So I'm really sorry that it's been quiet around here. It's because.... we moved house! It has been in the works since February but because the people we were buying off were buying a new house, which wasn't yet built, we had to wait. We had put a lot of things in storage in preparation to move, including most of my books. I had kept one basket full out in the old house, but I was so sad without my shelves of books. In the new house one of the spare rooms has enough space for a TON of bookshelves, so we've been building those and unpacking my books. It is glorious to see them all again! I will share some photos when everything is unpacked and looking great.
Over the move itself I found it hard to read because I was stressed and wound up, so I tried to be gentle on myself. I started this book just before the move but couldn't concentrate on it, so I put it down for a bit. I finished it at the end of August and thought it did redeem itself in the last fifty pages or so, but I think it was overly long. I reckon you could have cut out about seventy five pages and still had the the same novel, with a bit less flannel.
I love Maggie, as you know, so when I saw this book I was intrigued by it. I requested it at the library and picked it up in mid August. Although it seemed like my kind of thing, and although it's really typical Maggie, I did find it slow. Maybe that's one of the differences between Young Adult fiction and fiction for adults. Dunno. But it did annoy me somewhat.
So the book is about the Avallon hotel in West Virginia somewhere. It is set in about 1942, after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The hotel is owned by the Gilfoyle family but June Hudson - aka Hoss - is the general manager. She is from the area, from a poor family, but she was kind of adopted by the Gilfoyle family. The patriarch, Mr Francis, who has died not long before the start of the book, basically moulded June into the person she is now. She has kind of had a relationship with one of the sons, Ed, but the war is looming and she has refused to marry him. A different son, Sandy, has been injured and is now using a wheelchair and unable to move around by himself. His sister, Stella, is basically his carer. A different sister exists but doesn't feature.
June is told that the hotel is being requisitioned by the FBI to house diplomats from Germany, Italy, and Japan. Apparently this was a thing that really happened in World War Two which was really interesting to learn. She has to get rid of all the guests - except for the mysterious long term guest who lives in Room 411 and who demands things daily. A number of her male staff have been drafted to fight and those that are left often have problems. She is well respected by her staff though.
The FBI men are headed up by Tucker. He is a native to West Virginia - as June identifies by his coal tattoo - but doesn't really talk about that. The Axis diplomats arrive but they're almost slightly incidental to the story. There are quite a few Nazis, of course, and there is a girl who the story follows through. She is most likely autistic or something similar, but it's not diagnosed. The FBI men work to repatriate the diplomats and get some American diplomats back in exchange. This was all very interesting!
And then there is the water. The hotel has four bath houses and fonts on every floor. The water is sweetwater. June drinks glasses of it daily. It definitely has magical qualities. It is there, bubbling under the hotel, bubbling under everything that happens in the book. June knows how to subdue it, but eventually, she can't anymore. This is really typical Maggie, and I loved it.
in all, this is a 3.75 out of five, so I'll round it up to a four. I loved the ending but as I say, I felt like there was quite a bit that just didn't need to be there.
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