The White Octopus Hotel
Thank you to NetGalley and Del Rey Publishing for the digital review copy and the opportunity to be an early reader. This hits shelves today, October 28th.
Eve Shaw appraises paintings for an auction house. In 2015, on her 27th birthday, she receives an elderly visitor who thanks her as if they’ve met before, gifts her a small glass octopus, and tells her to please come back to the hotel. What hotel is he talking about? And why does this octopus look so eerily like the one tattooed on her thigh? From that day forward, Eve is determined to unravel the mystery, eventually learning of The White Octopus Hotel and its mythology of magical objects. When she acquires a supposed key to room 27, she travels to Switzerland to visit the hotel’s ruins and finds herself in the 1930s in search of a particular object that may help her undo her deepest secret and sin—that she was the cause of her toddler sister’s death over 20 years ago.
I don’t know if I can express how much I loved this book. It was atmospheric and haunting. Eve is an interesting character from the opening pages. Memories of her sister’s death follow Eve everywhere—rabbits, apples, purple balloons, the sound of a creaking gate. This could all come off creepy, but this book also had a large dose of whimsy and fantastical elements—an art deco era hotel, a scavenger hunt to find octopuses and clocks, and a magnetic connection between Eve and her favorite composer, Max Everly, whose music got her through her darkest days. I wish I could share more without spoiling it, but I don’t think I can.
The pacing of this one felt like The Night Circus. The cinematic qualities and quest reminded me of Water Moon. The eeriness was similar to Mexican Gothic. The love story was as mind-bending as The Time Traveler’s Wife (but without the tragic ending). The setting in different eras (we also spend a hot minute in WWI) made me recall The Unmaking of June Farrow. There’s also something Gatsby-esque about the era and the hotel itself. If any of this piques your interest, pick this one up. I have a feeling it will land in my top 10 reads of the year.
A few favorite quotes:
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The romance in this is closed-door with no explicit scenes on-page. Depictions of violence on the Western Front during World War I are also included—brief, but heavy.
