Hotel Vendome
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4.0 • 71 Ratings
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- £3.99
Publisher Description
The Sunday Times Bestseller
When Swiss-born Hugues Martin sees a small, run-down hotel in New York for the rough diamond it is, he transforms it into a beautiful boutique hotel of impeccable elegance, run with the precision and attention to detail he learned through his hotelier training in Europe.
Renowned for its unparalleled service, the Hotel Vendôme soon becomes the ideal New York refuge for the rich and famous, as well as a perfect home for Hugues’ beautiful wife and their young daughter. But when his wife tires of his obsession for the hotel, she walks out on him for a notorious rock star, leaving Hugues a single parent to four-year-old Heloise.
Heloise and her family live happily amid a colourful, exciting and sometimes mysterious milieu of celebrities, socialites, politicians, world travellers and hotel employees – and their inevitable intrigues.
As unexpected challenges arise, the hotel is the centre of their world. And when Heloise grows us, she longs to follow in her father’s footsteps and one day run the Hotel Vendôme. The lessons she learned at his side will carry her through it all, in a story no reader will forget.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Swiss hotelier Hugues Martin owns and operates the Vend me, one of Manhattan's most prestigious and hip hotels. His supermodel wife, Miriam, runs off with rock star Greg Bones (she meets him when he stays at the hotel) and leaves Hugues with their four-year-old daughter, Heloise, after which the hotel quickly became the focus of Hugues and Heloise's lives. Miriam marries Greg, has a child with him, and essentially has little interest in Heloise, who grows up enamored with the hotel business, even though Hugues had hoped she would choose another profession. Like her father, she studies at the Ecole H teli re in Lausanne. The close-knit relationship between father and daughter, though, has made it impossible for Hugues to start any romantic relationships until, with Heloise away at school, he hires designer Natalie Peterson to redo the hotel and falls in love. When he finally confesses his feelings for Natalie to the protective Heloise, she is furious, convinced she will lose her father to a woman she considers a gold digger. And the sparks ignite. As usual, Steel leaves nothing of her character's feelings, backgrounds, or attitudes to reader inference, preferring to spell out every last detail, but who can argue with success? The formula works, and while one can throw the critical book at Steele, she always delivers to her devoted fans. This time out is no exception.
Customer Reviews
A total escape
It is a bit ironic to write a review about an author who has written so many books. There is no shortage of craft. Writing what I call an escape story is not easy. As it is not easy to write rom coms. The ‘light harted’ genre demands a number of elements which are all there is this book. There is a frank analysis of the forever difficult relationships between business and private life. The characters are well conceived as all in their way make sense and behave according to their position. The escapism elements are all there: the dream hotel, the chances to reunite private relationships, the generations gaps, the coming of age, the health which nobody can predict or keep under control. And for those who are curious about life in hotels, the book is not very far from reality. Very entertaining, with an offer to dream about anything away from stark, boring day to day life.
Spellbinding
Staying up late and forgetting everything else.