Queenie Malone's Paradise Hotel

3,5 Stars

It took me quite a while to really get into the story, because I didn't know where this tale would go and what its main purpose is. Ruth Hogan tells her story by alternating between Tilly as a 6 to 7-year-old (this part is told by a 3rd person narrator) and Tilda as a woman in her mid-forties (told from her 1st-person-perspective). And in between we also have Tildas mother narrating her side of the story through her diary entries. All this makes for an interesting but not uncomplicated read, which is further intensified by a lot of characters where the reader has to find out if they are real or not.

I extremly enjoyed Ruth Hogan's 2nd book "The wisdom of Sally Red Shoes", and I have to admit that - especially in comparison - I was a bit disappointed with her 3rd book now, because I couldn't find the same wonderful play with words here and the plot didn't grip me as much as the one about Mascha, her little son, Alice and Sally did.
In the second half of "Queenie Malone" it gets better, and as soon as Tilda finds the diary of her mother the plot gains an (important) excitement factor as well. Plus, we learn a bit more about the sad story of Sally from her previous book. But all in all it didn't live up to the high hopes I had. (Nevertheless, I still very much want to read her first book "The keeper of lost things", and would give everything else that Ruth Hogan will write in the future a well-deserved try).