When first emailed about The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart, it was in the context of “if you liked The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson, this is for you!” I jumped at the opportunity and I can easily say, it did not disappoint! You’ve got time travel, Alice in Wonderland, murder, dinosaurs, what else could you want?
Summary
January Cole’s job just got a whole lot harder.
Not that running security at the Paradox was ever really easy. Nothing’s simple at a hotel where the ultra-wealthy tourists arrive costumed for a dozen different time periods, all eagerly waiting to catch their “flights” to the past.
Or where proximity to the timeport makes the clocks run backward on occasion—and, rumor has it, allows ghosts to stroll the halls.
None of that compares to the corpse in room 526. The one that seems to be both there and not there. The one that somehow only January can see.
On top of that, some very important new guests have just checked in. Because the U.S. government is about to privatize time-travel technology—and the world’s most powerful people are on hand to stake their claims.
January is sure the timing isn’t a coincidence. Neither are those “accidents” that start stalking their bidders.
There’s a reason January can glimpse what others can’t. A reason why she’s the only one who can catch a killer who’s operating invisibly and in plain sight, all at once.
But her ability is also destroying her grip on reality—and as her past, present, and future collide, she finds herself confronting not just the hotel’s dark secrets but her own.
At once a dazzlingly time-twisting murder mystery and a story about grief, memory, and what it means to—literally—come face-to-face with our ghosts, The Paradox Hotel is another unforgettable speculative thrill ride from acclaimed author Rob Hart.
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from Netgalley. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
The Characters
Hart creates in The Paradox Hotel characters that are very well thought out and well developed throughout the book. I felt that I knew all of the characters and easily understood (most of) their motivations and personalities. None of the characters seemed flat to me. I also loved the diversity and growth of so many of these characters.
Plus, I always enjoy a sassy person and android combo, which we get here with January and Ruby.
Plot
I thought the premise of The Paradox Hotel was very interesting. Hart did a great job of creating tension for the reader. We see everything through the eyes of January who sees the immediate dangers of the wider situation. There is a large number of prominent guests, a snowstorm, a bunch of angry customers whose time travel vacations have been canceled without explanation, OH and a murder… which only January can see. On top of this, January has her own problems, progressing through the stages of being “Unstuck” due to her past as a time cop. As a reader, you feel the urgency of what January is doing, while also seeing the need for her to address and slow her progression to stage three.
Being an Unstuck, slipping back and forth in time, you will eventually become stuck in your mind. Once reaching the third stage, the Unstuck is in a coma in reality, while inside their brain they are continuously slipping. Since January is Unstuck, the reader is thrown back and forth in January’s life from one paragraph to the next. While that may seem difficult as a reader, it helps with that sense of urgency and builds complexity.
I thought it was really powerful as a narrative device eventually creating a somewhat unreliable narrator. One of the main conflicts in The Paradox Hotel is the fact that there is a murder that has occurred – in the future, past, present? Who knows? We know that January has some sort of her own time conflict going on. It leaves you unsure of how to solve the problem at hand (namely, murder) if it has even happened.
Time Travel
One thing I could point to that was a letdown, was how the time travel actually functioned. In The Paradox Hotel we do not learn about how it all worked. We know that the hotel serves the customers who use the nearby time port, but that is about all we get to know. While that may have been swept to the side since January does not actually travel through time via the time port, I can excuse this oversight.
Overall
I really enjoyed The Paradox Hotel. Some readers may dislike it because of the nature of January’s Unstuck status. I just think that added another level of complexity to the issues at hand. You will certainly not want to try to skim parts of this book due to the slips in time! The premise is very complex in this, as is expected with time-y things, but is well worth the read.
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