Atkinson was in her thirties when she began writing
short stories. One of her stories won a prize in a
Woman's Own writing contest in 1986, which encouraged her to continue writing, and she published stories in several magazines and newspapers. She has said that writing short stories was a good learning experience because she was forced to tell her story as efficiently as possible. In 1993, she won the Ian St. James Award for the story
Karmic Mothers-Fact or Fiction? This is a story about two women who are both recovering from a suicide attempt in a hospital room next to the maternity ward. In 1997, the story was adapted for television. She followed up the Brodie-series with three novels set during
World War II. The highly successful novel
Life After Life (2013) is a combination of
science fiction,
historical novel and
psychological fiction. Over the course of the story, the main character Ursula Todd dies several times, only to be born again and again in the year 1910 and start her life anew. In each new life, Ursula must make choices that turn out to influence the course of history.
Life After Life received the
Costa Book Award for Novel in 2013, and was
adapted for television in 2022 . Atkinson's next novel
A God in Ruins (2015) follows the life of Ursula's brother Teddy Todd who is a pilot in the
Royal Air Force during the war, but is more realistic than
Life After Life. This book also won the Costa Book Award for Novel. Readers and critics generally have most praise for
Life After Life because of its unusual structure and originality, but Atkinson herself considers
A God in Ruins her best work. The main character of
Transcription (2018) is a woman who worked for MI5 during the Second World War.
Big Sky, Atkinsons fifth novel centered about detective Jackson Brodie was published in 2019. After a number of books about World War II, Atkinson wanted to write about a different theme. The storyline of
Big Sky was originally intended for a TV series about a female detective, to be played by
Victoria Wood. After Wood's unexpected death in 2016, Atkinson decided to use the plot for the next novel in her Brodie cycle.
Shrines of Gaiety (2022) is set in the London nightclub milieu shortly after World War I. ''
Normal Rules Don't Apply (2023) was her first collection of short stories since 2002. In 2024 Death at the Sign of the Rook'' was published, the sixth Jackson Brodie novel, conceived during the
corona pandemic. The story is set in an English country house; it pays homage to
Agatha Christie and other writers from "
the golden age of the detective novel" between World War I and World War II. == Style and themes ==