Queenie Malone's Paradise Hotel by Ruth Hogan

 July 24, 2020

Queenie Malone’s Paradise Hotel by Ruth Hogan

Tilda and her mother Grace were never close.  Tilda always suspected it was because she inherited an ability to see the dead from her father, a trait that her mother detested.  After her father’s death, the best thing to happen to Tilda was moving into Queenie Malone’s Paradise Hotel in Brighton, where Tilda found a second mother in Queenie and a family in the quirky group of employees and guests at the hotel.  But shortly after their move, Grace inexplicably shipped Tilda off to a remote boarding school, wrenching her away from the only real home she had ever known.  After Grace’s death over 40 years later, Tilda fears that she has inherited not only her father’s psychic ability, but also her mother’s mental illness.  She is desperate for answers, and with her faithful canine companion Eli by her side, Tilda returns to Brighton to search for answers about their lives, why her mother always seemed to be punishing her, and what really happened to her father.

My sciatica was acting up yesterday, so I spent most of the day lying down on a heating pad, reading.  I was fortunate to have Queenie Malone’s Paradise Hotel checked out from the library.  I fell in love with Queenie and her hotel at the first description.  Brighton in the 1970’s sounds like a child’s paradise.  There is a slight supernatural element in Tilda’s ability to see those who are no longer living – she can’t always distinguish between the living and the dead.  Things aren’t always the way you think they are (especially when you’re a child) and the plotline has a number of unexpected developments.  But children also accept some things without question, while adults might be put off or make judgments.

Eli the dog is a wonderful character, and yes, he is fine and living with Tilda at the end of the book.  Queenie also is a marvelous flamboyant character, but she makes only sporadic appearances until the middle of the book.

Although the story has a dark side and there are complex issues here, I found Queenie Malone’s Paradise Hotel to be a delightful and engaging read.  I finished the novel in a day, and I highly recommend it if you enjoy quirky fiction.

I Stopped Time by Jane Davis

March 14, 2020

I Stopped Time by Jane Davis

Sir James Hastings grew up without a mother – she abandoned their family when he was a baby.  So imagine his surprise when dozens of boxes of photographs are delivered to his house, his mother’s legacy of a lifetime of photography.  With the help of a local woman who is an art student, Sir James starts to go through the boxes and unravel the true story of his mother’s life.  Lottie, James’ mother, was a very modern woman for her time.  She not only abandoned her family to pursue a career of her own as a photographer, she also moved in with a man she was not married to and lived with him for over 50 years.  As James goes through his mother's photographs, he slowly realizes that they had more in common than he thought, and that the villain of his life wasn't so evil after all.

Jane Davis has written a remarkable piece of historical fiction that includes not only memorable characters, but wonderful descriptions that really evoke the time and place for the reader.  The story moves between two points of view and two eras, but since chapters are clearly labeled with the date and character, it is easy to follow and the two personal narratives are entwined seamlessly, right up to the satisfying conclusion.  Commonalities gradually emerge between the two main characters, such as not knowing much about their mothers, having unconventional lifestyles for their time, and unrelenting pigheadedness.

“Stopping time” refers to capturing a moment in time with a camera.  This is good escape fiction for the turbulent times that we are living through.  If you are interested in fiction about photographers, you might also like Feast Your Eyes by Myla Goldberg.