Rating: 4.5 stars
CBR17 Bingo: Culture (A lot of people from a lot of different backgrounds, countries and cultures are forced together for a time during World War II)
Official plot summary:
January 1942. The Avallon Hotel & Spa has always offered elegant luxury in the wilds of West Virginia, its mountain sweetwater washing away all of high society’s troubles.
Local girl-turned-general manager June Porter Hudson has guided the Avallon skillfully through the first pangs of war. The Gilfoyles, the hotel’s aristocratic owners, have trained her well. But when the family heir makes a secret deal with the State Department to fill the hotel with captured Axis diplomats, June must persuade her staff—many of whom have sons and husbands heading to the front lines—to offer luxury to Nazis. With a smile.
Meanwhile, FBI Agent Tucker Minnick, whose coal tattoo hints at an Appalachian past, presses his ears to the hotel’s walls, listening for the diplomats’ secrets. He has one of his own, which is how he knows that June’s balancing act can have dangerous consequences: the sweetwater beneath the hotel can threaten as well as heal.
June has never met a guest she couldn’t delight, but the diplomats are different. Without firing a single shot, they have brought the war directly to her. As clashing loyalties crack the Avallon’s polished veneer, June must calculate the true cost of luxury.
I've been a fan of Maggie Stiefvater's since 2010, when I read her debut novel, Lament. So I was obviously very excited when I heard this year's release was going to be for adults. That it was going to be a historical fiction novel with elements of magical realism just made me more eager to read it. So much so that I pre-ordered the UK edition in hardback (normally, I wait until the books are in paperback before I pick them up). As an exciting bonus, I realised my book was signed when I opened the book from Blackwell's. Did the book live up to my expectations? Very much so.
In Europe, unsurprisingly, we learn a lot about the Second World War in school (especially in Norway, where we were occupied by the Germans for nearly five years). I developed an interest in history from a fairly young age, and as such, I feel like I know quite a bit about the conflict from the European side of things. For other parts of the world, I am a lot more ignorant. This novel is in part based on true events, they did in fact house diplomats from the axis countries (Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia) in luxury hotels in various places in the USA, to be able to use these esteemed guests (read: hostages) to negotiate the safe return of diplomats and American citizens of their own from the opposing countries. And the owners of said hotels had very little say in whether or not they wanted the guests there in the first place.
One of Stiefvater's strengths as a writer, in my opinion, is her way of crafting interesting stories in worlds similar to, but not quite like, our own. In this book, the paranormal aspects (such as characters being able to manifest stuff from out of their dreams) are toned down, but there is a touch of magical realism in the strange, seemingly sentient sweetwater at the Avallon spa. Water that has an affinity for certain individuals, the Avallon manager, June, being one of them. This clearly has both its benefits and disadvantages for her.
One might think that a woman being the general manager of a large luxury resort in the 1940s is one of the more fantastical elements of this story, but June Porter Hudson is based on real women in history who held the same position as her. A lot of people assume that because of her title and responsibilities, June is related to the Gilfoyles, who own the hotel. They are wrong, although June has been close, in different ways, to many of the family members.
As well as June, the readers follow (among others) the secretive FBI Agent Tucker Minick, who knows that this posting may be his last, yet still struggles to toe the line of the bureau. While he refuses to talk about it, he has more knowledge of the secrets of the West Virginian sweetwater than he lets on, and his experiences are clearly not of the positive kind.
We also meet the curious Hannelore, daughter of German diplomats, who appears to be mute, but astutely observes everything around her, with near-perfect recall. While children in novels can often end up feeling like nothing more than plot moppets, that is not the case with Hannelore, who is clearly neurodivergent (which makes it a rather risky proposition for her parents to take her with them to Nazi Germany, where diversity of any kind wasn't exactly encouraged or rewarded).
I'm once again reviewing books I read months ago (thanks to my inability to keep up with any other reviews than for my ARCs, and only barely those), so I don't remember all the details as much as I'd like. Suffice it to say, this was a really good book, with an interesting story, engaging characters, some tricksy mysteries and, as the story progresses, a hint of romance.
Judging a book by its cover: I much prefer the UK cover to the American one (a black and white photo looking down a long, winding staircase). In this, the reader gets a lot more elements from the story: the imposing Appalachian mountains in the background, the majestic hotel, the local apples, obviously the water, and if you look very closely at the entrance to the hotel, June's three loyal dachshunds.
Crossposted by Cannonball Read
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