A Small Hotel
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- £4.49
Publisher Description
An American Family. A World War. A First Love. A Small Hotel.
It's the summer of 1941. Europe is at war, but New York's Thousand Islands are at the height of the tourist season. Kennet Fiskare, son of a hotel proprietor, is having the summer of a lifetime, having fallen deeply in love with a Swedish-Brazilian guest named Astrid Virtanen. But the affair is cut short and the young lovers permanently parted, first by Astrid's family obligations, then by America's entry into the war.
The rigors of military life help dull his heartache, but when Kennet's battalion reaches France, he is thrown into the crucible of front line combat. As his unit crosses Europe, from the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium to Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, Kennet falls into a different kind of love: the intense camaraderie between soldiers. It's a bond fierce yet fragile, vital yet expendable, here today and gone tomorrow. Sustained by his friendships, Kennet both witnesses and commits the unthinkable atrocities of warfare, altering his view of the world and himself. To the point where a second chance with Astrid in peacetime might be the most terrifying and consequential battle he's ever fought.
With her signature blend of soul-stirring prose and emotional complexity, Laqueur takes readers on a journey through events that shape an American family's weakest moments and finest hours. A Small Hotel illuminates the experience of ordinary people thrown into extraordinary circumstances, and their once-in-a-generation camaraderie, courage and resiliency. It's a novel for the world, a heartbreaking, uplifting story of family, love and human endurance.
Customer Reviews
The book hangover is real!
So here’s the thing. I love to write book reviews, but I write them for me. Usually to remind me of what the book meant to me. I don’t write them thinking people will see my review and want to read this book.
Then I read books like this and I want to write a review that makes people want to read it. Really, I am a bit rubbish at reviews but I want to do this book justice. People need to read A Small Hotel because it’s a fantastic book but also as a reminder that war is truly horrific.
I’ve done my usual thing of doing an immediate re-read to take in the things I missed and I still don’t know how to convey everything this book means. When the book hangover kicks in, my only cure it to do a re-read. I might even read it again. And probably again.
A Small Hotel is about family, not just those by blood but those who become family because you would bleed for them. I felt like I was part of the Fiskare family. I truly am part fish, I know about wishes on fishes and cafune. But I was also part of Kennet’s army squad; rolling down the train track through the US thundering towards a war. Freezing my toes off and squeezing into fox holes.
It’s a book about war in all of its shocking factors and yet in our world we do it again and again and again. Stop that!
It’s a rubbish review but this is an outstanding book. Suanne Laqueur’s story telling is magnificent.