The Hotel Between, top tier fantasy/adventure for 9 and up

Describing The Hotel Between, is much like the story that binds the book together. It treats borders between categories as an entry to more adventure; whereas some it its contemporaries would stumble at how to weave adventure, magic, time travel, intrigue and family drama into a coherent, thrilling book. My wife read this book first and said, “You must read this”. She finished The Hotel Between in just under a week and now I must pass along this message. You must read this.

Of course ‘must read this’ could sound a bit pompous and I completely understand that, Mr. How Do Know What I Must Read. Let me clarify, The Hotel Between is an upper elementary school and up science-fiction book that people who like adventure and mystery will love.

Elements of the plot might make some cautious readers raise an eyebrow. Cameron and Cassia are twins. They’ve been told that their father abandoned them and that their mother died, but they’ve never really believed it. All these two need to do is somehow find a magical world and you’ve got any number of bad movies that were developed from good books recently.

That’s where the similarities stop and the book goes down a rabbit hole that bends your mind, explains it all perfectly and leave you wanting more. The book’s cover, with it’s upside down landmarks from around the world invoke an M.C. Escher madness is a great tell as to how trippy and fun it is.

 Shortly after meeting Cameron and learning just a little about his back story we’re shown the world of The Hotel Between. Readers of any age will appreciate how quickly the book moves and how well it does in explaining everything-and everywhere in the book.  Once in The Hotel Between Cameron meets a variety of characters, including Nico, who is his guide for most of the book and might not be exactly who he says he is-or is he?

The guessing game that happens in The Hotel Between is the stuff of The Usual Suspects. You won’t know who is good and who is bad, or what the real motivation is for any of the double crosses that happen in this brave, upside down world.

Each chapter is around 14 pages and has vocabulary that upper elementary school kids will be able to read. It’s the unknown, upper age that is impressive also. This is smart, fun reading that doesn’t dumb down the adventure or plot development. It’s a well told story that ages 9 and up can-and will want to read, but its quality makes it so that older readers won’t feel like they’re reading a kid’s book.

Author Sean Easley has set up a fabulous story with The Hotel Between. It stands on its own, but it also sets up future stories that could be told due to the richly detailed characters that have been laid out. Either way, this is a great book that readers 9 and up will enjoy. It’ll most likely inspire them to read more books as they chase the next book that they hope will be as great as this one. Update: after checking his website it looks like it’s the later as the sequel to The Hotel Between will come out in the fall of 2019.