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Hotel 21

The 'funny, poignant and completely heart-warming' debut novel

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Hotel 21

By: Senta Rich
Narrated by: Jessie Cave
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Bloomsbury presents Hotel 21 by Senta Rich, read by Jessie Cave.

'Beautifully told, this is a heart-warming and thought-provoking read.' Heat

'A sharp, funny, poignant and completely heart-warming story about female friendship and kick-ass women. I truly loved it!' Ruth Hogan

‘I have a first-day rule. Any sign of trouble, even a whiff of a problem, and I walk.’

Noelle is an efficient and friendly hotel cleaner, a model employee. Or so she’d have you think. The trouble is that she can’t help taking little ‘souvenirs’ as she cleans. Nothing of value, just tokens of happy, normal lives: a lipstick, a hair clip, some tweezers. And by the time the guest has noticed, she’s long gone.

As she starts at her 21st hotel, she’s determined to beat her record of one month in a five star hotel before suspicion falls on her. But when she meets her new colleagues, her plans are complicated. These women aren’t just hands pushing carts down lonely hotel corridors: they are women with lives full of happiness and worry, pain and joy. The kind of lives Noelle has never known how to live. They make her wonder what it might be like to have real friends, people to stick around for…

Will the women at Hotel 21 give her the courage to claim the life she deserves, or will her old habits come back to haunt her?

'Wonderful!' Daily Mail©2023 Senta Rich (P)2023 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Friendship Genre Fiction Literature & Fiction Fiction Happiness Comedy
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Critic reviews

Wonderful!
Beautifully told, this is a heart-warming and thought-provoking read.
Hotel 21 has a catchy title, a great premise and solid plot momentum from start to finish
A sharp, funny, poignant and completely heart-warming story about female friendship and kick-ass women. I truly loved it!
Noelle is my new hero, she quietly, but firmly stole my heart.
A fresh, funny and touching read about friendship, survival and the power of human connection. Beautifully drawn and wonderfully satisfying. I loved it.
Hotel 21 is the kind of poignant, thought-provoking page-turner you can fly through in a day
A dark and joyous character-driven book
A seasoned screenwriter, [Rich] knows how to keep a reader’s attention to the last. She is adept at creating that most elusive yet gratifying of literary characters: the badly behaved woman whom everyone will root for. As offbeat character studies go, this is as good as it gets.
‘Noelle is full of candour and complexity – it’s impossible not to like her. Senta Rich also offers a fascinating insight into the world of hotels, including the camaraderie of the mostly cleaning staff.’
All stars
Most relevant
Loved this book, could not put it down. It’s funny, witty ans emotional at times with interesting characters.
Can’t wait for the next one by this author!

Great read

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One of the best female orientated books I’ve ever listened to. It dealt with extremely complex morality and difficult subject matter (trigger warning should apply for family abuse) with absolute grace, humour and empathy. Every character and relationship is multi-dimensional and a celebration of friendship and overcoming adversity.

A beautiful, funny, sensitive and uplifting story

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and it changes our outlook on life. I wasn’t sure if I liked it at first, but I was disappointed when it was over.

Original uplifting. Humans feel the need to “belong’.

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Ok so another disappointing narrator who I felt was poorly chosen to represent Noelle. The story caught my interest but sadly did not deliver in humour or depth of characters. Not sure I would agree would other opinions of it being an incredible tale of female friendship and bonding. I really didn’t feel I got to know any of the characters and certainly didn’t warm to them. Disappointing listen all round

Needs more umph

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I bought it because someone compared it to "Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine" which I loved. However, the two books have nothing to do with each other.

This is just a boring story with absolutely nothing standing out or worth spending time reading it.

Boring

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