What a fun ride as January Cole works to uncover a plot to own the technology of time travel. At the Paradox Hotel the rich can time travel and observe the past. I expect trips to space orbit will become the next thing for those with cash to burn. But here, time travel, manipulation of time and space, and a plot that twists the brain are at the heart of The Paradox Hotel. January is a great and complex character filled with scars and flaws. She is a character you can feel for. One who while rough and prickly, the reader will love anyway. The mystery was well done and nicely complex enough to keep me from figuring it all out, and quite creative. The movement through time was well done. It kept me on my toes as I tried to keep up with what was now, in the past or in the future. Many thanks to Netgalley for the review copy and suggestion to check out The Paradox Hotel.

I received a digital ARC of this title from the publisher through NetGalley. The Paradox Hotel is the second book I’ve read by Rob Hart, author of The Warehouse, and based on how much I enjoyed Hart’s last book I was thrilled to receive an uncorrected ebook proof to read in advance of publication. The Paradox Hotel is a hotel located near the Einstein Intercentury Timeport, a federally run time travel hub. January is an agent with the TEA, working at the Paradox to ensure no one violates the strict laws prohibiting changing the past. But on the eve of a summit to sell the hotel and timeport to a private owner a lot of weird stuff starts happening. Part science fiction, part mystery, and part thriller this book is unlike any else I’ve read. I really enjoyed how Hart explored the concept of time travel and how American consumers might interact with such technology. I also found the book heartwarming and beautiful at times. With the said, there were times when I found the book to be confusing as different times collided and Hart abruptly transitioned from one to another, just as January experienced, without a lot of explanation. Additionally, as with The Warehouse, I thought the ending felt a bit rushed and lacked sufficient detail and information for me to feel like I fully understood what happened. Finally the chapters felt a bit long to me. I read an ARC and there may be changes in the final published version, but I found myself attempting to read “one more chapter” and running out of steam because of how long they were. Despite these criticisms I enjoyed The Paradox Hotel. I think fans of time travel sci-fi and thrillers may like this book. ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫✨ 3.75 stars

I will delay posting my review to Goodreads and my Instagram until on or around publication day as requested at the beginning of the ARC.

There is a lot going on in The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart - time travel, a murder mystery, velacorapers, and politcal intriege.  January Cole, in charge of security at the Paradox Hotel, is an unreliable narrator.  As a result of her trips through time, she has become "Unstuck".  She can drift into her past life or into potential future events and is often uncertain if this is an "unstuck" episode or current reality.  January is an abrasive character and is not always easy to like.  She is grieving the loss of her partner and struggling with the inevitable loss of her job due to her condition.  
The Paradox Hotel has a large cast of characters.  Some were well developed but many were hard to distinguish from one another.  I especially enjoyed January's flying robot sidekick, Ruby.  Ruby has a lot of personality and her snarky conversations with January were fun to read.  
The Paradox Hotel is classified as SF because of time travel but includes a lot of philosophical musings and psychological digressions.  The political and gender issues seemed very contemporary.  There is good dialog, some exciting action scenes (who wouldn't enjoy a dinosaur hunt through the hotel?), and the mystery is resolved in the end.  Overall, the book is worth reading but I found the ending unsatisfactory.  
Thanks to Tor and NetGalley for an ARC of this book.

Science fiction with a classic noir narrator or is it a classic noir tale with some science fiction trimmings? It’s hard to decide where THE PARADOX HOTEL fits, it’s a mixture of different styles, but essentially, there’s a hard-boiled narrator responsible for maintaining security in a plush, fancy hotel with rich guests intent upon experiencing some very exclusive benefits. The narrator has problems of her own, in many dimensions, as she careens about the hotel in various timeframes. There is a lot going on in this cleverly plotted book that requires more than normal attention to detail. I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

In the future, the uber rich take vacations to certain TIMES instead of certain places, and the Paradox Hotel is where they stay, awaiting their "flights" to the past. But, with access to the past comes those who want to change things for their own benefit. The Time Enforcement Agency (TEA) has agents, like January Cole, whose job it is to keep time on track. However, it appears that time travel comes at a personal cost, including "blips" and "ghosts" who are sometimes seen in the hotel. When the US government decides that this time-travel technology is no longer profitable and arrange to sell to the highest private bidder, the timestream starts collapsing in around the hotel. It's up to January to figure out how to stop it!

I admit that I love time travel and alternate world themes the most when it comes to sci-fi. While I had difficulty keeping the timeline straight at times (which I suppose is fitting for this book), I really enjoyed THE PARADOX HOTEL after giving it a few chapters.

(Thank you to NetGalley and Ballentine Books for the eARC in exchange of an honest review!)

I enjoyed this a lot! There are certain tropes in this genre I tend to avoid, and time travel is one of them, but I am glad I gave this one a shot. The consequences of time traveling are difficult to imagine, or grasp, or explain to others. Time travel seems like a too-tidy way to solve all problems for those fortunate enough to be doing the traveling, but here it's not presented that way. In this story, changing anything in the past, even by only observing, causes ripples that spread forward and could potentially destabilize time altogether. There's a strict no interfering policy enforced by the agency facilitating the time traveling. But, greedy humans being what we are, of course time tourism exists, and the rules are not that easily enforced. Worse, anyone who time travels has the potential to become unstuck in their own time, leading to flashbacks and glimpses of the future, and eventually brain overload. January is an unstuck former time agent, now managing security for the hotel that serves the time port. She is faced with some murders, dinosaurs on the loose, and an increasing lack of trust from her boss as her behavior becomes more and more erratic. Sometimes it's because she sees things from the future, but other times it's because is not coping at all well with the death of her lover. She is a miserable wretch to everyone, which is gratifying when it's a spoiled super-rich hotel guest or conspiring senator, but less cool when it's her friends. We maybe dive a bit deeper into Buddhism and popular grief and trauma psychology than I typically look for, but it's a brief dive. There is definitely some commentary here on corporate greed and bad citizenship, but it's not too heavy handed. This is definitely a stand alone book, with a satisfying ending.

Time traveling vacationers pass through a hotel that becomes the center of an improbable murder mystery in Rob Hart’s The Paradox Hotel.

January Cole is the in-house detective for the Paradox Hotel, where the extremely wealthy come to stay as they venture on excursions in to the past. The hotel is owned by the US government and they’re looking to privatize time travel, which means that the hotel is going to be bid on by a handful of trillionaires. The sudden influx of high priority guests means that January’s job is about to become much more difficult, not least because of the snow storm rolling through, the timestream behaving oddly, her more frequent slips in time to the past and future as her Unstuck reality and perception of time becomes more variable, and of course the murderer in the building. Or at least, that’s what she suspects as there’s a body that only she seems able to see in one of the rooms and she covertly investigates it while also looking for a cause to the seemingly impossible accidents befalling each of their high profile bidders while time begins to unravel around them all.

A contained mystery tale, with science fiction, spirituality and philosophy, and love story elements, that included dinosaurs, time travel and discussions of the uses and the role it could play in reality, corruption, and apparent ghosts, this story was entertaining as it moved swiftly and portrayed an interesting and varied cast of characters; January offered an enjoyable dry wit and no-nonsense attitude, which though it may be a way to conceal and prevent dealing with her actual emotions in a healthy manner, was satisfying to see play out in honest, though frequently harsh, statements that others may think but choose to leave unspoken. There was a definite period of adjusting to narrative and a need for close attention and concentration because it shifted throughout past, present, and future events in the text, emulating for readers the disorienting experience of the slips that January experienced while it conveys the necessary pieces to gather the cohesive whole.

*I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Paradox Hotel is a mesmerizing, unique story about a hotel that offers a certain clientele the ability to time travel.
The main character, January, had a severely dry sense of humor that I really enjoyed, She wasn't afraid to say what everyone was thinking, which I found refreshing. The story involved a quirky cast of supporting characters, including... dinosaurs!
January has the ability to see events that happen before they do, including one that includes a very dead body. The hotel is up for sale and trillionaires from all over come to bid for it, bringing their own secrets for wanting a time traveling hotel, which created a fun discussion on time travel and reasons for it, whether it be to change history, or even change oneself's history was intriguing to read.

It is the future and time travel is not only possible, it is a tourist destination. The Paradox Hotel is a resort where you can stay and travel to the past for leisure. For January Cole, head of security, it means she has to be on her toes every day. She has to be especially careful now that she is in the second stage of being Unstuck, meaning she randomly floats into the past and future. People in the present think she is deep in thought, but January could be living years of time in a blink of en eye.
Along with being Unstuck, January has to deal with the time travel summit, the time stream acting wonky, smugglers, a snow storm stranding more people than the Hotel can allow, and visions of murder that may soon happen of January doesn't stop it. She has her hands full.
The Paradox Hotel is a wonderful sci-fi adventure. It has elements of political intrigue, murder, and a touch of romantic drama. There are many characters in this story, all vying for a chance to control time, but January Cole's tenacity and determination are resigned to stop them from ruining the world.
I think the blend of science, mystery, and unique characters make this book a hit. You are intrigued from the first page to the last. I highly recommend this book if you are into unique and original stories.
Thank to Netgalley and Random House Publishing for the advanced copy of the book. The opinions are my own.

Special thanks to Random House Publishing, Ballantine Books and NetGalley for the ARC to this book in exchange for my own opinion.

I really really wanted to give this book 4 stars but I had to bring it to a 3..4 meaning 3. Surprisingly because Random House seems to never fail me. Anyway, The Paradox Hotel. A hotel for the ultra u rich who can time travel back to the Jurassic Age (was there really a Jurassic age, I thought it was fictional) anyway, the dinosaur age, The Trojan War, anytime in the past from 2072 with I was so delighted to hear, the costumers provided as well. I love a good costume. Sounds fun? Right? Not. Unless I go back 35 years to childhood.

Our narrator here, Jane, is unreliable or "unstuck" meaning she's losing her grip on reality here. I think my head would ache if I were her, Jane is head of security and has taken too many trips back looking for her lover who is no longer with us and trying to relive that! But, there are the ghosts of Christmas past , just kidding, ghosts around every corner, dinosaurs, and all this back and forth is making Jane lose her sense of reality. I think my main state is "unstuck" so even though I don't much like or dislike her, I understand why she is so messed up.

It gets a little confusing. I do think the idea of this book has a great theme but could've been done a little better with some tweaking.! I had to give it a 3 because I was getting a headache and battling Covid so it could just be my lack of attention while coughing my lungs up. I appreciate the world building though. 4 stars for that, 3 for the story!

It’s no surprise that, if time travel were to be invented, it would probably only be accessible by the ultra-rich. January Cole, the protagonist of Rob Hart’s outstanding novel The Paradox Hotel, has the misfortune of running security at an enterprise that offers tours of the past for wealthy, entitled people she despises. She’d quit, except that the Hotel is the only place where she can catch glimpses of her deceased girlfriend. Her grief and the behavior of the guests has pushed January to the brink of her patience…which means it’s the perfect time for the hotel to host a summit for a senator and four of the richest men in the world as they bid on the technology that makes time travel possible. And then, the dinosaurs show up.

Something is very wrong at the Paradox Hotel. It turns out that, even though there are hundreds of rich people queued up to take a trip in to the past, the Hotel isn’t turning a profit. The US government is planning to sell off the technology to recoup their investment. The four candidates all have different plans for time travel, plans that all involve breaking the cardinal run of “look but don’t touch.” But it seems that someone else has already broken that rule as each of the candidates is almost murdered before the auction can even start. Keeping people safe is infinitely more difficult when the assassin is able to bend the rules of time.

January is one of the prickliest characters I’ve ever met in fiction, at least since Lisbeth Salander. She’s a jerk to everyone, even her friends. Because we ride along with her for the entire book, we know all of the hurt January is trying to conceal. We also learn that January is trying to hide the fact that she’s come Unstuck, which means that her perception of events is out of sync with everyone else’s. This unfortunate side effect of her earlier service in the Time Enforcement Authority turns out to be a boon against a time-hopping killer. Her slips through time give her just enough hints to keep herself alive. And also catch those dinosaurs.

Perhaps the best reason to read this book is the powerful ending. I love a science fiction book that can, first, bend my mind with the plot and then, second, hit me with a beautiful, emotionally intense payoff that pulls all of those wild plot threads together to land a perfect conclusion. I don’t want to ruin it by saying anything else. So I’ll just say, if you like time travel, science fiction blended with Buddhism, and a star-crossed love story, run (don’t walk) to pick up The Paradox Hotel.

Time travel, dinosaurs, murder, January- what do these things have in common? The Paradox Hotel.

“At once a dazzlingly time-twisting murder mystery and a story about grief, memory, and what it means to—literally—come face-to-face with our ghosts….”

I saw one description of this book as a locked room mystery with a Jurassic Park twist and a side of time travel, and I really don’t think I can make that any better.

“January Cole’s job just got a whole lot harder.

Not that running security at the Paradox was ever really easy. Nothing’s simple at a hotel where the ultra-wealthy tourists arrive costumed for a dozen different time periods, all eagerly waiting to catch their ‘flights’ to the past.

Or where proximity to the timeport makes the clocks run backward on occasion—and, rumor has it, allows ghosts to stroll the halls.

None of that compares to the corpse in room 526. The one that seems to be both there and not there. The one that somehow only January can see.

On top of that, some very important new guests have just checked in. Because the U.S. government is about to privatize time-travel technology—and the world’s most powerful people are on hand to stake their claims.”

Rating: 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

Look, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get lost a few times while reading this, but it was an interesting ride!

**Thank you so much to Penguin Random House/Ballantine Books and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.**

The Paradox Hotel brings us a Westworld-esque playground for the ultra-rich in a future where time travel is possible… if you’re uber wealthy.

We follow January Cole, the long suffering head of security for the hotel and quite frequently the glue holding the operation together. Through her satisfyingly snarky inner monologue we soon learn that she is suffering from a time-travel related illness known as becoming “Unstuck”. Throughout the course of the story we see January become increasingly ungrounded from reality as her condition worsens.

Having not read any of Rob Hart’s prior work, I found I enjoyed the commentaries (or critiques, rather) of wealth inequality, corporate privatization and workplace issues that were central in the plot. You could tell there was emphasis on creating a diverse cast of characters, all interesting in their own right. I especially loved Ruby, January’s AI companion. (The best Sci-fi novels always have a sarcastic AI sidekick, right? Right.)

However, my biggest complaints with this story are that it was hard to follow at times and there were quite a few moments when it was very clear that our female main character was written by a man. Nothing problematic, just enough to make me chuckle a little.

If you’re new to sci-fi some of the harder to follow elements may not make this the best pick—but if you’re passionate about time travel stories, give this one a try.

“Time isn’t a painting. It’s just a way to help explain a concept that, truthfully, our brains aren’t able to comprehend.”

January Cole. Foul-mouthed head of security at the Paradox Hotel who takes no prisoners and pull no punches. I thoroughly enjoyed Hart’s concept of a government funded time hotel for the uber-rich asshole elite to visit the past - at a hefty cost.

Hart’s ability to keep the twists coming until the very end had me burning through this book. His ability to create fully-realized characters is a special skill as well as Cole’s mental issues with time continuity. I was also pleased to see a refreshing portrayal of non-binary and LGBT+ characters.

January has the unique job of security at the Paradox Hotel. The hotel were the worlds richest folks come to travel back in time. The hotel hasn’t been turning a profit and is suddenly up for sale. several 1%-ers are here to bid for the hotel, but something isn’t right within the hotel. It doesn’t help that January is “unstuck.” She is the only one that can fix what’s happening, but will the others believe her?

Holy mind-fuck. This one initially intrigued me because it sounded like a Blake Crouch read. Im not bit into sci-fi but Crouch is a must read! While nothing can beat the books by Blake, this one came pretty close. A hotel for the richest of the rich to travel back in time? Yes please. A security personnel who’s job it is to stop the rich folks from changing the past? Umm yes, yes please! There were definitely times that I had very little idea what was going on, but this one kept me turning pages to figure out more. If you are also a Blake Crouch fan, you will enjoy this read!

Honestly, if you're not hooked by the elevator pitch - a murder mystery at a hotel for time travelers - I'm really not sure what else to tell you. But here we go.

It's a love story. It's a comedy. It's a redemption arc. It warns of the dangers of commercialization. I can't really describe the plot without going on and on, but when you come down to it, it's about what happens when a group of wealthy buyers come to a hotel to discuss purchasing (and privatizing) the time travel business from the government. And if there's numerous attempts on people's lives that head of security January Cole has to contend with while fighting off "time slips" - a side effect of too much time in the time stream - well, that just makes things that much more fun. Oh, and did I mention the dinosaurs?

I loved the characters in Paradox Hotel. Our hero is not your typical hero. Not even a typical anti-hero. She's, quite bluntly, an asshole to everyone, even her friends. Rob Hart has a gift for making us care about his characters, even if they are complete jerks, and everything is presented as-is and lets the reader make their own opinions. Each person's motivations are presented and, aside from January's acerbic commentary, presented to let you see all points of view. In other words, a novel about the dangers of over-commercialization and wealth inequality doesn't come off as preachy.

One odd thing I realized when reading it that there IS no one plot line. The summit is the MacGuffin but, at the same time, well, it;s not simply a novel about a bird statue or a briefcase whose contents put off an orange glow, you know? The action all takes place over the course of a couple of days (not counting flashbacks) and everything fits in together in ways that won't even occur to you at the time but, looking back, seem obvious.

Paradox Hotel is, simply put, a whole lot of fun.

If you liked Rabbits, you like like Paradox Hotel. If Rabbits was too far out for you, this will be the same.

Set in the future when time travel is available, pick your historical point that you want to visit, dress in period attire, but don't cross your own time line. In other words, don't go back to your childhood, etc. Another rule is that you can go back and observe, but not change the past. Travel to the future is not available and no one understands why that is.

Back at the hotel where people check in before or after travel, a meeting is about to be held to sell the hotel to the highest bidder. Reason? Some say it is a losing business, yet is it losing enough to sell to a foreign country? Each of the 4 top bidders, all trillionaires, want to be the winning bidder. Who can be trusted among the potential bidders, hotel employees?

Chief of security has done a bit too much time travel and it is affecting her life with time slips of future and past events. Which are real? Which ones can be prevented? Who or what is trying to stop her?

It was a bit too far out for me, yet I can appreciate the challenge she faced. Thank you NetGalley for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest opinion.

The Paradox Hotel kept me guessing, and surprised me more than once - something that is not easily done. Rob Hart built a world much different than we know and made me feel at home with relatable characters and vivid descriptions. The story is entertaining while revealing the worst - and best - of human nature, and the cost of tampering with things best left alone. Well done, and highly recommended!

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Random House Publishing Group- Ballantine for an advanced copy of this novel on love grief and time travel.

Science fiction truly works when the human element, no matter if surrounded by aliens, quantum computers, space armadas, is not forgotten, nor downplayed. In The Paradox Hotel, Rob Hart has made a great and exciting story complete with political dystopian, class warfare and dinosaurs, with characters who are both lost and dealing with a grief that unmoors them, as much as the time travel they find themselves surrounded by.

A few days after tomorrow the United States has invested heavily in a form of tourism that involves a luxury hotel to house time travellers, who journey back to the past to see momentous events, or just be tourists. The costs are astronomical, so the decision has been made to auction the place off to the highest bidder, and high stakes meeting that coincides with a blizzard cutting the hotel off from the outside and messing with the ability to time travel. And a murderer, whose victim only one security officer can see, January Cole, who has numerous problems, one being that she has the disease of being Unstuck, a time malady that makes her doubt herself, her environment, her time, and anyone around her.

The idea is interesting and like the plot unfolds gradually, not in one large dump of information. The science is kept easy to follow, most of the people accept time travel, and its risks, causing an entire police force to be started just to stop messing with the past. The supporting characters are all interesting with plenty of backstory, and grow and change as the story continues. The lead January Cole, is very engaging, and very real, who not only grows, but grows on the reader. Cole is a damaged character in every way, including being Unstuck in time. Her complications grow clearer as the story goes on.

Make time for this one. The story is one worth reading and reading carefully. Clues to both the story and characters are there, a phrase or an image spotted by one might take on a larger context later. Time itself can't be trusted, so why should the characters. A very rewarding story, with themes on love, grief, and how we deal with these things ourselves and with others. I have not read anything else by Mr. Hart, something that I will have to change. A very well plotted story with a tremendous amount of heart.

The Paradox Hotel is a competently written time travel noir story, and while it has plenty of neat ideas and time wimey shenangians, it also never really sank its claws into me the way Rob Hart's previous novel, The Warehouse, did.

I had trouble keeping the large cast of shallowly defined characters straight, and oftentimes felt like I was just reading a jumble of names rather than reading about various, interesting, conflicting personalities. Too often I caught myself reading a passage only to mentally wonder, "Wait, who was that again? Is he one of the trillionaires or a TEA [Time Enforcement Agency] agent? Or does he work at the hotel? I can't keep track of all these people..." The story itself felt bloated, the pacing sluggish, which made putting the book down too easy and picking it back up laborious. And when the ending finally came, it proved to be disappointingly anticlimactic, and was then cheapened even further with exposition to tell us what happened, rather than show us.

It's a shame, as I quite liked The Warehouse, as well as his foodie crime story collection, Take-Out. I just couldn't connect with this one...perhaps I was expecting something along the lines of a Blake Crouch book, which operates at an entirely different level and is probably an unfair expectation. And this sure as hell ain't a Blake Crouch book, that's for damn sure. I don't know, maybe it was just the wrong book at the wrong time and I wasn't in the proper mood or frame of mind to dig into this one. I'm eager to see what Hart comes up with next though.