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    A Small Hotel
    A Small Hotel
    A Small Hotel
    Audiobook13 hours

    A Small Hotel

    Written by Suanne Laqueur

    Narrated by Derek Shetterly

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    An American Family. A World War. A First Love. A Small Hotel. It’s the summer of 1941. Europe is at war, but New York's Thousand Islands are at the height of the tourist season. Kennet Fiskare, son of a hotel proprietor, is having the summer of a lifetime, having fallen deeply in love with a Swedish-Brazilian guest named Astrid Virtanen. But the affair is cut short and the young lovers permanently parted, first by Astrid’s family obligations, then by America’s entry into the war. The rigors of military life help dull his heartache, but when Kennet’s battalion reaches France, he is thrown into the crucible of front line combat. As his unit crosses Europe, from the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium to Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, Kennet falls into a different kind of love: the intense camaraderie between soldiers. It's a bond fierce yet fragile, vital yet expendable, here today and gone tomorrow. Sustained by his friendships, Kennet both witnesses and commits the unthinkable atrocities of warfare, altering his view of the world and himself. To the point where a second chance with Astrid in peacetime might be the most terrifying and consequential battle he’s ever fought. With her signature blend of soul-stirring prose and emotional complexity, Laqueur takes readers on a journey through events that shape an American family’s weakest moments and finest hours. A Small Hotel illuminates the experience of ordinary people thrown into extraordinary circumstances, and their once-in-a-generation camaraderie, courage and resiliency. It’s a novel for the world, a heartbreaking, uplifting story of family, love and human endurance.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLantern Audio
    Release dateSep 26, 2022
    ISBN9781737981480
    A Small Hotel
    Author

    Suanne Laqueur

    A former professional dancer and teacher, Suanne Laqueur went from choreographing music to choreographing words. Her work has been described as "Therapy Fiction," "Emotionally Intelligent Romance" and "Contemporary Train Wreck."Laqueur's novel An Exaltation of Larks was the Grand Prize winner in the 2017 Writer's Digest Awards. Her debut novel The Man I Love won a gold medal in the 2015 Readers' Favorite Book Awards and was named Best Debut in the Feathered Quill Book Awards. Her follow-up novel, Give Me Your Answer True, was also a gold medal winner at the 2016 RFBA.Laqueur graduated from Alfred University with a double major in dance and theater. She taught at the Carol Bierman School of Ballet Arts in Croton-on-Hudson for ten years. An avid reader, cook and gardener, she started her blog EatsReadsThinks in 2010.Suanne lives in Westchester County, New York with her husband and two children.Visit her at suannelaqueurwrites.comAll feels welcome. And she always has coffee

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    Reviews for A Small Hotel

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      Suanne Laqueur is a brilliant writer. Her flow, sentence structure, and phraseology were exquisite. I’m half Swedish, and I found the Swedish folklore especially fun. The characters were complex and vivid. Major’s sense of humor reminded me so much of my beloved grandpa. Her descriptions of people and places stirred my emotions; I could picture them in my mind as though I were there.

      Her depictions of the hell of war were stunning. Using Kennet’s journal entries to tell the story was a wonderful choice. His experiences during the war were brutal and horrifying: “Causes are distanced, abstract things. Friends are in your face, in your bunk, in your foxhole. They trust you with their lives, they die in your arms with their blood and guts sprayed across your face and their teeth embedded in your flesh.” I’ve read many historical novels about WWII, but I never thought about the smell of war before. “It was ripe inside the bag—fetid with unwiped butts, unwashed hair, cigarette-smoked teeth, dirty clothes, and grimy skin and nervous sweat.”

      In one scene, she describes what GIs witnessed when they liberated Mauthausen Concentration Camp in Austria. “Little by little, the GIs grasped how the camp’s staggering mass of filthy humanity comprised an international crossroads of dissidents and unwanteds. Jews, of course—Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Balkan and Dutch. But there were large groups of Spanish Republicans. French political prisoners, too. Unwanted ‘-ists’ of all kinds: socialists, communists, anarchists. Romani. Jehovah’s Witnesses. Intelligentsia. Boy Scouts. (Boy Scouts?!) The ethnic undesirables: Poles, Slovenes, Slovaks, and Serbs. Soviet prisoners of war.” Very few of these groups are mentioned in other historical novels. I went down a long, winding bunny trail researching the Boy Scouts.

      I also appreciated that she highlighted several historical figures in the book: Brazilian writer and statesman Joaquim Nabuco, publishing executive F. A. Davis, and Brazilian journalist Assis Chateaubriand.

      I would have given this book five stars if not for a few things. First, too much of the plot was about the war. What about the other characters that were introduced at the beginning of the book? His family life at the hotel was delightful and so well written. Second, I didn’t realize Laqueur writes LGBT fiction. Not my jam. Third, the novel needed better editing. 4 stars. For more reviews visit amyhagberg.com.