The White Octopus Hotel
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $1.99
Publisher Description
Journey to a magical hotel in the Swiss Alps, where two lost souls living in different centuries meet and discover if a second chance awaits them behind its doors.
“Have you travelled a long way?” she asked carefully..
A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. “Well, yes,” he said slowly. “Yes, you could say that. But it was worth the wait.”
London, 2015. When reclusive art appraiser Eve Shaw shakes the hand of a silver-haired gentleman in her office, the warmth of his palm sends a spark through her.
His name is Max Everly—curiously, the same name as Eve’s favorite composer, born one hundred sixteen years prior. And she has the sudden feeling that she’s held his hand before . . . but where, and when?
The White Octopus Hotel, 1935. In this belle époque building high in the snowy mountains, Eve and a young Max wander the winding halls, lost in time.
Each of them has been through the trenches—Eve through a family accident and Max on the battlefields of the Great War—but for an impossible moment, love and healing are just a room away . . . if only they have the courage to step through the door.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bell (The Winter Garden) sets this beautiful and bittersweet time travel fantasy at a magical hotel deep in the Swiss Alps. In 2016, Eve Shaw, a London art appraiser, wrestles with guilt and grief, believing she was responsible for her little sister's death years earlier. She's haunted by both a spectral white rabbit that follows her around and the tattoo of a white octopus that moves around her body, and her only comfort is the beautiful music of her favorite 20th-century composer, Max Everly. When a strangely familiar elderly visitor arrives at her office, hands Eve an octopus figurine, and promptly drops dead, the bizarre encounter leads Eve to the eponymous luxury hotel, where, she soon learns, each room leads to a different era. From there, the narrative shifts continuously from 2016 to 1917 and 1935, chronicling Eve's love story with a younger iteration of the mysterious stranger, who turns out to be Max. As she helps him heal from the horrors of his time in the WWI trenches, she hopes to find a way to keep them together despite their different timelines. The convincing, emotional love story, lavish settings, and a wealth of spooky side characters make this sing. It's a gem.
