Hotel Alpha by Mark Watson
Sep. 3rd, 2014 10:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
There’s a story behind every door …
Three decades ago, the charismatic Howard York created the finest hotel in London – the Hotel Alpha. Here, guests are provided with everything they could wish for. And when Howard is in the room, there is a sense that anything is possible.
Graham, the concierge, has been behind the Alpha’s front desk since the day the hotel opened and has witnessed every stage of its history. Chas, Howard’s blind adopted son, has almost never ventured outside its walls. But as the years forge ahead, both Graham and Chas must ask themselves whether life at the Alpha can keep pace with the world outside it, and whether Howard’s vision of the perfect hotel has been built on secrets as well as dreams …
In 1963, Graham answered an advert for the post of concierge at a new hotel about to open near Euston. The selection process run by the owner, Howard York, is unusual but then, so is the hotel. York had a vision for creating a hotel where the guest’s needs were paramount and with his promotional genius, the Hotel Alpha becomes the place to be with ‘A’ list guests and parties that go through the night.
But in 1984 the hotel’s ravaged by a fire that kills a guest and leaves her infant son, Chas, blind. Howard adopts Chas and rebuilds the Alpha, but Graham dislikes change and as the years pass and technology encroaches on his role, secrets begin to emerge – secrets that threaten Chas and Graham’s place in the world …
Mark Watson’s fourth novel is a character-focused story traversing a 40 year period seen through the eyes of Graham and Chas. There are some nice ideas, notably how technology can dehumanise everyday contact whilst enabling people to stay connected and it was also interesting to read a book with a blind character - Watson does well at conveying Chas’s idea of the world through his other senses and use of the internet. However, the first person voice results in more telling than showing while the big secret at the heart of the book simply wasn’t big enough for me and seemed easy for other characters to guess. I also didn’t believe in Howard’s mercurial power or the magnetic hold he seems to have over those around him and there are a number of points where Watson gets historical facts wrong (e.g. Graham takes someone to catch a British Airways flight several years before British Airways was set up). Ultimately, it was an okay read and I kept turning the pages. Although this book never really came alive for me, I would check out Watson’s other work.
I found Chas’s chapters more interesting than Graham’s, mainly because Graham seems to exist mainly to mark the passage of time and I didn’t buy into his repressed emotions for Agatha because they are so suppressed on the page and there’s little sense of his marriage. By contrast Chas’s relationship with Kathleen is sweet and believable, as is the distance that grows between them once Kathleen stumbles on the secret, fed by Chas’s support for the invasion of Iraq.
The Verdict:
Mark Watson’s fourth novel is a character-focused story traversing a 40 year period seen through the eyes of Graham and Chas. There are some nice ideas, notably how technology can dehumanise everyday contact whilst enabling people to stay connected and it was also interesting to read a book with a blind character - Watson does well at conveying Chas’s idea of the world through his other senses and use of the internet. However, the first person voice results in more telling than showing while the big secret at the heart of the book simply wasn’t big enough for me and seemed easy for other characters to guess. I also didn’t believe in Howard’s mercurial power or the magnetic hold he seems to have over those around him and there are a number of points where Watson gets historical facts wrong (e.g. Graham takes someone to catch a British Airways flight several years before British Airways was set up). Ultimately, it was an okay read and I kept turning the pages. Although this book never really came alive for me, I would check out Watson’s other work.
HOTEL ALPHA was released in the United Kingdom on 31st July 2014. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the ARC of this book.
Three decades ago, the charismatic Howard York created the finest hotel in London – the Hotel Alpha. Here, guests are provided with everything they could wish for. And when Howard is in the room, there is a sense that anything is possible.
Graham, the concierge, has been behind the Alpha’s front desk since the day the hotel opened and has witnessed every stage of its history. Chas, Howard’s blind adopted son, has almost never ventured outside its walls. But as the years forge ahead, both Graham and Chas must ask themselves whether life at the Alpha can keep pace with the world outside it, and whether Howard’s vision of the perfect hotel has been built on secrets as well as dreams …
In 1963, Graham answered an advert for the post of concierge at a new hotel about to open near Euston. The selection process run by the owner, Howard York, is unusual but then, so is the hotel. York had a vision for creating a hotel where the guest’s needs were paramount and with his promotional genius, the Hotel Alpha becomes the place to be with ‘A’ list guests and parties that go through the night.
But in 1984 the hotel’s ravaged by a fire that kills a guest and leaves her infant son, Chas, blind. Howard adopts Chas and rebuilds the Alpha, but Graham dislikes change and as the years pass and technology encroaches on his role, secrets begin to emerge – secrets that threaten Chas and Graham’s place in the world …
Mark Watson’s fourth novel is a character-focused story traversing a 40 year period seen through the eyes of Graham and Chas. There are some nice ideas, notably how technology can dehumanise everyday contact whilst enabling people to stay connected and it was also interesting to read a book with a blind character - Watson does well at conveying Chas’s idea of the world through his other senses and use of the internet. However, the first person voice results in more telling than showing while the big secret at the heart of the book simply wasn’t big enough for me and seemed easy for other characters to guess. I also didn’t believe in Howard’s mercurial power or the magnetic hold he seems to have over those around him and there are a number of points where Watson gets historical facts wrong (e.g. Graham takes someone to catch a British Airways flight several years before British Airways was set up). Ultimately, it was an okay read and I kept turning the pages. Although this book never really came alive for me, I would check out Watson’s other work.
I found Chas’s chapters more interesting than Graham’s, mainly because Graham seems to exist mainly to mark the passage of time and I didn’t buy into his repressed emotions for Agatha because they are so suppressed on the page and there’s little sense of his marriage. By contrast Chas’s relationship with Kathleen is sweet and believable, as is the distance that grows between them once Kathleen stumbles on the secret, fed by Chas’s support for the invasion of Iraq.
The Verdict:
Mark Watson’s fourth novel is a character-focused story traversing a 40 year period seen through the eyes of Graham and Chas. There are some nice ideas, notably how technology can dehumanise everyday contact whilst enabling people to stay connected and it was also interesting to read a book with a blind character - Watson does well at conveying Chas’s idea of the world through his other senses and use of the internet. However, the first person voice results in more telling than showing while the big secret at the heart of the book simply wasn’t big enough for me and seemed easy for other characters to guess. I also didn’t believe in Howard’s mercurial power or the magnetic hold he seems to have over those around him and there are a number of points where Watson gets historical facts wrong (e.g. Graham takes someone to catch a British Airways flight several years before British Airways was set up). Ultimately, it was an okay read and I kept turning the pages. Although this book never really came alive for me, I would check out Watson’s other work.
HOTEL ALPHA was released in the United Kingdom on 31st July 2014. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the ARC of this book.
