Juliet is seemingly working in broadcasting at the BBC, but still appears to have her finger in some mild espionage with MI5. Hints from both timelines kept me going, but never truly grabbed me which is why I fell into skimming during the second half of Transcription. Along the way I found parts that really worked, like a little rhyming thing Juliet did as well as some terrifically funny scenes, but overall the book just didn’t come together for me.

Note: I received a copy of this book from the publisher, Little, Brown & Co., in exchange for my honest review. Thank you!

Transcription is the first book I have read by Kate Atkinson so I wasn’t sure what to expect. The description grabbed me and now that I am done this amazing book I am like why haven’t I read more from Kate!
Juliet Armstrong was 18 years old when she was drafted into a mission for MI5. She was transcribing records with the Fascist sympathizers. Then fast forward 10 years the war is over and she is working as a radio producer for the BBC. Yet she is unable to shake her past.
This book was amazingly written. The storyline and characters were very interesting. Transcription is a must read and I look forward to reading more from Kate Atkinson!

Kate Atkinson is an author I always think I should read more of, but don’t. The one book of hers I read, Human Croquet, I didn’t fully enjoy and kept meaning to pick up another. When her new book Transcription came across my radar, I thought now was the perfect time to see what I’ve been missing.

Atkinson is a wonderful writer, that isn’t to be disputed. So what makes or breaks a book of hers is what is left; the story and the characters. This is a spy story that takes place primarily in the 40s and 50s, which obviously is another time compared to today. A time when women certainly weren’t considered equal; so I thought it would be really empowering to read about a woman who was recruited by MI5 to become a spy!

However, as sleuthy as Juliet was, she still couldn’t escape the gender roles and limitations of the time and it was really frustrating to read about. Accurate of course, but frustrating that she was anxious for seduction from her superior, that she just wanted a man in her life, that she was expected to be secretary and spy and serve coffee. I have a hard time reading about that, though I suppose that’s partially the point of including it

That aside, Juliet just seemed overtly naive. [Some spoilers] It kept being alluded that she was this magnificent spy, but to me it all played out more like she just sort of got lucky by being at the right place at the right time or stumbling onto some pertinent information. When things all came together in the end, a direction I admittedly did not see coming, instead of feeling that thrill of being blindsided, I felt a little ripped off, like there was no way that the girl I had just read all about could end up being in the position the book puts her in. Or perhaps maybe she was that great of a spy and even had me fooled. [End spoilers]

I don’t know how to rate this book because overall, it was a solid read and I was interested through most of it, but as things unraveled and played out, I just felt more lukewarm than anything else, even with an unexpected ending. Maybe I’m just not a fan of Kate Atkinson’s work.

Juliet Armstrong is only eighteen years old when she is recruited by the M15 in 1940. She is tasked with transcribing the conversations of British fascists sympathizers during WWII. Before long, she is given more duties such as working as a spy herself and watching a dog which is being held for a sort of ransom. Ten years later she finds herself working for the BBC as a radio producer. She appears to have moved on with her life until those from her past come back, reminding her that one can never get away, and there are spies who spy on the spies, and that past crimes can and will haunt you. The plot shifts around mainly between the 1040's and 1950's with brief time spent in the 1980's

The plot shifts around mainly between the 1040's and 1950's with brief time spent in the 1980's. Juliet begins the book as a young woman mourning the loss of her Mother while attending school to learn a trade. She is recruited right out of the school and passes the initial test and is thrown into the world of espionage. "You've come a long way, baby" comes to mind. This is a slower moving book and one needs to really pay attention to detail. I did struggle at times with the slowness. Initially, I really enjoyed the book and then things felt tedious, then things picked up once again. Juliet is also an interesting character. I failed to connect with her and yet I enjoyed reading her thoughts. She had a dry sense of humor and had some witty and insightful thoughts. The other characters in this book had their own sense of humor as well. I do not read a lot of espionage/spy novels and it was nice to see the humor thrown in.

As Juliet's job is transcription, the reader gets to see the transcriptions that Juliet has made. I enjoyed this touch even though some of the conversations were mundane. I thought this was a nice way to show that a spy's life is not always exciting and how many spy organizations gather their data. Plus, this is another way of giving the reader a glimpse into Juliet's life, her interactions with others in the M15.

Apart from some pacing issues, I was hoping for a little more action in this book. But again, as I mentioned before, this book was dealing with transcribing data so there can't be too much action in that and even the "fight" scene was all very proper. Atkinson's writing is wonderful, and I thoroughly enjoyed her Author's Note at the end. Don't skip that!

I enjoyed this book and appreciated that Atkinson used a female protagonist *ahem* spy in this book. I just wished I connected more with Juliet. She started off as naive and got some maturity and oomph as the book progressed, but I never felt connected to her character. There are quite few characters in this book, but I found it easy to keep track of them.

Fans of Atkinson, WWII buffs, and fans of spy/espionage novels will surely enjoy this book.

Thank you to Little Brown and Company and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Transcription by Kate Atkinson is a British spy novel full of unexpected twists and turns. It’s a historical fiction story with some mystery and even humor, too. I really enjoyed it.

If you've read any of Atkinson’s work in the past, you know she tends to write in a complicated structure. For instance, in her highly-acclaimed novel Life After Life, the unexpected story structure is almost like the movie Groundhog Day where the protagonist must re-live her life over and over until she accomplishes a seemingly impossible task. While Transcription isn’t quite as complicated in structure and subject matter, there’s still jumps in time, lots of characters and plenty of deception.

The story follows Juliet Armstrong, who was recruited when she was 18 to join the British Secret Service during WWII. Her job is to monitor the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathizers. Juliet transcribes the secretly recorded conversations with an undercover MI5 agent named Godfrey Toby. There’s also time jumps to the 1950s when she’s working on educational radio programs for the BBC and her past comes back to the haunt her.

Juliet is a complicated and engaging character. When we follow her in the ’50s, we know she has plenty of secrets and the reveals come slow and steady. She’s a likable character; extremely naive and yet, intelligent and witty. She’s also a pathological liar, which is one reason the Secret Service recruited her as she wouldn’t have any trouble working undercover. And that’s just what happens, when it’s decided that she can do more than just transcribe, she’s assigned to also assume another identity. This is where the story takes an exciting turn and we start to eventually question which side any of the characters are actually on.

Atkinson also clearly does her research. She was inspired to write the novel after learning about a real-life British agent who posed as a Gestapo spy.

There are many historical fiction books about WWII where it becomes the question of what makes one stand out. This one clearly does for the interesting real-life concept of an agent undercover posing as a Nazi-sympathizer. But something that also resonated was how much this story resembled key political issues of this day.

Bottom line: This book is about living with the choices we make with plenty of wit and empathy. There’s also some adventure and suspense.

Thank you to Little, Brown and Company and NetGalley for the advanced copy!

I’ve read all of Kate Atkinson’s novels over the last four or so years and was very excited to see that this one was forthcoming. I’m not a huge reader of spy novels but I very much enjoyed Transcription, even when the twists and turns were a little bit hard to follow. Juliet Armstrong was eighteen when she is drafted into a mission for MI5, transcribing recordings of an agent's meetings with Fascist sympathizers. Ten years later, the war is over and she is a civilian, a radio producer at the BBC, but someone seems to be following her. As we are reminded, her actions during the war had consequences and there is more than one person who might want revenge. Is she simply paranoid? If not, who could it be? Atkinson has a way with characters and I really enjoyed meeting Juliet, Perry, and the others. I wished there was more. At times, the novel seemed eerily contemporary, particularly when a character advises against conflating nationalism with patriotism.

Atkinson is one of my favorite authors and, with Transcription, she has moved her star even higher. The tale is set in England, primarily London, in 1940, 1950 and 1981. The pivotal events occur in 1940, when Juliet Armstrong at 18, is recruited for the war effort. But not for any battle-related job, no. She is to file and type. Soon she is recruited further as a transcriptionist for an MI5 developed cause, to reel in and control English Fifth Column citizens, those who sympathize with the Nazis.

While the outline of the story may appear relatively simple, in Atkinson’s hands and with her wonderful verbal skills, the tale becomes one of identity in a much-changed world, reality vs multiple other possible realities, issues of truth or whether there is truth, and the ever present layers of deception in Juliet’s new world. As in other of her novels, there are questions of self and reality along the way, though tackled in a more concrete way than the last two novels.

These are just some of my favorite lines/quotes scattered throughout the book.

Come now, quite enough of exposition and explanation.
We’re not approaching the end of a novel, Miss Armstrong.
( loc 4836 )

In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always
be attended by a bodyguard of lies.
—-WINSTON CHURCHILLL
( loc 60)

Older men of a certain type were drawn to her. They
seemed to want to improve her in some way. Juliet was
almost thirty and didn’t feel she needed much more
Improvement. The war had seen to that. (loc 152)

It was a terrible place really, but she was predisposed
towards it. It was a thread in the labyrinth, one that she
could follow back to the world before the war, to her self
before the war. Innocence and experience butting up
against each other in the greasy fug of Moretti’s.
(loc 242)

That is me, she thought, I am crushed by loss. “Don’t seek
out elaborate metaphors,” her English teacher had said of
her school essays, but her mother’s death had revealed
that there was no metaphor too ostentatious for grief.
It was a terrible thing and demanded embellishment.
(loc 277)

And one final quote.

Juliet felt rather ashamed, as her mind had been on
what dress to wear this evening rather than bottomless
pits of evil. The war still seemed like a matter of
inconvenience rather than a threat. (loc 945)

I believe these samples give an idea of the spark behind the prose of this novel.

Atkinson provides an interesting Author’s Note outlining the inspirations and sources used before imagination and artistic license took over. She also provides a bibliography relevant to the war years, MI5, etc.

I wholeheartedly recommend this novel.

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

4.5

I'm not going to give details of the books, as the overview already does a good job of that and I do not want to reveal any secrets.

Suffice it to say this was smashing! While it starts a bit slow, that is more than overcome by Violet's delightful British wit. By the second half of the story, I really had to pay attention to what was going on. Eventually the book became unputdownable.

I am embarrassed to admit this is my first Kate Atkinson novel. On a positive note, I picked such a good one I cannot wait to read some of her others.

I received this from Little, Brown and Company via Netgalley.

NetGalley ARC.

Kate Atkinson is back, and further exploring Britain during WWII and beyond.

Juliet is a young, aimless girl in 1940 when she begins working for MI5, transcribing conversations between an undercover officer and low level members of the Fifth Column. In 1950 and older and wiser Juliet finds that the past is catching up to her.

While Transcription didn't pack quite the emotional punch as Life After Life or A God in Ruins, I really enjoyed this book, especially Juliet. Juliet is a bit of a cipher, which is probably why she makes a good spy. She feels like a real person, with a wry sense of humor and a deep inner life, but she remains a mystery.

I should also mention that like her other books, the writing is excellent. While the plot may be slow moving, the excellent writing moves the book forward. All of the characters, no matter how small, are well drawn and complex.

Transcription is a very well written story by Kate Atkinson. Although the description of the story intrigued me, the plot moved a little too slowly for me. However, I enjoyed how the book moved between time periods and the writing transported me back to WWII.

Thank you to Net Galley for a free eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Very slow start, pretty much a slow ride all the way through. Maybe I was expecting a female James Bond, woman protagonist in a non-traditional role at the helm, spy games and intrigue. What I got was a bit dull, low on action. She spends so much time recording the conversations of Nazi sympathizers. Where's the excitement in that? Eventually she gets a field post but by then the story has dragged on so this didn't meet my expectations of a thriller. That said, the writing is good, more a probe into what characters think and say than adventure.

Thanks to Little Brown and Netgalley for an ARC of this book.

In general, I love Kate Atkinson's work. I really loved LIFE AFTER LIFE but didn't want to get into the same territory again with A GOD IN RUINS, so I didn't read it.

I had trouble getting into TRANSCRIPTION because I had just finished Dan Fesperman's SAFE HOUSES, also about spycraft and WWII. So, it took me a long time to read the beginning, and my being able to follow the plot and characters through time suffered for it.

Once I picked up TRANSCRIPTION and kept with it, however, I really enjoyed it. I love Atkinson's humor, provided through her heroine Juliet's divergent thoughts. (At one point Juliet wonders if anyone has every died from thinking too much.)

Keenly planned and masterfully executed, both the plot and writing are terrific. Readers who like to go from A to Z without detour may not enjoy it, but there's so much to like here for Atkinson's fans, readers of spy thrillers, and WWI fiction readers alike.

This is a captivating novel written by a master story teller. Kate Atkinson once again has not only fascinated us with her tale, but has taken us into the minds of her characters, letting us feel the emotions behind the actions. Admidst all the noise in our world this is a wonderful way to block it out and immerse the reader in another time.

At the beginning of World War II, Juliet Armstrong is recruited into the world of espionage as a typist. Her ability to lie well and fearlessness leads her to help in an undercover assignment as well. Once the war is over, Juliet works for the BBC and occasionally provides a safe house for people being smuggled in and out of Britain by the government. When anonymous notes begin to arrive and Juliet realizes she is being followed, she suspects that the things she did during the war are now reaping the consequences. Atkinson brilliantly interweaves Juliet's past and present lives together in this spy thriller. I could hardly put it down as I wanted to see how her past was going to come back to haunt her. The twist at the end is the best.

This novel moves between 1940 and 1950. The war is coming to England, and there are many so called fifth columnists there. Juliet Armstrong is hired by the British war office to transcribe secretly recorded meetings between an MI5 agent and suspected Nazi sympathizers. These transcriptions hardly make sense (at least to me) but her work is appreciated and her role is expanded to include some undercover work - although calling her a spy is a stretch. She is successful in one major operation taking down a couple of people who apparently could damage England. Fast forward to 1950. Juliet is working as a radio producer for the BBC and there appears to be some sort of threat to her as a result of her wartime work. When given the opportunity to receive an ARC of a book by Kate Atkinson, I jumped at the chance. Unfortunately, I was disappointed as the story was slow moving and I found her writing difficult to follow. I still have a couple of Atkinson books in my library - hopefully they will restore my opinion of this apparently highly rated author. Nonetheless, thanks to for the opportunity to read and review this book.

It’s funny how some books can immediately grab hold of you and cast you under their spell. This is that sort of book. The book immediately transports you back to London in the 1940s and 50s. The language is just spot on perfect.

The story revolves around a young woman who is drafted to transcribe conversations among a group of fascists that have been infiltrated by MI5. Juliet is only 18 and before she knows it, has been drafted for some spying in addition to her transcription duties.

Atkinson displays a dry sense of humor. “It seemed she had acquired all the drawbacks of being a mistress and none of the advantages - like sex. (She was becoming bolder with the word if not the act.) For Perry, it seemed to be the other way around - he had all the advantages of having a mistress and none of the drawbacks. Like sex.” Poor Juliet is truly naive and I had to keep reminding myself how young she was. She keeps waiting for a romance the reader knows is never going to come.

The rest of the characters are equally well drawn. The pettiness, the certainty, all are brought out for our inspection.

This is not a fast paced book by any stretch. The writing is meant to be enjoyed, lots of beautiful phrasing. But there is a tension to the book and the ending wasn’t anything I saw coming. “Juliet had the sense that she was taking part in a farce, although not one that was particularly funny - in fact, not funny at all.” But it is, in its own weird way.

In this day and age, I’m never sure if I’m seeing symbolism where it doesn’t belong. But it seems fitting that Atkinson picks as her topic the problem of Fascism in England during WWII. “Do not equate nationalism with patriotism,” Perry warned Juliet. “Nationalism is the first step on the road to Fascism.” Or this “Juliet could still remember when Hitler had seemed like a harmless clown. No one was amused now. (“The clowns are the dangerous ones”, Perry said.)”

Make sure to read The Author’s Note. What is the nature of historical fiction?

There are some interesting ideas here, like what constitutes the real self. Or what’s worth fighting for. “This England”. It’s a book meant to be discussed.

My thanks to netgalley and Little, Brown for an advance copy of this novel.

“Who spies on the spies...?” I love a good spy novel and this one was a good one, even if it did have a bit of a slow start.

Juliet Armstrong, a young woman with no family, finds herself recruited into M15, the UK’s domestic counter-intelligence and security agency. Beginning in the boring atmosphere of filing and secretarial work, she is soon moved to an apartment building where her job is to listen to recorded tapes and transcribe the dialog into reports.

Eventually Juliet is sent out into the field posing as another person in order to infiltrate an organized ring of traitors and Hitler sympathizers. It’s at this point where the story really gained some momentum.

We hear Juliet’s story from the time frames of 1940, 1950 and 1980. Other characters weave in and out of her life and soon it’s obvious that it’s not a good idea to trust that anyone is who they say they are.

It was a nice change to read a WWII novel that did not have anything to do with the concentration camps. I also liked the idea of having an inside look into the world of spying and double agents.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for allowing me to read an advance copy and offer my honest review.

As usually a great read from Kate Atkinson. Spies, secret agents, double-crosser's, all make for one great read. Kate take just enough truth and mixes in her story to keep you interested and keep you guessing what coming next.

As a kind of literary explorer, Kate Atkinson has conquered every genre she has taken on: the classic character-driven mystery thriller as well as historical fiction and history as time travel. Now she has busted a move on the spy novel. But this is not the grey game of John LeCarre or Graham Greene, but rather a piece of historical fiction where espionage is the engine of the narrative but the vehicle is something else entirely -- a very human story of ordinary people acting on their beliefs. Transcription has all the hallmarks of an Atkinson book: the finely drawn characters, the attention to historical detail, the sparkling dialogue. What it doesn't have is the real sense of menace, intrigue and suspense of the best spy fiction, which takes the reader into what someone once called "the wilderness of mirrors." The reflections are all straightforward in Transcription, just like the verbatim accounts of meetings compiled by our protagonist. There is nothing bad about this novel; it's a good read and worth the time. But cloak and dagger, it ain't. Any similarity between Transcription and spy fiction is purely coincidental.

In my opinion, I was disappointed in Transcription by Kate Atkinson. I found it slow and a little boring at times. It alternated between 1950 (post World War II) and 1940 (World War II).

Juliet, a young eighteen year old woman, living in England during World War II, was anxious to secure a promising job. She was hired by a branch of the MI5. Her job was to listen to conversations between an English spy and German sympathizers and record it in a transcript. Juliet found her job a little boring. It was hard to hear the conversations at times and so she imagined what they probably said and recorded it. After a while, her superior offered her the opportunity to spy on another German sympathizer and try to find the "red book' this woman was in possession of. This assignment put Juliet in more danger than she had bargained for.

The story skipped ahead to 1950 where Juliet now worked for the BBC. Her past involvement with the MI5 seemed to follow her, though. She thought that someone was following her and trying to harm her. She became more and more paranoid as people from her past from MI5 began to materialize and infiltrate into her present life. Juliet felt as if she was in more danger now than she had been back in the 1940's.

The ending of Transcription saved this book for me. Kate Atkinson's explanations in the Author's Notes made things clearer as well. I was expecting more from Transcription and it did not give it to me. It was not hard for me to put this book down. I almost gave up a few times but was determined to finish it.

Thank you Netgalley, Little, Brown, and Company and Kate Atkinson for allowing me to read Transcription.