Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Review: Hotel Ruby by Suzanne Young

First of all thanks to Simon Pulse and Edelweiss for allowing me to read an e-galley of this title. This is the first book I've read by this author, although  I've had one of her other series on my TBR list for a long time.  And now that I've read and enjoyed this one, I'll try to move that other series up on my list to read!  First I have to say that this book really kind of reminded me in a way of this season of American Horror Story, which is set in a hotel.  Actually, this book was a little better than I feel the tv show has been this year though.

The  main character is Audrey.  She's on her way with her brother Daniel, and their father, to go live with her grandmother.  Their mother died a little while ago, and their father never really recovered from it.  He plans to leave them with their grandmother, and go off for awhile until he is better.  On the way though, he decides they are going to spend a night at this hotel that is on the way.  He says it will be there one night of "vacation".  This hotel is beautiful.  And when they get there, there aren't enough rooms on the same floor, so Audrey gets a room on a different floor from her dad and brother.  The hotel is really grand, Audrey can't believe how fancy her room is.  And it's not just her room, the whole hotel seems to be one much more expensive than her family should be able to afford.  She meets a very cute boy named Elias the first night. And she somehow ends up in a ball room where there is a very fancy party going on.  Her father seems to be coming out of his funk and almost back to his normal self.  He decides they will stay till the end of the week, and really make a vacation out of it.

But things are really still kind of weird.  When Elias takes her to hang out with the people who are the staff, she finds out that is not allowed.  And when she tries to go back to the fancy party, she is told she hasn't been invited.  Her dad and brother both get invitations, but she doesn't.  Plus, Elias has an old girlfriend who also lives at the hotel, like he does, and she is hateful and rude.  And the guy who is the concierge, kind of the person in charge of the hotel, is really cruel to her.  Even threatens her when he finds her fraternizing with the staff.  Soon Audrey starts finding things out about the history of the hotel, as well as seeing weird things happening.  The staff all seem to think that the hotel itself can do things.  And they are all scared of the concierge.  Her dad and brother say they are going to stay, but that on Friday she has to go ahead and head to her grandmother's without them.  The weirder things get, the more Audrey find out what is really going on, and the scarier it gets.

While I kind of had a feeling what might be going on, the way it was done was very clever and interesting to read.  As I said it was creepy, and I really enjoyed the story.  They should make a tv show based on this hotel, it was much more interesting than I've found the one on American Horror Story to be so far.  A great read, highly recommended to those who enjoy scary stories.