Publication Date: 20th March 2015 from Quartet Books.
Source: Publisher Review Copy
Sam is a war photographer famous for her hauntingly beautiful pictures of the dead. After a particularly gruelling assignment, she checks into an expensive hotel. Unfortunately she has chosen the exact moment terrorists attack the hotel. Abhi, the hotel manager, begs her to stay quiet and stay put. Abhi has never wanted to be a hero; a disappointment to his army father and brother. He thought he’d come to a safe haven at the hotel, a place where he could be himself. Now stuck inside the sealed-off manager’s office in the middle of a terrorist attack, he is desperately trying to keep those still alive safe.
An evocative and very intense thriller, Hotel Arcadia is heavily character driven and beautifully written. One of those books that completely consumes you during the reading of it, this is one that will stay with me.
Sam, a war photographer, finds herself caught up in a siege. Her very real need to be at the heart of things makes her take unneccesary risks – meanwhile on the other end of the phone is Abhi, hotel manager, who is determined to keep her and as many others as possible, safe from the terrorist threat. Both bound by their background and experience, haunted in a lot of ways by the past, the relationship between these two is perfectly timed and very intriguing.
The sense of place is pitch perfect, you can almost feel the fear, the adrenalin and put yourself right into the moment – as things develop, the army outside waiting to see where things go, it is almost as if these two, Sam and Abhi are apart from all that – in a little bubble of their own making and yet still affecting the environment and those around them. When Sam discovers a child, alive and in need of help, things take an even more emotional turn, now she is responsible for more than just her own life. Powerful and elegant writing here as she makes her decisions and things move ever onwards..
Overall this is a powerful and thought provoking novel, a literary thriller that will both keep you on the edge of your seat and leaving you feeling emotionally drained in the best way possible. A really really terrific story, exquisitely constructed with two amazing and memorable characters at its heart I really cannot recommend it highly enough.
Find out more here: http://www.sunnysingh.net/
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Pre-Order information (it is a gorgeous hardback!) : https://www.waterstones.com/author/sunny-singh/1083280
Happy Reading Folks!
