Happy Tuesday, y’all! This week, Jana, over at That Artsy Reader Girl, has decided to start vacation planning. How so? She’s asking us to share characters we would love to go on vacation with. Honestly, I could only think of one that wouldn’t possibly end in death, but maybe a hangover and a pulled muscle. I’m not sure I want that for a vacation. So, instead, I decided to twist the topic and go with hotels. What do I mean by hotels? I mean books where the primary setting involves a hotel. It’s check-in time!
With these ten hotels, some of the characters are just visiting, while others reside there. In a few of them, the characters work there. All the same, there are ten different hotels to check out.
Let’s go, it’s check-in time!
The Wake-Up Call by Beth O’Leary
- Genre: Contemporary, Romance, Christmas
- Release Date: September 2023
- Hotel: Forest Manor Hotel in England
The Spy Who Loved Me by Ian Fleming
- Genre: Crime, Action, Thriller
- Release Date: April 1962
- Hotel: Dreamy Pines Motor Court in the Adirondack Mountains of New York
The Suite Spot by Trish Doller
- Genre: Romance, Contemporary
- Release Date: March 2022
- Hotel: A Brewery Hotel in Ohio
Hotel Valhalla Guide to the Norse Worlds by Rick Riordan
- Genre: Middle Grade, Fantasy, Mythology, Short Stories
- Release Date: August 2016
- Hotel: Hotel Valhalla
The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary
- Genre: Childrens
- Release Date: January 1965
- Hotel: Mountain View Inn in California
Greetings from Nowhere by Barbara O’Connor
- Genre: Middle Grade, Realistic
- Release Date: January 2008
- Hotel: Sleepy Time Motel in the Smoky Mountains
Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie
- Genre: Mystery
- Release Date: June 1941
- Hotel: A Seaside Resort in Devon, England
A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow by Laura Taylor Namey
- Genre: YA, Contemporary, Romance
- Release Date: November 2020
- Hotel: A Small Family Run Inn in Winchester, England
Coronation Year by Jennifer Robson
- Genre: Historical Fiction
- Release Date: April 2023
- Hotel: Blue Lion in London
Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson
- Genre: Mystery
- Release Date: March 2022
- Hotel: Sky Lodge in Australia
That’s ten books set in or around hotels. It’s check-in time! Which one are you spending your vacation in? Are there any literary hotels I’ve missed?
Are you looking for some more books to read? Check out my other bookish lists, book reviews, and monthly reading wrap-ups.
Great list! I’ve only read the Beth O’Leary which I have to admit wasn’t my favourite of hers. I highly recommend All The Ways We Said Goodbye which is largely set in the Paris Ritz in three different time periods.
The Wake Up Call wasn’t one of my favorites of hers either, but it was one of the first to top into my head when I decided to focus on books set in hotels.
Oh good spin! I couldn’t think of a way to spin this one!
Have you read The Beautiful Strangers set in the beautiful Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego?
I haven’t read that one, I will have to look into it.
Great twist on the topic. Others I can think of: Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner, A Room With A View by E.M. Forster, In A German Pension by Katherine Mansfield and The Listening Walls by Margaret Millar. A bit more contemporary – The Maid by Nina Prose.
I loved this!! I am adding so many of these to my own TBR now. I love a book set in a hotel!
The book I immediately thought of when I read how you decided to tweak this week’s topic was A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles (set in Russia). Also, Welcome to the Pine Away Motel and Cabins, by Katarina Bivald (set in Oregon, if I’m remembering correctly). I’d recommend both!
Here’s my Top Ten Tuesday: https://thissideofstoryland.blogspot.com/2024/04/top-ten-tuesday-characters-id-like-to.html
I haven’t read either of these, but I will have to look into them especially the Bivald one as I enjoyed Broken Wheel.
I still need to read Broken Wheel! I put it on my TBR after reading Welcome to the Pine Away Motel and Cabins.
Great twist on the topic! I haven’t read any of these but I was actually looking at my copy of Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone last night and it might be my next read 🙂
I hope you enjoy reading it Dini. It is a wild ride, that’s for sure.
I really love this twist! I even thought of another one – The Sun Down Motel! I guess that is a motel and not hotel, but it works right?
Hotel, motel, motor court, resort, they all work in my opinion.
Oooh great list! I loved The Wake-Up Call but I haven’t read any of the others. Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone is on my TBR though!
Haze
https://thebookhaze.com/
Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone is such a wild ride!
This is a fun list! I totally forgot that The Mouse and the Motorcycle featured a hotel setting. (I mostly remember the mouse, and the motorcycle. 😉 )
Here’s my TTT rhis week: https://bookwyrmknits.com/2024/04/16/top-ten-tuesday-come-sail-away/
Excellent! Now I can just hear Carly Simon belting out “Nobody Does it Better….”
LOL!
https://youtu.be/isAUOa50wdA?si=cB8Ehmi0qeUchUTL
I must read A Cuban Girl’s Guide soon. Love what you did with the topic this week!
I learned while compiling this list there’s actually a sequel coming out this year.
This is a great twist!! I haven’t read any of these though but so many sound great!
This topic is SO fun and is one I may have to borrow next time I lack inspo. Reminds me I need to read a book by Beth, too. 🙂 Thanks so much for visiting my website today.
I love this list! Any list that includes The Mouse and the Motorcycle is my kind of list. 🙂
It’s one of the few books I remember reading over and over as a kid.
It’s such a fun book!
I like this twist this week.
Hotels are such fun settings.Because you can have really big quirky casts of characters without it seeming ridiculous 😊
OOh nice topic choice! I don’t think I’ve had many hotel encounters. I think maybe this one book might have had one…it was a roadtrip thriller so it is possible and I can maybe think of one more series that might have had a few hotel stays…but that’s about all I can really remember! Needless to say if characters were in a hotel it wasn’t a place they stayed long! Lol.
Thanks for visiting my TTT!
I ALMOST did this same topic! I’d forgotten about THE MOUSE AND THE MOTORCYCLE. Very nostalgic choice. My favorite book set in a hotel is THE SUN-DOWN MOTEL by Simone St. James. It’s a fun one.
Happy TTT (on a Wednesday)!
Susan
http://www.blogginboutbooks.com
You’re welcome for the blast of nostalgia! I haven’t read The Sun-Down Motel, I may have to look into it.
Love your focus with this week’s TTT! Hotels make for such a fun setting. And The Suite Spot is one of my favs. 😀
Love seeing A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow on here! I thought it was so cute.
Oh this is such a fun twist to the topic! I haven’t read any of these yet, but The Wake Up Call is on my TBR.
A great looking list! I haven’t read many books based in hotels, but I do enjoy a hotel setting when I do read one!
This is a fun way to interpret this prompt! I love that you included the Mouse and the Motorcycle AND Hotel Valhalla!
This is an awesome topic, and a really cool list of books! I’m not familiar with most of these books, but now I want to be! Although I do have strong memories of having a copy of The Mouse and the Motorcycle as a kid, I can’t remember much about it, but I did go through a really big Beverly Cleary phase back then.
What a great idea for a post this week!! I had no idea some of these were set in hotels!
Love this post, very original. The Suite Spot was lovely and want to read more by the author
The perfect twist to this prompt! I adored The Wake-Up Call and The Suite Spot. <3