I loved the characters in this latest title from Ruth Hogan, both the living and the dead! I admire the author so much for the way she manages to interweave the characters stories and the connections that she leaves for you as a reader to pick up along the way. This is not always an easy read, as the characters are very flawed and very human with plenty of mistakes made along the way, but the feeling of acceptance and belonging when some of the characters find their place is so rewarding it's worth the bumpy ride. I think this is my favourite Ruth Hogan so far and I was sad to leave the eccentric cast of characters behind. Highly recommended.

A really good story beautifully told by Tilly as a young girl and as a grown up some interesting characters all living different lives but weave in and out of the story particularly liked the OCD aspect nah hope the closure she got at the end helped her with it first book I've read by this author and really enjoyed it

I have enjoyed both of Ruth Hogan’s previous books, and Queenie Malone’s Paradise Hotel was equally charming. It is moving and thought provoking. It has relationships at it’s heart, particularly poignant were those between child and parent. There was also a touching love story. The book has excellent characters and included insightful and believable descriptions of a child’s world.
I very much enjoyed it and recommend #QueenieMalonesParadiseHotel and thank #NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this engaging book.

Enjoyed this book - it was an easy read with a good mix of feel good and tear jerked passages. Wasn't overly keen on the super natural element, but that didn't distract from my overall enjoyment

Well where to start with this book! Firstly it was so refreshingly different and not at all what I expected. I absolutely loved everything about it, from the characters to brilliant storyline!
When Tilly was a little girl she sadly lost her father and moved away with her mum to live in Queenie's hotel . Tilly had a wonderful time here and made so many interesting and unique friends that she loved as though they were family, although the happiness didn't last and years later after the death of Tilly's mum, she finally discovers the heart breaking truth about why she was sent away all those years ago. This book had me laughing out loud one minute then crying the next! Definitely a five star read!

Beautifully written ,the descriptions are so vividly shown. A very lighted-heart balance between childhood years and present day when Tilly is looking through her mother's diary.

A feel good book and easy read, filled with laughter, humour and satisfaction for Tilly eventually unveiling her past.

Her book continues to give me pleasure to read! I have read all her three novels.

I loved this book. I just adored all the characters who were very well-drawn. I loved the quirkiness, the voice of the child was truly believable. The portrayal of the mother/daughter relationship with all its difficulties and occasional joys was so touching and realistic. Definitely recommended.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect with this book. I had previously read The Keeper of Lost Things and enjoyed the style of writing. It seems that these days writing two parallel stories is the norm. Sometimes it works better than other, but sometimes the flow of the book is interrupted, or at least for me it is. It took me a while with this book to settle in with the jumping back and forwards.
I loved Tilly's malapropisms, very much out of the mouth of babes.
The characters were brought to life by the author, and sometimes it was hard to work out who was alive or dead.
Definitely a book I would recommend.

3,5 Stars

It took me quite a while to really get into the story, because I didn't know where this tale would go and what its main purpose is. Ruth Hogan tells her story by alternating between Tilly as a 6 to 7-year-old (this part is told by a 3rd person narrator) and Tilda as a woman in her mid-forties (told from her 1st-person-perspective). And in between we also have Tildas mother narrating her side of the story through her diary entries. All this makes for an interesting but not uncomplicated read, which is further intensified by a lot of characters where the reader has to find out if they are real or not.

I extremly enjoyed Ruth Hogan's 2nd book "The wisdom of Sally Red Shoes", and I have to admit that - especially in comparison - I was a bit disappointed with her 3rd book now, because I couldn't find the same wonderful play with words here and the plot didn't grip me as much as the one about Mascha, her little son, Alice and Sally did.
In the second half of "Queenie Malone" it gets better, and as soon as Tilda finds the diary of her mother the plot gains an (important) excitement factor as well. Plus, we learn a bit more about the sad story of Sally from her previous book. But all in all it didn't live up to the high hopes I had. (Nevertheless, I still very much want to read her first book "The keeper of lost things", and would give everything else that Ruth Hogan will write in the future a well-deserved try).

OMG Ruth Hogan has surpassed herself with this one. Tilda and Tilly tell the story of their lives through different perspective. Tilly, the child, a real daddy's girl until he suddenly disappears from her life narrates life as it was lived initially in Bermondsey and then in a seaside hotel full of the most unique characters and the odd ghost or two. Tilda, still living with ghosts including her dog Eli is trying to make sense of her life and her strained relationship with her mother again through a marvellously varied cast of characters. I have enjoyed both of Ruth Hogan's previous books but this has a depth and complexity of its own. I read it in one sitting and am immensely grateful to net galley for the ARC copy.

I absolutely loved The Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes and The Keeper of Lost Things so when I needed to chose a new audio book and saw that Queenie Malone was available to download it was a very simple decision and a great re-introduction to audio books.

Firstly the narrator is simply WONDERFUL, I was transported immediately into Tilly’s world and it was almost impossible to take off my headphones from the opening chapter to the last words.

This charming, warm and moving tale of the complexity of Tilly’s relationship with her mother Grace, the rediscovery of her past and coming to terms with her childhood kept me riveted.

There were several laugh out loud moments when “Young Tilly” recounts her upbringing and her wonderful observational humour was a joy to hear. Listening to “Adult Tilda” deal with her mother’s death and come to terms with her grief, face her past and deal with her muddled memories was equally heartbreaking and heartwarming in places.

With a cast of such colourful and vibrant characters I wouldn’t hesitate in recommending Queenie Malone’s Paradise Hotel to anyone who loves a character driven story. I shall be avoiding Bermondsey from now on.

Another absolute delight from Ruth Hogan. I read this book in one evening. I just couldn’t put it down. Its humour had me chuckling from start to finish and helped allay the ribbon of sadness which runs through it too.

I loved how the story slipped backwards and forwards, from childhood experiences of our main character, to present day. This helps to tell her story and gives a feeling of living it right alongside her. We are introduced to some real characters along the way and not all of them appear to be alive but this makes for an interesting line in our heroine’s tale and gives her great compassion for those around her, whatever their status.

The story is colourful and so very enjoyable. I loved the character of Queenie. She had an abundance of love for those around her and her own colourful story.

In parts, the story is sad and there’s a real sense of loss for the young Tilda but her story unfolds to a simple yet poignant end. Think I’ve now got the song ‘Black Velvet Band’ permanently running through my head. Hadn’t heard it in years.

A masterpiece of a story. Can’t wait for the next.

An absolutely stunning book! Beautifully written and narrated through Tilly, the wonderfully innocent but confident child, and Tilda the grown up and socially awkward woman. The story is peppered with fantastic characters who all play their parts as the pieces of the puzzle come together.

Queenie malones paradise hotel

This is a beautifully written book. The characters come to life and lure you in very easily. I adore the chapters about Tilly. They take you through her childhood years in a simplistic, innocent and charming way. I chuckled and laughed my way through some of the thoughts and phrases that Tilly uses. Her memories as a child are so easy to I imagine and immerse yourself into, like being cocooned within a soft cosy duvet.

There are some really quirky characters throughout the book and they all deserve a mention, but it is Tilly’s description of them and her way with words that really make them loveable. A child’s imagination is bought to life within each of Tilly’s chapters.

The Tilda chapters are a mixture of love, sorrow, thoughtfulness and complex memories. Tilda takes us through her mother’s diaries slowly and precisely. These chapters are thoughtful and cleverly written. I love the way the author has incorporated Tilda’s OCD into the story and how Tilda manages it within her life. It does not take long to realise that she is able to see ghosts and one of the loveliest being a furry friend who is with her always.

A beautiful book, well written and one I will be reading again and agin and again. Thank you Ruth Hogan, you have another fan to add to your growing list.

When her mother dies, Tilda is forced to return to Brighton and confront her past. Feeling herself unloved by her mother and abandoned by her father young Tilly takes solace in her imaginary dog and the people she sees who may or may not be real. Finding her mother's diaries Tilda discovers secrets about her past but also manages to move forward in the present.
There is much to like about this book, Hogan has a warm and inviting style which makes the story an enveloping and pleasant experience. However I found it a little too muddled, there were just too many ideas which confused me.

I loved this book so much! Not so sure about when it is intended to be based, as the memories from the 7-year-old Tilly would seem to be the same as mine from around 1960, but at the beginning, this is said to be 39 years later. So not totally contemporary. And the occasional head-hopping is really disconcerting, I found. But having said that, I was carried away by the memories of Tilly, and it was a stay-up-reading-til-2am kind of book, and it left me with unexpected tears. So recommended all the way.

What can I say? Surely Ruth Hogan wouldn't be able to do a hat trick and give us another unputdownable novel?
Oh yes she can!
The book tells the story of Tilly from her childhood perspective and as an adult. People of a certain age (me!) will recognise many aspects of her childhood and the way things were. When she was seven her beloved father left her life and her mother descended into alcohol and depression. Tilly tries to make sense of the world around her.
I loved the way Tilly sees life, from her friendship with a devout Catholic lady to her ability to see things that others can't.
I was a bit surprised that the hotel of the title didn't star in as much of the novel as I expected but I loved the part that took place there and I didn't see the twist coming but many probably will.
A lovely up-lit read. Thanks to Netgalley for allowing me to read this before publication.

This book started out so well, but for me it became bogged down in an absolute surfeit of detail and description of every situation and person encountered by Tilly/Tilda. I really struggled to get through the last third of the story as a result. There is a nugget of an excellent story here, but the amount of time given over to the child Tilly, and her funny sayings, becomes very wearisome. Some editing to cut out some of the lengthy descriptive passages, sometimes whole pages, would have been beneficial. This just seems like padding to me.
The story jumps about so much from different time perspectives and characters without warning, which interrupts the narrative flow.
The ending is very abrupt, and I have to say, disappointing.
I wish I could have liked this book more.
My thanks to Netgalley and to the publisher for my advance copy.

Tilda has returned to Brighton to clear out her late mother's flat. They had a difficult relationship and she can only look back on her childhood with sorrow: her father leaving and then his death when she was seven, being uprooted and moved to a new town and finally, inexplicably, being sent away to school. But as we explore her life in more detail, both in flashbacks to her childhood, when she was known as Tilly, and as the adult Tilda, we see that her life was actually full of fun, joy and happiness - we just need to discover what it was that led to her mother's rejection of her. Armed with her mother's diaries and one of her neighbours, a local coffee shop owner and the eponymous Queenie, Tilda begins to question whether she remembers her childhood at all.

I don't often try to work out what it is about a particular author's writing that I like but, since I have loved all three of Hogan's books I shall try and work it out. To start with I love the characters: in this book Tilly is an absolutely brilliant child character, funny, affectionate and, sometimes, achingly vulnerable. The adult Tilda is equally fragile, although she likes to think she is tough, but she is able to learn and grow through the course of the book. The other characters (I hesitate to call them minor...) are just as fascinating: Queenie herself is larger than life and a true force of nature and the rest of the staff of the hotel are an interesting bunch. In the present day we meet the utterly charming Joseph Geronimo, Daniel (the barista love interest) and Penelope Dane, her mother's neighbour and a rather more level-headed and sensible link to the older woman. Talking of Daniel, another quirk of these novels is that, although they always seem to involve some kind of romance this is not the key element of the book. Instead of being embroiled in a series of misunderstandings and arguments Daniel is able to support Tilda through not only her emotional journey but also her mental health struggles. He is accepting of her past and her present and helps her to make her peace with both - rather than just a romance this is a supportive relationship from the start. This is, I think, the final reason I enjoy these books so much - they touch on all kinds of big issues (mental health, fractured familial relationships, learning to accept who you really are) but still have time to be funny - even a bit silly in places - and a bit magical. Having sadness in our lives doesn't mean we are nothing but sad but having Ruth Hogan in my life always seems to make it a bit better.

The characters were well written and the story line kept my attention throughout. This was the first book I've read by this author but it won't be the last.