Abandoned Ship On the Horizon – the paradox hotel (Rob Hart) – unpopular opinion time!

Ahoy there me mateys!  I received this sci-fi eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  So here be me honest musings . . .

Title: the paradox hotel
Author: Rob Hart
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine Del Ray
Publication Date: TODAY!! (hardback/e-book)
ISBN: 978-1984820648
Source: NetGalley

This book lured me in with its promise of a closed room (erm hotel) murder mystery in the year 2072.  This hotel is for rich guests who time travel but time has begun behaving strangely.  And only one person can see the dead body – January Cole.  Can she solve the murder? Or better yet stop it from happening?  This should have been a recipe for love.  Instead, I sadly got an abandoned ship at 58%.

To be fair, I loved the set up and the beginning of the novel.  I really enjoyed the idea of time slipping and how January dealt with it.  Her grief was palpable and I did sympathize with her.  I loved her AI.  The main issue with this book is that I just got too confused.  As the book progressed I wasn’t sure what was happening in terms of the mystery or subplot of the rich investors.  The reader is also left in the dark about January’s hunches about what might be going on.  So this book slowly became less appealing and I struggled to pick it back up.  After the fifth attempt to read to the end, I gave up.

This book ended up not to me taste but I seem to be in the minority.  Arrr!

So lastly . . .

Thank you Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine Del Ray!

Side note: Still wish I could travel back in time sometimes.  Like to see all the Shakespeare plays in the Globe.  Arrr!

Goodreads has this to say about the novel:

A locked-room murder mystery set at a hotel for time travelers—in which a detective must solve an impossible crime even as her own sanity crumbles—from the author of The Warehouse.

For someone with January Cole’s background, running security at a fancy hotel shouldn’t be much of a challenge.

Except the Paradox is no ordinary hotel. Here, the ultra-wealthy guests are costumed for a dozen different time periods, all anxiously waiting to catch their “flights” to the past. And proximity to the timeport makes for an interesting stay. The clocks run backwards on occasion—and, rumor has it, ghosts stroll the halls.

Now, January’s job is about to get a whole lot harder. Because the U.S. government is getting ready to privatize time-travel technology—and a handful of trillionaires have just arrived to put down their bids.

Meanwhile there’s a blizzard rolling in, and the timestream’s acting strange. Which means nobody’s leaving until further notice.

And there’s a murderer on the loose.

Or at least, that’s what January suspects. Except the corpse in question is one that somehow only she can see. And the accidents stalking their prestigious guests…well, the only way a killer could engineer those is by operating invisibly and in plain sight, all at once. Which is surely impossible.

There’s a reason January can glimpse what others can’t. But her ability is also destroying her grip on reality—and forcing her to confront secrets of her own.

Because here at the Paradox Hotel, the past is waiting around every corner.

To visit the author’s website go to:
Rob Hart – Author

To buy the novel go to:
the paradox hotel – Book

To add to Goodreads go to:
Yer Ports for Plunder List

Previous Log Entries for this Author

the warehouse (On the Horizon – Sci-Fi eArc)