Stormy Skies at the Beach Hotel (The Beach Hotel #5) by Francesca Capaldi
Genre: Historical fiction, Sagas, WW1
Read: 15th June 2025
Published: 5th June 2025
**Due to falling sick I was unable to read and review this book in time for my date of the tour - 9th June.**
DESCRIPTION:
A new arrival at the Beach Hotel spells trouble
Chambermaid Fanny is thanking her lucky stars she has had a second chance at life. As an unmarried mother, it could have been very different and she is happy.
But when new maid, Susie, arrives at the Beach Hotel, it isn't long before sparks fly. Susie begins to meddle in Fanny's friendships and even in her budding romance with Walter, an American working at the aerodrome.
Meanwhile, a flu epidemic starts to spread and as more people fall ill, the hotel is forced to close.
Matters come to a head when Susie plots to reveal secrets about Fanny that could spell her ruin.
Can the hotel and the hardworking women who run it survive?
An uplifting, emotional WW1 saga perfect for fans of Ginny Bell and Jean Fullerton
MY THOUGHTS:
She has a second chance...now she she might lose everything...
Are we on Book 5 already? This has to be one of my favourite series and the setting is just superb - on the West Sussex coast of Littlehampton in the stunning Beach Hotel on the waterfront promenade. Throughout this series, we have seen the comings and goings as war was declared and the men shipped off to the Front with the women remaining to keep the home fires burning. And in this case, the Beach Hotel running. Each story is a standalone but to get the bigger picture of all involved, I do recommend reading the whole series.
1918: War has been raging in Europe for four years now and at last it looks as though the end is in sight. For Fanny (Francine) Bullen, head chambermaid at the Beach Hotel, it couldn't come quick enough. But that in itself brings its own drawbacks for young Fanny.
We first met Fanny as a young girl of 18 having left the workhouse in which she called home for eleven years and gaining employment as a maid (I can't remember which position she held back then). She was a rough diamond as life in the workhouse had been tough and you had to be tough to survive. But at the Beach Hotel, she had found she'd been given a second chance and after seven years she looked upon them all as a family. This was none so more true than when two years ago she found herself in the very difficult position of being pregnant, unmarried and abandoned by the baby's father. She had tried to hide her pregnancy for as long as she could, though even she wasn't aware of it for six months, but her family at the hotel were warm and welcoming of both her circumstances and the new baby she gave birth to alone in a storage cupboard.
Now two years later, the old Fanny is but a shadow of who she'd once been and now she has been given this second chance to start again. No one need know who little Elsie's father was. As far as anyone else was concerned, she'd lost him in the war. After all, so many lives had indeed been lost - why not him?
And then along the waterfront one day Fanny met Walter, an American who'd been tasked with helping to build the new aerodrome in nearby Rustington. Before long, the pair were arranging their afternoons off to coincide with the other so as to spend them together. But just as things begin to look on the up for young Fanny, her new-found happiness looks to be ruined with an unknown enemy in her midst.
Susie Shorn knew Fanny from the workhouse but she swore her to secrecy in menacing undertone. The last thing Susie wanted as people sticking their noses into her business. Of course, that didn't stop her from sticking her nose into theirs - that was quite a different matter altogether. Upon gaining the position of chambermaid, she was loathed to discover that she was to be working under Fanny whom she saw was no better than she was what with her past coming from the workhouse. Susie couldn't see what made Fanny any better than her - or why she deserved any better than she did. She listened at keyholes, in doorways and on the stairs, hoping to pick up any interesting tidbits that could be used to her advantage. And anything she could do to bring the snooty Fanny back down to size, pretending to be something she's not. She drove wedges between friends and set her sights on something better for herself - and all the while, she enjoyed every minute of havoc and heartbreak she created whilst pretending to be a friend. But then she made an error of judgement that she thought would mean a big payday for her to clear out and start somewhere new where no one knew her, but she wasn't as clever as she thought.
Meanwhile, it looks as though the war was indeed nearing its end and for Fanny that meant heartbreak as Walter would surely return home to America and she feared she would never see him again. And with the Spanish Flu striking so many down, how will they all survive? And will Fanny get her happy ever after?
There was so much going on in this book - from the war to the Spanish Flu to Fanny's romance with Walter to the unscrupulous Susie. But I enjoyed every minute of it and it was refreshing to hear Fanny's story at last. She's always been in the background as a troubled young girl from the workhouse. She has certainly grown over the course of the books into a lovely young woman. I was happy the book ended the way it did and not up in the air as it could well have. At least we got closure for those involved. And it was a wonderful story.
So we've had Edie, Lili, Helen, Hetty and now Fanny (I much prefer the name Francine) - I think it's Gertie's turn next and I would be interested to see what lay in store for her. And if she continues with the women's football now that the war is over. Already looking forward to the next one.
I would like to thank #FrancescaCapaldi, #Netgalley, #HeraBooks and #RachelsRandomResources for an ARC of #StormySkiesAtTheBeachHotel in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Francesca has enjoyed writing since she was a child. Born in Worthing, Sussex, and brought up in Littlehampton, she was largely influenced by a Welsh mother who was brilliant at improvised story telling.
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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