eBook Review : The Hotel by Louise Mumford*

[Ad-gifted] Are you looking for a summer read that perhaps isn’t so light-hearted and has an edge of thrill, then look no further than The Hotel by Louise Mumford.

Published by HQ Digital, the book is about four students who travel to Ravencliffe, an eerie abandoned hotel perched on steep cliffs on the Welsh coast. After a series of unexplained accidents, only three of them leave. The fourth, Leo, disappears, and is never seen again. Only three of them came back. 

A decade on, the friends have lost contact. Oscar is fame-hungry, making public appearances and selling his story. Richard sank into alcoholism and is only just recovering. Bex just wants to forget – until one last opportunity to go back offers the chance to find out what really happened to Leo.

Ten years later, they return one last time.  But as soon as they get to the hotel things start going wrong again. Objects mysteriously disappear and reappear. Accidents happen. And Bex realises that her former friends know far more than they are letting on about the true events at Ravencliffe that night…

Find out what I thought of this thrilling tale in our latest blog post.

What did I think of the eBook?

I first picked up this book, only two days after my uncle had sadly passed away. Within the first few pages, I realised the book was set in the same town where my uncle had lived during the later years of his life. This lovely little town is called Cardigan and sits between Tenby and Aberystwyth. This strange coincidence made this book all the more curious to me.

I am also usually a “Chick lit” reader, but when asked to review this book I wanted to try something slightly different. This is a thriller/ghost story set in Wales and spans over a period of 10 years, going backwards and forwards between the characters at the age of 18 and 28.

The book is incredibly well written. I say this as a reader of many books that although have fabulous stories and are incredibly entertaining, they are sometimes not well written – especially in terms of vocabulary and descriptive content – this often doesn’t matter when a book is good but when you come across a good book that is well written it makes you all the more keen to keep reading. This is exactly the style of Louise Mumford. Her writing is so descriptive there is no need to fill in the gaps you can completely picture where you are and what is happening through the words she uses and the way in which she tells her story.

The book is a thriller/suspense but doesn’t really get to the scarier or on-edge points until halfway through, so be patient if you decide to read this novel. The characters are interesting and not necessarily that likeable – which is always a good twist in a book when you are almost wary of their personalities – or could that be the point? Bex, the lead in the book, is at times slightly annoying but that still didn’t have me wondering what she might do next when I had to the book down and not read it for a day or so. So regardless of how you feel about the characters The Hotel does keep you curious but is at times a little slow to get to the point.

The loose story – which won’t give anything away – as you pretty much know these few details from the start of the book, is that Bex, Richard, Leo and Oscar all go on a ghost hunt to an abandoned Victorian Hotel called Ravencliff in Cardigan Bay – specifically not far from a beach called Poppit Sands (where I have spent many a school holiday chasing my three children) across the windy flats of sand that undulate in the wind and are quite often scattered with low lying fog much like when the four friends set off on their curious, ghost searching adventure. Leo unfortunately doesn’t come back (presumed dead) and by accident, the four teens – through filming their adventure – create a cult horror-docudrama that over the past ten years has generated a deluge of superfans that now want to make a ten-year reunion film.

The book has an element of The Blair Witch Project – which some of you may remember from the 90s. A film (seemingly) made by teens on a ghost hunt in the woods, where things don’t go quite to plan. So the story could be seen as being very much inspired by this. That being said, it has enough differences to not be completely the same. The twist at the end is what cements the book into

Over all it’s a good book – not necessarily my favourite in terms of story but still a fine read. The end is filled with a few twists and turns – some of which you may well have guessed and others that weren’t quite to easy to spot.

If you want to read this new novel by Louise Mumford see below on where you can download your copy.

Where can you get your download of this eBook?

You can get your copy here at Amazon and it retails for £2.99 while the paperback copy retails for £8.79.  Please check the website for the latest price as this might change.

About the eBook

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0BXGPL8GJ
Publisher ‏ : ‎ HQ Digital
Format ‏ : ‎ Kindle/eBook
Number of pages ‏ : ‎ 327

About the Author

Louise Mumford has lived in South Wales from the time she was born. She has always loved books and dancing but one thing she has always struggled with/disliked doing is sleeping. She would worry that she was missing out when closing her eyes to sleep, which has gone on to produce a lifetime of living with insomnia ever since.

She received a First Class Honours Degree at University where she studied English Literature and is now a teacher. She has tried to encourage her students to have the same passion for reading as her.

Whilst living in Cardiff with her husband Louise spends her time writing marvellous and frightening things that happen in her head which go on to create her fascinating and thrilling novels including her latest – The Hotel.

Review by: Lex Ward

You may also want to read this:

eBook Review: Marriage and Mayhem for the Tobacco Girls by Lizzie Lane

eBook Review: The Story of Our Secrets by Shari Low

eBook Review: Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood