"The White Octopus Hotel" | Reviewed By Andie Kloppe

There are events in life one wishes could be undone. This is something readers are reminded of in “The White Octopus Hotel,” by Alexandra Bell, a novel that takes us on a magical journey through time.

No one knows regret better than Eve Shaw, a young art appraiser, who is constantly haunted by the demons of her past. When an old man, someone Eve feels she may have known in the past, gives her a most peculiar birthday gift she embarks on a quest that could change her life forever.

The White Octopus Hotel is no ordinary hotel. This hotel is filled with objects as mysterious as the hotel's appearance. There are legends about the items—some allow an individual to speak to the dead, others to hear the world's most beautiful music, and more. When Eve learns the hotel possesses an object that would allow her to write a note to her past self, she becomes consumed with finding it. Any chance she has at undoing what has been done must be taken. 

Eve’s research leads her to the Swiss Alps, to the location of the abandoned hotel. She carried with her a key her mother gave her to one of the hotel rooms. As Eve explores the hotel, she cannot help but feel that she has been there before. The only problem with that feeling is that the hotel was closed forever in 1935. And the current date is 2015. There is no possible way Eve could have visited the hotel. But how else can she explain her vivid memories? And the photo she finds of her standing next to the pristine fountain in the hotel’s main lobby?

Upon exploring the hotel, Eve is shocked to discover that the room that her key opens does not exist. At least not obviously. But working as a sleuth, Eve locates the actual room, turns the key, and her life is changed forever. 

Eve is sent back in time to 1935, to the height of the White Octopus Hotel’s splendor. What’s more, she comes face to face with her musical idol, Max Everly. Like Eve, Max lives with the demons of his past. 

As the hotel prepares for a grand party, a scavenger hunt is planned to kick off the celebration. The prize is the winner's choice of the missing paintings created by the hotel’s owner, and a magical object of winner’s choice. This is the chance Eve has been looking for to fix what was broken. 

Eve enlists a reluctant Max to help her with the scavenger hunt, and they both begin to realize that their paths have crossed before. But how can two individuals from different centuries have met before, and what were they to each other back then? 

Travel back in time to “The White Octopus Hotel.” The author will keep readers turning page after page, desperate to see how the characters piece together the mystery of the hotel, to not only find out where they belong, but in what period in history.

Buy the Book.