DNF'd at 30%. This book just wasn't for me, I made it to 30% and still had no idea what was actually meant to be happening, there seemed to be no plot other than introducing us to new characters and their backgrounds and while I'm all for a character driven plot, there needs to actually be a plot to follow.

Maybe it picks up but, for me, 30% is way to far into a book for that to happen.

Thank you to Netgalley & publishers for the review copy!

I really enjoyed this. It was a unique concept. I loved the cosy, travelling hotel in space thing and thought it was funny, entertaining and I enjoyed the social commentary and the uprisings. The touch of mystery was interesting, although I did want more of that, and I liked the sense of humour.

My only issues are that there were too many POV’s so it made it difficult to keep track of who is who and what is what, and there also wasn’t enough depth added to each character because of this, and I never felt connected to them. Considering this book felt more character driven than plot, I thought it was important that we do connect to the characters.

Overall, I’d recommend this, it was a fun and entertaining read that I feel like I can take something away from.

DNF @ 20%

This book unfortunately isn’t holding my interest at all, I enjoyed the first chapter and then have been unable to connect to the characters since then. With the rapidly changing POVs and the intermittent dispatch messages the structure is unique and too jarring for me to enjoy. This is less cosy and more confusion.

Floating Hotel by Grace Curtis

Release Date: 21 March

4 stars

I was drawn in so quickly with how elegant the ship sounded. The Grand Abeona Hotel is starting to show its age and the staff are stretched a bit thin, so you start to see everyone and everything looking a bit frayed. You’d never catch me on a cruise ship. Ever. But I love reading about one. I adore stories that take place on a cruise ship of some kind. If it's on a boat, I’ll probably read it.

If I’ve learned anything from Grace Curtis’ first book, it’s that she can tell a story in a unique way. Her debut novel Frontier, followed one character but via a new POV each chapter. Floating hotel has about 12 POVs, each with only 1 chapter each. It worked really well in a way. I enjoyed learning more about the characters and how they interacted with each other. It also worked with a timeline of about 2 weeks. Considering how many people were on board I didn’t have too much of a difficult time remembering who was who.

What didn’t work was getting so much backstory, especially later in the book. Just about every POV has some history or secret that will have a part to play in the overall mystery. Not a perfect execution of such a heavy POV book, but really well done considering I don’t see it very often.

I don’t know how I feel about the cosy label being slapped on this book. There are some slow moments between a few characters I appreciated, but I think I’m not comfortable with it being marketed as such due to the whiplash of so many different POVs. We never landed on the same character twice, so every new chapter I started I felt a little lost as to who this new person was. Extremely low action (yay!) and low stakes but some scenes were very rough (bathtub torture anyone?).

Comparing this book to Becky Chambers does it a disservice, they’re not much alike. A better comparison would be The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal, a murder mystery on a cruise ship in space. Unfortunately it’s not as popular as the Wayfarers series so I get the decision.

Final thoughts.

The negative.
I feel like we got too many different plots for such a short book. There's a few different mysteries going on and some POVs seemed useless by the end. The ending felt very sudden and seemed like just another box to tick.

The Positive
Very addictive writing. The cruise ship in space setting was stunning, I need more books like this. I loved the diverse cast of characters and will definitely continue to read this author.

Free eARC provided via NetGalley from Hodder and Stoughton / Hodderscape. This review is written voluntarily.

a queer cosy sci-fi book revolving around a spaceship hotel called the aboena. every chapter is from the perspective of a different character and their time on the ship, with a mystery at the core weaving the stories together. I found it hard to get into because of the huge cast of characters and different stories told in the first part, but once the overarching story came out I was hooked. while I definitely preferred the authors earlier book, frontier, I enjoyed unraveling the main story & stories within this book<3


thanks to netgalley for an arc, which will be published march 21st

Once regarded as a luxurious getaway for the privileged, the Abeona is now in a state of gradual decline. Circumstances in the galaxy being what they are - combined with decisions made by hotel management - have meant that the once grand and palatial luxury ship is not quite the nirvana it once was, faded grandeur very much the vibe these days. However, you wouldn’t know it from its staff, the most dedicated and loveable bunch of space hospitality workers going. OK, that might not be a particularly widespread profession in science fiction, but they’re still wonderful. Curtis writes about them all with great empathy and wisdom, and is clearly an astute and attentive study when it comes to human behaviour. At the same time, realistic characterisation never comes at the expense of a good bit of bantering dialogue or a heartfelt moment.

All of these characters are distinct and bring something to the story, which is structured similarly to Frontier, in that there are a number of smaller stories occurring within an overarching larger one. Where those smaller stories in Frontier felt like tales that a haggard gunslinger was “just passin’ through” on their way to settle a score, however, the stories here focus on individual members of the crew or passengers and what they contribute to the overall atmosphere and environment of the Abeona. Their reasons for being there are fleshed out and serve as entertaining and emotionally arresting character pieces, so much so that by the end you’ll feel fiercely protective of every single one of them. It feels somehow rewarding to find out more about these people, as if you’re being let into their confidences and trusted with their secrets.

That overarching story unfolds gradually over the course of the novel, with elements of it in some characters’ individual stories dropping hints before key plot points are expanded upon later. There’s some very impressive weaving of narratives here, reminiscent of those sidequests in sprawling RPG games which don’t seem all that big at first but develop into something significant later on. On top of this, we are privy to some seditious propaganda that adds some political intrigue into the mix, as well as sketching in more of the background detail of this universe. Thankfully, Curtis never gets bogged down in fleshing out all of the power structures, governance and politics of the big powers that are pulling the strings, wisely choosing to show glimpses of the evil empire through its effects on the lives of everyday people.

And so, with bags packed and goodbyes tearfully waved, it’s time for a final verdict. Floating Hotel manages to feel as welcoming, comfortable and familiar as the Hotel Abeona itself, and I unreservedly love it for that. It also delivers on all the promise of Frontier and then some - itself no mean feat - and I can’t wait to see what Grace Curtis comes out with next.

Unfortunately this book was not for me. I found it to be a bit tedious and boring. If you like the niche of Cozy Fantasy, this book could be for you, as it is Cosy Sci-Fi. For me, it was a little bit boring, and I feel like I just realized that cosy fantasy and sci-fi is just not my thing. I need some high stakes and more action and general excitement going on.

The story is told in the perspective of many different characters with different backgrounds and different things going on in their personal life without having a high stakes overarching plot. If that is for you, pick it up!

*Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton, Hodderscape for providing me with this book in exchange for an honest review*

Floating Hotel was advertised as a cozy mistery like "The Grand Budapest" in space. But it wasn't like that. Some scenes were very cozy indeed but others were so gory that you wanted to crawl in an corner and cry. I don't know, unfortunately this book was a hit or miss for me in the beginning but ended up in the miss. Would I re-read it? No. Would I suggest others to read it? Yes.

Floating Hotel is a sci fi mystery novel set in the enchanting Grand Abeona, a luxury hotel that moves from planet to planet like a cruise ship. It is staffed almost entirely by misfits who found the hotel at a time in their lives when they were seeking an escape, a home, a family.

Just as the hotel moves from planet to planet, never staying in one place too long, so does the story. It jumps from perspective to perspective, following the lives and secrets of staff members and guests. Some are one off chapters, some we return to. This is the sort of book you want the time to sink into, to be able to embrace the shifting perspectives and see them build a full picture together. At times I was frustrated to jump away from a POV that had entranced me to a less interesting one, but it also meant I was motivated to keep reading as I knew if I found a chapter less interesting, we would be moving on from it shortly. Overall, whilst this format could feel disjointed, I found it worked for me. It drew me in with all the little mysteries and I found it a relaxed, enjoyable read.

I received this free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for review.

This book sat me down in a chair, fed me the finest steak while a hotel pianist played quiet songs, and I was more than happy to go along with it. Never have I wanted a flying hotel in space to exist more.

This book weaves together what amounts to a series of short stories from a multitude of different perspectives, which all work together to let you slowly piece together the world and the overarching story in this book. The book doesn't really seek to resolve anything, per se, and maybe the ending was a little weaker than I'd have liked because of it, but it was such a ride getting there. This books is definitely about the journey, not the destination (and I suppose, how could it not be, when the Abeona flies in a great circuit of the galaxy each year, never going anywhere new). In particular, the richness of all the characters, each one feeling distinct and revealing the world from a different perspective, was the highlight of this book. I loved all of them, from the protective and kind Carl, to the grumpy Rogan and the fastidious Ephraim.

I'm so happy I read this book, and I'm so sad it's over. I hadn't got around to reading this author's debut novel, despite wanting to, and it's definitely gone up on my list now.

This book was a bit of a mixed bag, plenty to like, but plenty that irritated me (some of which may be fixed in the published copy).
After about a third of this book I was quite strongly reminded of Mary Robinette Kowal's book The Spare Man. Same sort of 'rich people involved in space crime' vibe. Lots of people have compared it to Becky Chambers' books but I just don't get it. This is not cozy. I didn't really get to know or care about any of the characters due to the chapter structure (one per character) and I feel like I know and love the Wayfarers characters dearly.
There were a few editorial oversights - the sonnet numbers not matching, one character having his name spelt as both Ralf and Ralph, a mention of 'the corner of the sphere', a 'rub-pulversing' hug that presumably should have involved ribs instead.
At one point I found myself Googling 'do rats have chins?' and finding that no, they do not, which clearly the author has not checked. I strongly disliked calling a character Lan Hydrock (Lanhydrock is a country estate in Cornwall) and on the same page, a place Tywarn (Tywarnhale is a place in Perranporth, Cornwall). I'm sure 90%+ of readers wouldn't know or notice, but I did and found it very jarring.
Another thing that bothered me was the end. It was rather abrupt and felt unlike the big reveal in a mystery and more like the only thing left to do. For such a slow start I expected more.
There were a lot of good points to the book too though. The world building was interesting and there was a good amount of character diversity. Apart from the oversights mentioned above, the writing was generally of a good standard and easy to read. I think Grace Curtis will improve, and in the future make something I enjoy more. I just probably won't enjoy it as much as I enjoyed the Wayfarers series.

I adored this book.

I rate my reads out of 5 based 8 categories, only 3 books in 2023 got 5 on every category. And then bam! Floating Hotel hits all 5 stars in Jan 2024!

This is everything I would want in a book; complex characters with interesting backstories that interact in an authentic way, a cozy feel still with dark intricate themes and plot, a luxe world built that filled every sense.

Lit perfect for me.

If you blurb me "The Grand Budapest hotel in space" you set a VERY high bar. I was expecting the following things because of it:
- a cosy murder mystery
- West Anderson weirdness
- a very lush and colorful setting

This made it one of my moat anticipated releases but unfortunately I could not get into this book.
The main reason being the writing style and the characters. In this book every chapter is from a different perspective and I could not connect with any of them. Instead of giving me a 360 view of the space hotel, it made me feel I missed information on the plot and character development.
In addition, the book didnt feel cosy mystery but weird stalkerisch due to the love letter/ poems the staff are receiving. Also there isnt a lot of cosy vibes as this is a postapocalyptic world and the Emperor sucks....

All in all to say expectation management from the publishers would have been nice. But I will check out the authors next works as there is a lot of potential!

I really hate giving negative reviews for ARCs but I cannot in good conscience call Floating Hotel anything other than a disaster by every metric that matters to me. As other reviewers have mentioned, the structure and pacing--while I applaud the author's desire to try Something Different with the sequence of character vignettes--frankly did not work, and had serious knock on effects like undercutting tension when it was most necessary with character backstory dumps, and resulting in character work which felt shallow and too often reliant on stereotypes. The treatment of theme was similarly shallow and very inconsistent (the galaxy has been ruined by overconsumption, yet we're supposed to be rooting for a CRUISE SHIP IN SPACE?? you know, cruise ships??? those things currently responsible for so much frivolous waste, carbon and overconsumption when they're just on WATER?????), the prose was pedestrian, and tonally the book was a mess, veering back and forth between saccharine cosy feel-goods and (spoilers ahead:) bathtub torture. And the ending, as many other reviewers have commented, was head-scratchingly abrupt and unsatisfying, and felt like it undercut everything the author tried to do.

However. HOWEVER. If it were only the above, I'd probably give the book a tepid three stars and leave it at that; it's marketed as cosy and--as I've learned to my misfortune--a lot of what I consider the typical rules of narrative don't apply there. But the underpinning messaging of Floating Hotel is so distasteful to me that I spent the entire time reading it, and a whole day afterwards, straight up angry. This book romanticises the service industry and the lot of the people who work in it in a way I cannot and will not countenance in a late stage capitalism, post-COVID world. I'm sure there are some hospitality workers who genuinely love their work and have found it an escape from the misery of their former lives, but every single person I've known who's worked in hospitality has found it somewhere on the scale of 'there's a lot I like about it but it's gruelling and full of systemic issues' to 'I still have nightmares regularly'. The service industry is NOT, for the vast majority, anything other than a horrendous experience rife with overwork, poor pay, zero job security and terrible treatment, and for a book like Floating Hotel not to engage with this reality even a little bit and instead liken making strangers' beds to LOVE is, at best, insulting and out of touch. For an abused twelve year old to be 'taken in' by a luxury cruise ship and spend the next four decades continuously working, seemingly having no life or connections outside of this work, and ending up 'at the top' which involves STILL fawning over rude, rich assholes daily--this might be somebody's 'cosy and charming' fantasy, but it sure isn't mine.

Many thanks to Hodder & Stoughton for the eARC in exchange for my review. I sincerely wish I had nicer things to say.

Thank you very much to Hodder & Stoughton, Hodderscape and NetGalley for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was very much like reading Grace Curtis’ first novel, but elevated. I’m such a big fan of their many, many, many characters. (honestly, there are so many of them)
And all of them are so rich and detailed and tragic and engaging. Every single one of them.
I knew Mr Appleseed for one chapter and I miss him very much.


If she does write more sci-fi like this, I’ll be first in line to purchase it. It’s fantastic.

Really enjoyable, with engaging characters and a brilliant setting. Curtis' unique humour is weft into even the most heartfelt situations and I would definitely read more by her.

This book was a gorgeous suprise. I read Grace Curtis's debut novel Frontier and really enjoyed it so decided to request this one from NetGalley of the back of that. I ended up loving it infinite times more than Frontier.

Curtis has a really unique writing style in that she tells an overarching story from multiple POV's that never recur. So it's almost like reading a lot of short stories that contribute to one overarching plotline.

Floating Hotel had a cosy sci-fi feel with a really interesting mystery at the heart of it. The world building was easy to follow (which is often not the case for sci-fi) and the characters were all unique and loveable in their own ways.

Overall a fantastic book, I would highly recommend. 4.5 stars rounded up to 5!

I loved Grace Curtis’s previous book Frontier and so was excited to read this one. The idea of a cosy Sci Fi novel really intrigued me too.
However, for me, the book didn’t live up to my expectations. The Floating Hotel I suppose is the equivalent of a cruise ship on earth. In this case, the hotel has become a bit faded and run down. It used to be the height of luxury but is now getting a bit tatty round the edges. Each chapter is told from the POV of an inhabitant of the hotel, guests and staff. We begin with Carl who sees the hotel docking at his planet and sneaks aboard.
This sets the scene for many of the chapters as a lot of the staff are running away from something and find refuge and a home on the Grand Abeona Hotel. This feeling of safety gives the book its cosy vibes. The problem for me is that this type of narrative has to be character driven book and I didn’t really feel any connection with any of them. We didn’t find out a huge amount about any of the characters and none of them really developed during the story with the possible exception of Daphne.
There was also an ongoing mystery throughout the book concerning the writer of anti-imperial leaflets who may or may not be hiding on the hotel. This seemed as though it was going to develop in the second half of the book but then everything just sort of fizzled out.
It was an easy read and a pleasant way to spend an evening but I had hoped for more from this author.
Thank you to Net Galley and the publishers Hodder and Stoughton for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Floating Hotel is a sci-fi the likes of which I have never read. Melding a cozy sci-fi setting, a plot against a galactic empire, and a host of disparate staff and guests, Grace Curtis's second foray into sci-fi follows a floating space hotel as it finds itself in the midst of a developing rebel plot.

For starters, I think the choice of a hospitality setting for a sci-fi is refreshingly funny and really just fantastic. To see the different characters don their customer service personas (where applicable) or find sweet companionship in their colleagues is relatable, yes, (a fact I loved in a book set in space, hundreds of years in the future), but it also makes for some entertaining reading and deepens the character-work going on. To see these disparate characters interact in the same spaces, and in much the same scenarios, is to see their individual personalities shine through.

The choice to have multiple, constantly shifting POVs of the staff and guests is also an intriguing one. I think Curtis manages to handle these POVs with admirable dexterity. Each one reads differently and I found it easy to differentiate between each character - which is no mean feat! The characters really have unique personalities here, and all are coloured by a nuance and relative depth that stands out in their perspectives. However, I did find, as a result of this wheeling through of different POVs, that I didn't get to spend as much time with each character as I would've liked. It doesn't help that the necessity of speed in each of the POVs (a consequence of the sheer volume of them) meant a lot of the character backgrounds felt info-dumpy, pushed in quickly for exposition before being sped past.

That being said, I really did like the narrative structure of this book. Curtis unfolds the world, the intricacies of the ship, the tyrannical empire it revolves around to us through each character, all of whom are able to offer unique insight into these things. This human approach to the story adds a layer of charm and mystery to the world. Ultimately, if you like a story that's trying to do something a bit different with its own story-telling, you're sure to love the structure of Floating Hotel.

Overall, I found this to be a surprisingly layered sci-fi story that brought a lot of character to the table. Curtis is a skilled character-writer and the ship she constructs piece-by-piece is a lovely place to spend some time in! While she does attempt to tackle a lot of things, many of which needed some time to breathe in this book, Floating Hotel stakes its place as a heart-warming and life-affirming sci-fi.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with this ARC in return for an honest review.

I really wanted to love this book a lot, and in a way I did. In other ways, sadly the book didn't make it quite so easy.

One thing I appreciate is the introduction of the characters and how the readers learn about the world through the various characters. Each character is unique in a new way and the cast is unexpectedly diverse. Some characters are extremely lovable and others are intentionally less lovable - and I still enjoyed reading about them just as much. I love the worldbuilding and, of course, the concept of a spaceship hotel is just fascinating! The story itself is well thought out and until the very end, I wasn't sure how the conflict would resolve. Of course, there is plenty of foreshadowing, which keeps the tension.

I think the biggest issue the story has is pacing. The pacing makes it quite hard to continuously go forward in the story, especially because each chapter focuses on a different character. For me that resulted in rather large breaks that I took in between reading sessions. I do have to say, it was always very easy to get back into the book even after multiple weeks of not continuing.

Overall, I did enjoy the book a lot. I think this book is perfect for reading every day a little bit, and less so for trying to read it all in one go (which is my usual approach and probably the main reason I struggled to keep reading). I would enjoy this book for all sci-fi lovers, everyone who enjoys a good mystery, and all those who need to be reminded that quiet resistance is also a form of rebellion.