All Change at the Beach Hotel (Beach Hotel #2) by Francesca Capaldi
Genre: Historical fiction, Sagas, WW1
Read: 18th July 2023
Published: 20th July 2023
★★★★ 4.5 stars
DESCRIPTION:
Can she choose between her duty and her heart?
While World War One changes the country beyond measure, with food becoming scarce and Britain’s young men being called up to foreign battlefields, it is harder than ever to keep the grand Beach Hotel in Littlehampton running smoothly.
Waitress Lili Probert, a young woman who escaped her demanding family in Wales in search of a new life in Sussex, has seen her hard work rewarded at the Beach Hotel, but hides heartbreak behind her sunny personality. Her sweetheart, Norman, is missing in action and has been presumed dead, but she cannot give up hope that he may be found.
But when she meets injured soldier Rhodri, a fellow Welshman now living near Littlehampton, she fights hard to ignore her growing attraction for him, torn between her feelings for him and her loyalty to the man she thought she’d spend her life with.
But her emotions run ever higher when she suddenly receives a call from home; her mother is gravely ill and Lili is needed for her care. Returning to Wales, Lili must make a difficult choice. Follow her dreams and make her own life, or return to the place she tried so hard to escape?
Torn between her duty and her heart, Lili faces her own battle far from the conflicts in Europe…
MY THOUGHTS:
Can she choose between her duty and her heart...?
Sagas set during this era are some of my favourite kind. Maybe perhaps because it marked such a change in times between the old Victorian era and a new Georgian one, not to mention a whole new century in which women were now coming out from behind their menfolk and being recognised for their own abilities. A time when women were allowed to own property, hold positions of respect and even the prospect of their voices giving them the vote. World War One was a time of great change. Many were still coming to terms with the change in monarchs from the old Queen to King Edward followed just a decade later with King George V. With this change, came more change. Gone were the frills and bustles of the old times. Skirts were being worn a tad shorter. Hats were not quite so cumbersome and far more quaint. With the war, times were difficult and cuts had to made everywhere.
Such was the case at the Beach Hotel, much to the irritation of its pompous manager Douglas Bygrove. War was simply getting in the way of him doing his job...of which no one knew exactly what that was...but he saw it as his duty to welcome prominent figures of council or parliament or even just the richest, most important people of Littlehampton. He made it is his business to know who was who and welcome them into his hotel. His hotel? Purchased with his wife's inheritance which surely made it her hotel in which he appointed himself manager and treated her no more than a skivvy. He is pompous and odious and an irritating little man.
But this story is not about him, although he features enough throughout you'd think it was about him (he's that vain too). No, this story is about Lili, who left her village in the Welsh mining valleys in search of something more than being stuck in Dorcolan for the rest of her days, scrubbing floors and marrying a nice Welsh boy who probably spent half his days down the mines. Lili didn't want that for herself. And so she took herself to Littlehampton after gaining a job as a chambermaid at the Beach Hotel. But as the war came, so too did change. Their men enlisted and if they didn't they were soon conscripted leaving only the womenfolk behind. And despite this and their staff shortages, the staff at the Beach Hotel kept things running smoothly like a well-oiled machine under the careful managerial eye of Helen Bygrove, the manageress. Although if Douglas Bygrove had anything to say about it, and he did quite a lot of that, it was to his credit that they had managed to keep things alfoat at all.
That aside, Helen organised several charity events to raise money for the war effort by way of hospitals and the like. One of which was for the Belgrave Hospital for wounded soldiers. At this event Lili was asked to perform a few songs and she captured the attention of one soldier with her lilting songbird voice. Corporal Rhodri Morgan who had been injured with a bullet to the leg leaving him with a permanent limp. Rhodri was also Welsh and Lili could hardly believe that she travelled so far from home only to meet another Welshman. However, Lili had been courting another before he left for the Front. And Lili is nothing if not loyal. She would not betray Norman by stepping out with another man.
And then she receives word that Norman is missing in action which usually means one thing - that he's been killed and his body has yet to be located. Devastated at this news and conflicted with her her growing attraction for Rhodri, Lili is torn between her feelings for him and her loyalty to Norman. But nothing can stop them from being friends, can it?
But that all falls by the wayside when she receives a letter from her eldest sister Carys informing her that their mother is gravely ill and she is needed at home. Granted immediate leave from Helen, Lili makes her way back home fearing what she may find upon her return and how ill her mother truly is. She realises that she must make the difficult choice between following her heart and her dreams to make her own life or to fulfil her duty as a daughter and return to a place she had tried so hard to escape. Lili is nothing if not faithful and loyal, sometimes to her detriment. Should she make this sacrifice for duty or for love?
I thoroughly enjoyed this installment at the Beach Hotel, far more than the first one. There are some irritating characters once again, some get their comeuppance, some may still be waiting. There is a little about the Front but it features only as a backdrop. The mainstay is life at the hotel. My favourite part would have to be the conscription debacle of one such man of the age of forty. Oh my that was hilarious. I can't wait to see how that pans out in future installments.
As always, I love this type of story. It is a nice gentle easy read, a perfect escape from the harried busyness of today. I thoroughly enjoyed my stay at the Beach Hotel and will be sure to check in again next year when I look forward to my visit to Littlehampton once again.
I would like to thank #FrancescaCapaldi, #Netgalley, #HeraBooks and #RachelsRandomResources for an ARC of #AllChangeAtTheBeachHotel in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
A history graduate and qualified teacher, she decided to turn her writing hobby into something more in 2006, when she joined a writing class.
Writing as both Francesca Capaldi and Francesca Burgess, she has had numerous short stories published in magazines in the UK and abroad, as well as in anthologies. Four pocket novels have been published by DC Thomson, one of which, Danger for Daisy, is available as an ebook.
Her Welsh World War 1 sagas were inspired by the discovery of her great grandfather's war record. They are published by Hera Books
She is a member of the Romantic Novelists' Association and the Society of Women Writers and Journalists.
Francesca currently lives on the North Downs in Kent with her family and a cat called Lando Calrission.
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