The first story collection from Kate Atkinson in twenty years Normal Rules Dont Apply is a dazzling array of eleven interconnected tales from the bestselling author of Shrines of Gaiety and Life After LifeIn this first full collection since Not the End of the World we meet a queen who makes a bargain she cannot keep a secretary who watches over the life she has just left a man whose luck changes when a horse speaks to him.With clockwork intricacy inventiveness and sharp social observation Kate Atkinson conjures a feast for the imagination a constantly changing multiverse in which nothing is quite as it seems.What really binds these stories is their underlying theme which has perhaps always been Atkinsons true subject the nature of storytelling itself Times Literary SupplementLife in all of its surreal tragic and comic glory is perfectly captured within these pages RedSublime Good HousekeepingDazzling Readers DigestPraise for Kate AtkinsonInexhaustibly ingenious HILARY MANTELSimply one of the best writers working today anywhere in the world GILLIAN FLYNNA brilliant and profoundly original writer RACHEL CUSKAtkinson is a novelist of unrivalled immediacy authority and skill FINANCIAL TIMESOne of the countrys most innovative exciting and intelligent authors.