The Listeners is marketed as Maggie Stiefvater’s first adult novel (although it’s not ‘adult’ in the erotic sense). You know I’m a Stiefvater fan, so I jumped at the chance of an ARC. Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley. This comes out on Tuesday.
The Listeners
by Maggie Stiefvater
#1 New York Times bestselling novelist Maggie Stiefvater dazzles in this mesmerizing portrait of an irresistible heroine, an unlikely romance, and a hotel—and a world—in peril.
January 1942. The Avallon Hotel & Spa has always offered elegant luxury in the wilds of West Virginia, its mountain sweetwater washing away all of high society’s troubles.
Local girl-turned-general manager June Porter Hudson has guided the Avallon skillfully through the first pangs of war. The Gilfoyles, the hotel’s aristocratic owners, have trained her well. But when the family heir makes a secret deal with the State Department to fill the hotel with captured Axis diplomats, June must persuade her staff—many of whom have sons and husbands heading to the front lines—to offer luxury to Nazis. With a smile.
Meanwhile FBI Agent Tucker Minnick, whose coal tattoo hints at an Appalachian past, presses his ears to the hotel’s walls, listening for the diplomats’ secrets. He has one of his own, which is how he knows that June’s balancing act can have dangerous consequences: the sweetwater beneath the hotel can threaten as well as heal.
June has never met a guest she couldn’t delight, but the diplomats are different. Without firing a single shot, they have brought the war directly to her. As clashing loyalties crack the Avallon’s polished veneer, June must calculate the true cost of luxury. (Goodreads)
My Review
Some of Maggie Stiefvater’s books seem to take a while to warm to. There’s a slow, beautifully crafted immersion in something normal, maybe familiar, yet utterly strange. This is one of them.
The first few chapters set all the scenes. Since we’re in a luxury hotel about to be over-run by a pack of secret service agents, there are a lot of characters. Some I never got my head around, but others became clearer as they emerged from their stereotypes. Most of the hotel staff never suffered from that problem, and after a short while, neither did the enforced guests.
Stiefvater has returned to her love of history to painstakingly combine the intricacies of post-Pearl Harbor America with the post-Depression mountain mining communities. And the luxury of the super-rich and others who think they are above the law. It’s a magical combination, pervaded throughout by Stiefvater’s legends. It’s not really fantasy, but maybe it’s magical realism. Above all, it’s a story of duty, politics, right-wing arrogance, and acceptance of others.
The Listeners is beautiful, intriguing, and gripping. After those first three chapters, I couldn’t stop reading.
It sounds like this book might have some things to say for our times, from the last bit of your blurb 🙂
What an interesting concept for a book! I marvel at the creativity of various authors!