REVIEW: The Hotel by Emily Shiner

The Hotel by Emily Shiner

Genre: Domestic thriller, Domestic Suspense, Psychological thriller

Read: 5th September 2023

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Published: 7th September 2023

★★★★ 4 stars

DESCRIPTION:

As we welcome the Rowe family to our beautiful clifftop hotel, a shadow passes over my husband’s face. In that moment I see it: my husband is hiding a terrible secret. Has he put us all in danger?

Mark and I pride ourselves on giving visitors to our hotel, high on the rugged Maine cliffs with views of the ocean, a vacation they won’t forget. But the Rowes are strangely over-familiar when they arrive with their teenage daughter. The wife puts a hand on Mark’s forearm and her husband meets my eyes with a knowing look as I hold my little son tight. They gush that they loved their previous stay here… But I’m certain I’ve never seen them before.

Mark reassures me that the Rowes are just being friendly. We have so many visitors, maybe we forgot meeting them. When I am locked in the master bedroom for over an hour, he later soothes my panic and says it was just an accident. But I know one of the Rowes was out in the hallway listening to me cry for help. I hear one of them whispering a lullaby to my baby on his monitor. I cannot trust these people.

But as the relentless icy rain gives way to the biggest blizzard of the season and we become cut off, I realize my son and I are trapped. Mark knows more about the Rowes than he’s letting on. I’ll do anything to protect my gorgeous baby boy. But how far will I have to go, to keep him safe?

The Hotel is totally twisty locked room thriller that you won’t be able to put down. Fans of Shalini Boland, Freida McFadden and Jeneva Rose will be glued to the pages!

MY THOUGHTS:

The perfect escape...or the perfect trap...?

This is by far one of the best Emily Shiner books I've read, though to be fair, I've only read four and the other two didn't quite live up to the first one I read "The Stolen Child" which I really liked. This one was a whole lot of twisted secrets, lies and deception. A complex web so tangled I'm surprised even the spider herself could get out of it. But oh what a tangled web it was. And that ending. 

Abby and Mark live in and run a B & B on the rugged cliffs of Oyster, Maine. The windswept views of the ocean, the sweeping coastline, so remote and isolated especially in a storm when the power is out and there is no way down the mountain back to civilisation. Not in a blizzard at any rate. So when Abby notices the outgoings are more than their incomings, she knows something has to change. And so she pitches her idea to Mark in the hope he will love it as much as she does. And he does. He trusts her judgement implicitly when it comes to the running of Saltside Inn.

So Abby puts together an offer for prospective guests too good to refuse in the hope she gets a bite. And no sooner has she posted the ad than she gets her first customer. And they want to book the entire B&B for three weeks...for just the three of them. Abby is thrilled. But when she texts Mark the good news, it's immediately obvious the news is not so good for him. And one has to wonder why that is. What is it that Mark is hiding?

When Lottie, Tim and their sixteen year old daughter Chelsea arrive two days later, Abby does her best to make them feel welcome. She cooks up a storm and they enjoy the meal around the table like one big happy family. But they are anything but. Because each one of them is hiding a secret. And each one of them is hoping that they come out on top. But at what cost? And to whom?

But when Abby's two year old son Henry goes missing one night and is not on any of the four floors of the Inn, her blood runs cold when she sees that there is snow just inside the door. Someone has been outside. And that someone took Henry with them. But they came back because everyone is accounted for...everyone except Henry. So where is he? And will they find him before it's too late?

This is a compelling domestic suspense thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat throughout. Though a different continent, it conjures up similar images of the unforgiving rugged Cornwall coastline, creating an atmospheric setting that is both creepy and chilling. As the story unfolds throughout the various narratives, the plot is tense and fast paced and by the end I was so completely absorbed I found I had been holding my breath.

The plot twist was fairly predictable but the writing is so tight and the story so engaging, it doesn't particularly matter. By this stage you just want to know how it all ends. But in saying that, nobody in this cast of characters is all that likeable although I did find myself silently rooting for Abby. Even so, I read this in one sitting.

What a delightfully vindictive little tale this was! And just when you thought it was over...that ending. 

I would like to thank #EmilyShiner, #Netgalley and #Bookouture for an ARC of #TheHotel in exchange for an honest review.

MEET THE AUTHOR:

Emily Shiner always dreamed of becoming an author but first served her time as a banker and a teacher. After a lifetime of devouring stacks of thrillers, she decided to try her hand at writing them herself. Now she gets to live out her dream of writing novels and sharing her stories with people around the world.

She lives in the Appalachian Mountains and loves hiking with her husband, daughter, and their two dogs. And loves books that keep you up long after you should be in bed.

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