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The Hotel

The Hotel

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Summary

‘The British literary heir to Stephen King’ Sunday Times

'Striking: it should be read at night, with the lights low, in one sitting' Observer

'As splendidly written as it is haunting' i

'The contemporary literary scene would be a poorer place without Daisy Johnson around' Financial Times

A triumph of contemporary horror from the Booker Prize-shortlisted author, this collection of short stories will haunt you long after you turn the final page

A place of myths, rumours and secrets, The Hotel looms over the dark Fens, tall and grey in its Gothic splendour. Built on cursed land, a history of violent death suffuses its very foundations –yet it has a magnetism that is impossible to ignore.

On entering The Hotel, different people react in different ways. To some it is familiar, to others a stranger. Many come out refreshed, longing to return. But a few are changed forever, haunted by their time there. And almost all those affected are women...

They are children and mothers, monsters, cult film-makers, thrill-seekers and workers on the night shift, all with their own tales of its strange power, of the horrors of Room 63, and of desperate but failed attempts to escape its seductive pull.

*** PRAISE FOR SISTERS ***

'[A] gothic masterpiece... You can't stop reading'
i news

'Daisy Johnson is one of the best writers in this country' Max Porter, author of Grief Is The Thing With Feathers

'A short, sharp virtuoso tale of literary horror' BOOKSELLER

'Deeply unnerving and unnervingly prescient.' VOGUE

'Poetic, haunting prose to be savoured slowly' EVENING STANDARD

'I LOVE THIS BOOK! Explosive, dark, weird and utterly compelling... After reading Sisters, I binged on Fen and Everything Under and am now obsessed - Elizabeth Macneal, author of The Doll Factory

Reviews

  • The British literary heir to Stephen King ... crammed with mesmerising images
    Johanna Thomas-Corr, Sunday Times

About the author

Daisy Johnson

Daisy Johnson was born in 1990. Her debut short-story collection, Fen, was published in 2016. In 2018 she became the youngest author ever to be shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize with her debut novel Everything Under. She is the winner of the Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Prize, A. M. Heath Prize and Edge Hill Short Story Prize. Her debut play, Viola’s Room, was produced in 2024 by the immersive theatre company Punchdrunk. She currently lives in Oxford by the river.
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