There is no denying that Kate Atkinson is a beautiful writer. Her 2013 novel, Life After Life, exploded from the page with wondrous possibilities – it really was a revelatory book.

Transcription doesn’t have exactly the same kind of magic, but it does have some similarities. Firstly, both books are set in wartime. Transcription tells the story of Juliet Atkinson, a resourceful girl who is whisked away from the dull hours at her typewriter transcribing for MI5 to become an active participant in the investigation of Nazi sympathisers in 1940s London.

Sadly, she also becomes a foil in other plots being run by the men around her, and learns the most important skill for all spies – to question everything.

Secondly, both books travel through time. While Life After Life told the story of a life lived over and over in different ways, Transcription moves between two parallel parts of Juliet’s life – with also a brief stop in 1981. Ten years after her time on active duty, we find Juliet working for the BBC on a show for schools called The Children’s Hour. She’s still connected to the excitement of life as a spy, and her home is occasionally used as a safe-house to transport important figures giving wartime information (now in the Cold War).

She is not finished with her past – but the past is also definitely not finished with her. When a familiar figure passes her way and threats begin to arrive, Juliet starts to wonder which sins may be coming back to haunt her.

In the end, there is more to this story than meets the eye. A life of subterfuge is clearly hard to leave behind – whether we keep the tendrils of the past tightly wound around us, or whether they reach out across the years and touch us even when we think we are far removed. It’s a mistake to think that old ghosts lie.

Transcription is definitely worth a look for the prose alone, although it’s not as good as Life After Life. I’m yet to pick up A God in Ruins, but this read makes me more likely to do so.

Reviewed by Lauren Cook