From the award-winning author of Station Eleven, a captivating novel of money, beauty, white-collar crime, ghosts, and moral compromise in which a woman disappears from a container ship off the coast of Mauritania and a massive Ponzi scheme implodes in New York, dragging countless fortunes with it. Vincent is a bartender at the Hotel Caiette, a five-star glass and cedar palace on an island in British Columbia. Jonathan Alkaitis works in finance and owns the hotel. When he passes Vincent his card with a tip, it’s the beginning of their life together. That same day, Vincent’s half-brother, Paul, scrawls a note on the windowed wall of the hotel: “Why don’t you swallow broken glass.” Leon Prevant, a shipping executive for a company called Neptune-Avramidis, sees the note from the hotel bar and is shaken to his core. Thirteen years later Vincent mysteriously disappears from the deck of a Neptune-Avramidis ship. Weaving together the lives of these characters, The Glass Hotel moves between the ship, the skyscrapers of Manhattan, and the wilderness of northern Vancouver Island, painting a breathtaking picture of greed and guilt, fantasy and delusion, art and the ghosts of our pasts.

Published March 24th 2020 by Knopf Publishing Group

What did I think?

It’s hard to know what would be good to read during these weird days. If you’re looking for an old fashioned page-turning mystery this is worth consideration. This is the same author who wrote Station Eleven. In a way. it is similar that you jump around in time. In Station Eleven times were divided into before and after the flu epidemic and in this book time jumps occur before and after a 2008 type financial scandal.

The blurb above tells you all you need to know about the story and I’m afraid to say more without spoiling the twisty plot for you. I read it in a three hour binge read and was happy I stayed up late to finish it. I’d give it 5 stars.

An English manor home, an unsolved mystery, too many suspects to count… It’s the perfect holiday for romance novelist Sara Medlar.

After solving two murder cases in their hometown of Lachlan, Florida, Sara Medlar, her niece Kate and their friend Jack need a change of scenery. Sara arranges for them to visit an old friend of hers in England. Upon arrival at Oxley Manor, a centuries-old estate that has been converted to a luxury hotel, Kate and Jack quickly realize that Sara is up to something. They learn that Sara has also invited a number of others to join them at Oxley.

When everyone assembles, Sara lets them know why they are there. Decades earlier, two people ran off together from Oxley and haven’t been heard from since—and Sara wants to solve the case. As the people who were there the night the two went missing, the guests find themselves cast in a live mystery-theater event.

In reenacting the events of that night, it becomes clear that everyone has something to hide and no one is safe, especially when the discovery of a body makes it clear that at least one of the people who disappeared was murdered.

Sara, Jack and Kate are once again at the heart of a mysterious case that only they are able to solve. But someone is willing to continue to kill to keep the truth about Oxley Manor buried, and none of the guests are safe.

Expected publication: March 10th 2020 by MIRA

What did I think?

Cozy mystery readers assemble! Everyone has something to hide in this story. The setting is ideal: a large English manor that’s been converted into a hotel? Yes, please. I didn’t even see the ending coming and I’m usually pretty good at that sort of thing.

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This novel shows us a world where our follower count and social standing is more important to us than our real friendships. Equal parts horrifying and entertaining the story is half Orla, a journalist in 2015, and Marlow, a 2051 “influencer” celebrity. Sometime between Orla’s and Marlow’s lives, an event was known only as “the Spill” caused the Internet as we know it today is gone, and Marlow lives in a completely different world. The government regulates all internet traffic, including entertainment, and Marlow has grown up in a Truman Show-like city called Constellation, which is an ongoing, immersive reality series. Both women yearn for more meaning in their lives, and each of their stories unfolds to show how they grow and change, while also revealing how they become connected over the years. If you liked Ready Player One and The Farm, you’ll like this one.

It’s much like a Black Mirror episode in that you’ll need to give it a little time to get going. I put it down twice because I could not figure out what it was getting at besides an- internet= lousy message.

Publication Date January 14, 2020