Why a Booktrail?
2000s: Mothers and daughters … their story can be complicated … but it can also turn out to have a happy ending.
Queenie Malone’s Paradise Hotel
What you need to know before your trail
Tilly was a bright, outgoing little girl who liked playing with ghosts and matches. She loved fizzy drinks, swear words, fish fingers and Catholic churches, but most of all she loved living in Brighton in Queenie Malone’s magnificent Paradise Hotel with its endearing and loving family of misfits – staff and guests alike. But Tilly’s childhood was shattered when her mother sent her away from the only home she’d ever loved to boarding school with little explanation and no warning.
Now, Tilda has grown into an independent woman still damaged by her mother’s unaccountable cruelty. Wary of people, her only friend is her dog, Eli. But when her mother dies, Tilda goes back to Brighton and with the help of her beloved Queenie sets about unravelling the mystery of her exile from The Paradise Hotel, only to discover that her mother was not the woman she thought she knew at all ..
Locations
Reset- England - Sussex - Brighton
- A: Brighton Palace Pier
- B: Brighton Palace Pier Rides
- C: Brighton Beach
- D: Brighton Carousel
- E: Brighton Pavilion
Travel Guide
Travel to Brighton BookTrail style
Brighton is the setting and backdrop to this novel which takes place in Queenie’s hotel on the seafront. One of the characters remembers this place well as she makes a return visit to where it used to be:
“It takes me only ten minutes to walk from the flat to what will always be Queenie’s to me. A new rococo, black and gold wrought-iron sigh procalis The Paradise’s Hotel’s status as a ‘bijou and boutique hotel’. The profusion of potted petunias and marigolds from my childhood has been replaced by miniature bay trees topiaried into pom-poms, but the Union Jack remains.”
Brighton is the place full of memories and more. Lots of humour to counteract the tears such as a description of the sky as ‘the colour of old men’s underpants”, and the easy chairs in the hotel ‘ created by Cath Kidston on LSD”.
Booktrailer Review
Susan: @thebooktrailer
A lovely character driven novel about mothers and daughters. The city of Brighton is the backdrop but the focus is on the fictional Queenie’s Paradise ?Hotel which seemed so real I might try and find it next time I’m in Brighton.
Chocked full of emotion this one. Keep the hankies at the ready. But through the tears, it was the laughter that really shone for me and the lovely descriptive writing. Describing the grey sky as being ‘ the colour of old men’s underpants’ for example made me chuckle as did thinking of a chair ‘ designed by Cath Kidston on LSD’
A favourite line however (and there are many) is this one: He came from a country called Newcastle and Tily would never understand a word he said either. I’m from Newcastle and this set me off, laughing and crying in equal measure.
This novel is sad, uplifting, charming and so much more
BookTrail Boarding Pass: Queenie Malone’s Paradise Hotel
Destination: Brighton Author/guide: Ruth Hogan Departure Time: 2000s
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