While some protagonists wish to run away from home, this story features two young girls who wish only to return. With this unusual setup in play, we are given our main protagonists: the 13-year-old Zosa and her protective older sister Jani.
Zosa has a lovely voice, but it’s wasted in the town in which they live. She couldn’t get work as a singer and now toils in a low-paying job, one in which your food can disappear if there are other hungry people about you. Jani works in a place where they use alum pots and dye wells. It’s a terrible, hardscrabble existence and the grime almost curls off the page.
When the mysterious Hotel Magnifique rolls into town, both girls see it as a chance for escape. The allure of this place is spoken of in impossible terms: people sipping tea made of liquid gold, doormen who are really princes from far-flung lands and pillows made of spun clouds, among other absurdities. Magic of a peculiar kind is said to whisper through this narrow edifice.
Spell wielders, known as suminaires, were threats. Their magic burst out of them as flames that could incinerate anyone in the vicinity. So magic died off a long time ago when all suspected of wielding it were drowned or burnt. So how can this hotel travel from one place to another? How can it fit into a narrow alley and yet house numerous guests? It’s obviously magical but how can that be when magic no longer exists?
With this background in place, we realize the Hotel Magnifique is both wondrous and terrible. Contracts are sealed in blood and former guests have their memories erased so they can’t tell what really goes on behind its closed doors. Speculation runs rife and no one is certain what is true. But when has uncertainty ever stopped young adventurers?
The hotel’s interior boasts equally of splendor and hidden horror. The author doesn’t tease us; Jani gets her first taste of both when she forcibly insists on joining her younger sister. It’s a grand beginning. With hints of Clive Barker’s “Thief of Always” and Neil Gaiman’s “Coraline”, we are promised one delicious horror story.
Zosa has a lovely voice, but it’s wasted in the town in which they live. She couldn’t get work as a singer and now toils in a low-paying job, one in which your food can disappear if there are other hungry people about you. Jani works in a place where they use alum pots and dye wells. It’s a terrible, hardscrabble existence and the grime almost curls off the page.
When the mysterious Hotel Magnifique rolls into town, both girls see it as a chance for escape. The allure of this place is spoken of in impossible terms: people sipping tea made of liquid gold, doormen who are really princes from far-flung lands and pillows made of spun clouds, among other absurdities. Magic of a peculiar kind is said to whisper through this narrow edifice.
Spell wielders, known as suminaires, were threats. Their magic burst out of them as flames that could incinerate anyone in the vicinity. So magic died off a long time ago when all suspected of wielding it were drowned or burnt. So how can this hotel travel from one place to another? How can it fit into a narrow alley and yet house numerous guests? It’s obviously magical but how can that be when magic no longer exists?
With this background in place, we realize the Hotel Magnifique is both wondrous and terrible. Contracts are sealed in blood and former guests have their memories erased so they can’t tell what really goes on behind its closed doors. Speculation runs rife and no one is certain what is true. But when has uncertainty ever stopped young adventurers?
The hotel’s interior boasts equally of splendor and hidden horror. The author doesn’t tease us; Jani gets her first taste of both when she forcibly insists on joining her younger sister. It’s a grand beginning. With hints of Clive Barker’s “Thief of Always” and Neil Gaiman’s “Coraline”, we are promised one delicious horror story.