A Hotel for Gentle Ladies by Ellen Cooney

Published by Pantheon Books - An Imprint of Random House.

This book follows the heroine known as Charlotte Heath as she embarks on a wild and eccentric adventure. After suffering a long sickness she goes on an outing and spies her husband kissing another woman. Her reaction is to run away as far as possible, from her husband, from her stifling life with her in-laws and at times it feels like she is also running away from herself.

She heads to the private hotel for gentle ladies where she meets many wonderful and unique characters and from there, her journey of enlightenment and self-discovery begins.

This book started out promising with its wonderfully written characters. It is certainly a book that can quite easily keep the reader guessing and longing for the answers of the many questions which come to mind. After a while though when I got to the point where I had far too many questions and no answers at all, it got tedious to read and I was in all honesty just reading to finish it. The actual story had faded from my interest so many times with just the occasional return of curiosity.

I think by the time I got to the end of the book I had a mix of emotions. I was relieved the book was finally over, I was feeling a sense of warmth (you would have to be dead, not to) from the story in general but overall, I was left with a sense of disappointment. To be fair though it may just be that this style of book is not for me and other folks may like it. For me, it left far too much unanswered.

That said, I will still be rereading it at some point to see if it grows on me or if maybe I missed something.