Mrs P posted: " "People are willing to show themselves in a hotel because it's an in-between kind of place." Kate Mascarenhas ~ Hokey Pokey Synopsis February, 1929. The Regent Hotel in Birmingham is a place of deception and glamour. Behind its six-storeyed f" Paradise is a Library
"People are willing to show themselves in a hotel because it's an in-between kind of place."
Kate Mascarenhas ~ Hokey Pokey
Synopsis
February, 1929. The Regent Hotel in Birmingham is a place of deception and glamour. Behind its six-storeyed façade, guests sip absinthe cocktails on velvet banquettes, spying on their surroundings in the gilt mirrors and perfectly polished tableware, while the hotel's red-jacketed staff scurry through its lavish corridors to ensure the finest service is always at hand.
In the early evening, a psychoanalyst checks in under a pseudonym: Nora Dickinson. Nora is young, diligent and ambitious. Though she doesn't see herself as a liar, she is travelling with an agenda. Having followed the famous opera singer, Berenice Oxbow, from Zurich to Birmingham, she's determined not to let her out of her sight.
But when a terrible snow storm isolates the hotel – and its guests – from the outside world, the lines between nightmare and reality begin to blur and Nora will find herself face to face with a past she thought she had long left behind...
Review
This book should've been brilliant. I'm still not sure why it wasn't, but I just didn't care one bit. Characters were listless and not interesting, the plot was feeble and after a very slow start the ending was thrust together very quickly with no real answers to many questions.
The synopsis for this reads as historical fiction and crime… but it's actually supernatural / borderline horror which is quite misleading, as is the cover.
The writing style wasn't for me either. Very short sentences that makes the flow choppy, but then towards the end there was very little description so it was hard to visualise it at all. Parts of this should have been horrific and they just fell flat - I'm quite squeamish but none of the violence or intended bloodlust left any impact whatsoever, which shows how lacking it was. A lot of it also made no sense at all: one bite of human flesh and you're suddenly a shape shifter? Seems unlikely to me - it felt very contrived.
I was so excited for this book and it sadly left me disappointed and irritated.
Rating: 2 out of 5.
Thanks to Head of Zeus and NetGalley for my ecopy. Opinions my own.
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