Maggie Stiefvater takes a mostly forgotten historical fact from World War II and turns it into a lyrical tale infused with wartime unease and supernatural tones. The Avallon, a lush West Virginia resort, is commandeered by the State Department and FBI to house hundreds of Axis diplomats, well known foreign celebrities stranded in the US and their families after Pearl Harbor. With the new “guests” come Border Patrol agents and FBI men and guard towers. Other hotels are recruited as well, but The Avallon also has a spring of magical sweet water that feeds its spas, baths, pipes, fountains, and faucets. It also has a supposedly haunted fourth floor.

The main characters are June Hudson, the mountain girl promoted to general manager, and Tucker Rye Minnick, an FBI agent whose coal tattoo betrays that he is back in home country. For June, although her staff have family members in danger in the Pacific and Europe, it’s luxury business as usual. For Tucker, it’s another assignment of watching and listening to the captive guests. Both wonder how the sweet water will affect everyone and if now is the time when the sweet water turns sour. The relationships between hotel staff, internees (not detainees), and the government is fascinating — the author’s research has definitely paid off. 4.5 stars!

Literary Pet Peeve Checklist:
Green Eyes (only 2% of the real world, yet it seems like 90% of all fictional females): YES The occupant of 411 has green eyes.
Horticultural Faux Pas (plants out of season or growing zones, like daffodils in autumn or bougainvillea in Alaska): NO But the hotel has as many spying eyes as listening ears.

Thank you to Penguin Viking and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy!

gorgeous clever prism of a book; i felt i was reading exactly the book maggie stiefvater wanted to write. i think i'm too attuned to the mechanics and alchemy of her writing to be fully taken in by the story itself, although i was delighted over and over by the way it unfolded! i just mean that stiefvater's craft is so exquisite & efficient that sometimes, when reading, i would stop and think "my god maggie is a good writer" rather than "my god the listeners is a good book." which it IS, to be clear. i will read this again and again and find new glimmering treasures each time.

Maggie Stiefvater's foray into adult fiction comes off well. Softer and understated compared to her previous YA works in a welcoming way. There is a slowness to the Listeners that feels indulgent in story telling. The reader is not rushed through events but allowed a chance to, pun fully intended, listen in as one might gossip at a near by table.

One of the most refreshing thing about the novel to me was that it acknowledged that characters were always going to be horrible people, but did not linger there. It was merely a fact. After all, this is the story of a hotel being forced to house nazis. Stiefvater does not need to present further information on those residents to impress upon the reader the ethics those characters are working with because she and the story accept that we know what those ethics are. More over, there can and is still a story to be told beyond those facts. Not to diminish or excuse but in the very simple way that other things happened at the same time. We the reader are capable enough to grasp this and for that I thank Stiefvater from saving me from another hand holding through literature.

Thank you to Net Galley and Penguin Random House Publishing for an early copy of The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater

Author Maggie Stiefvater has created just the right balance between historical fiction with elements of fantasy and mystery as hotel manager June Hudson oversees a West Virginia hotel set to temporarily house German, Japanese and Italian prisoners as they await exchange for American prisoners in Europe. June works tirelessly for the Gilfoyle family who own the Avallon Hotel. Strong character development of not only June but the government men assigned to manage the prisoners along with a mysterious woman in Room 411 all combine to relate a very worthy chapter in World War II's history.

The Listeners also relates the menacing reality of the treatment of those considered "feeble" and the desire to inflict sterilization on these unaware victims of eugenics. June will do all in her power to keep a young German adolescent from returning to her homeland with the prospect of never having a child or children of her own.

The landscape of West Virginia including one of the G-men sharing stories of his mining family add to this extraordinary setting that will remind readers of the Greenbrier Hotel and its similar use during the War. The "magic" water and healing properties of surrounding springs empower June to see clearly the problems she is facing and how her solutions will affect others.

The Listeners stands as a strong and compelling historical read with just enough of the magical that Stiefvater incorporates so well.

Maggie Stiefvater is one of my all-time favorite writers in the YA spectrum, but unfortunately, her transition into the adult genre misses the mark for me. The magic and charm she usually brings to her stories felt overly wordy and directionless here.

The Listeners centers around a grand hotel filled with many wonders—one of them being the mythical sweetwater that does... I’m not even sure. Even after finishing the book, I still couldn’t really tell you what the sweetwater actually does. You give it good intentions, and it gives you good things? I think?

When the government steps in and demands the hotel host WWII dignitaries, I expected high tensions and delicious drama. But the novel barely focuses on those dynamics, instead using them as a backdrop for a quieter, more introspective story that felt out of place in such a high-stakes setting.

With a softer, more meandering writing style, I often lost track of the various storylines and struggled to connect in the way I usually do with Stiefvater’s work. The characters felt rather flat and seemed to fade into the hazy storytelling, which only deepened the sense of disconnect for me.

Nestled into the mountains of West Virginia is the Avallon Hotel and Spa. Only the richest visit the hotel and take the waters. The staff, under general manager June Hudson, attend to their every need and wish. It’s the kind of place where guests never need to ask for anything because the staff already knows their preferences. June could never have anticipated that, in January of 1942, the hotel would be called to serve the American government by hosting diplomats from Japan, Germany, and Italy1 while repatriation is worked out between the belligerent nations. The Listeners recounts what happened after the State Department called, with an extra supernatural twist from Maggie Stiefvater.

Irritated is not the word for June when she is informed that all of the paying guests have to leave the Avallon to make way for hundreds of officials from Japan, Germany, and Italy, plus their families. Furious would be more accurate, though she’s too much of a professional to show how angry she is when her schedule is interrupted. She’s also too much of a professional to refuse the job. June hurries into action, marshalling the staff to ease out the current guests and prepare for the incoming ones. Adding to her stress, FBI agent Tucker Minnick is in the middle of things, inserting himself and two other agents into the proceedings to prevent acts of espionage or risks to national security. I love how Stiefvater incorporates real history into this novel.

The Listeners moves back and forth between June and Tucker as they play out a small-scale battle of wills: June wants to run things according to usual, while Tucker is loath to risk his job to grant exceptions to security regulations. Another narrator, the daughter of a German diplomat, adds a wrenching emotional complication to the novel by embodying the mixed feelings some of the guests might have felt about being sent back “home.” Hannelore is a bright, observant girl who does not speak. She also screams when overwhelmed. The word autism doesn’t appear in the novel, but readers will probably pick up on the clues. Hannelore’s mother is terrified at the possibility of returning to Germany because she knows what might happen to people like Hannelore.

I found this novel very moving. Not only was I intrigued by Hannelore’s subplot, I was fascinated by the way that June’s inner turmoil developed over the course of the novel. June is far from averse to hard work, even in the demanding world of luxury hospitality. Her guests are grateful for her efforts and her staff’s work. Her employees love her; she cares about them as much as she does about the comfort of the guests. What galls June is the way she is taken for granted by her boss, the owner of the Avallon. Edgar Guilfoyle never realizes how much work it takes to serve with a smile, to deal with even the most unreasonable guests’ requests, to make magic happen day after day. He assumes so much about what June will do for him and the Avallon that I wanted to step in a kick him in the shins on June’s behalf.

So much happens in this novel that I wanted to start The Listeners over from the beginning and watch it all play out again. I have a bad habit of racing through stories that really hook me, so that I can find out what happens to everyone. This book is so layered and the supernatural elements so unique that it deserves an encore reading from me.

The Listeners was a richly atmospheric, quietly suspenseful novel that blended historical fiction with a touch of the uncanny in a way only this author can. Set against the haunting backdrop of a luxury West Virginia hotel in 1942, the story followed June Porter Hudson, a fierce and capable heroine whose world shifted when the U.S. government turned her beloved Avallon Hotel into a gilded cage for Axis diplomats.
June’s internal conflict—balancing patriotism, hospitality, and personal morality—was gripping and timely, and her dynamic with FBI Agent Tucker Minnick added just enough slow-burn romance and intrigue to keep the tension simmering. The prose was elegant and moody, with the sweetwater’s mysterious presence giving the setting a mystical edge that elevated the story beyond standard historical fare.
At times, the pacing lagged slightly, and a few plot threads felt more suggestive than fully realized, but the emotional resonance and ethical complexity made this a standout. Thoughtful, evocative, and quietly powerful, The Listeners was a story that lingered.
Thank you to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

In 1942, the Avallon Hotel in West Virginia is an opulent retreat for the elite. The hotel staff, headed by manager June Hudson, anticipates each guest’s every need. And every so often, June sacrifices something to the mountain sweetwater to keep the hotel trucking along. But June’s carefully choreographed work is thrown into chaos when the hotel is commandeered by the State Department to house foreign diplomats and other persons of interest during WWII.

This was a charming, immersive book that invites rereading. Like the Raven Cycle, Stiefvater’s most well-known work, it has a strong sense of place– not just in West Virginia but also the hotel itself, which along with the sweetwater functions as a character in the novel. The book is also a study in character with an unconventional woman at the heart (June here and Blue in the Raven Cycle). There’s also romance, but it never overwhelms the rest of the book.

But I want to emphasize this is a very different book from the Raven Cycle. I just reread that quartet, so it’s fresh in my mind how much of the books are just vibes and relationships between characters with very little plot. There are plenty of vibes here and some touching relationships – both ones that develop in the book and already exist between characters, especially June and her staff. But there is also a plot here, and the driving forces of the US government and WWII provide a lot of external pressure that pushes it along. I thought this was missing from the Raven Cycle despite the baddies in each book.

Still, while it has just about everything I could want, I wanted a little more, especially the main romantic relationship. But this is not a romance book, and the romantic subplot is meaningful but pretty light.

To wrap up, I want to touch more directly on this move to adult fiction from YA. We live in a grand era in which many of our most beloved YA authors of the aughts are breaking into adult fiction, including Holly Black (Book of Night), Sarah Rees Brennan (Long Live Evil), Leigh Bardugo (Ninth House) and now Maggie Stiefvater. I think it’s wonderful these authors have evolved and are sharing their more mature works with the readers who have grown up with their books. Of course it’s inevitable that some longtime fans will critique the books for being different from their older works intended for younger audiences and for being a different subgenre. Instead of being a supernatural-first, semi-romance YA novel, this is a period piece light on magic. Still, I hope it finds plenty of fans– it certainly deserves it.

An extravagant hotel serving the crème de la crème of society located in West Virginia. The sweetwater that is found throughout the hotel absorbs and reacts to the emotional well being of the guests. A young mountain girl, now the hotel manager has to oversee the hotel going from a luxury resort to the temporary wartime accommodations for Axis diplomats and their families. This is a beautifully crafted story of love, and courage in a time of horrific acts.

Title: The Listeners  
Author: Maggie Stiefvater        
Genre: Historical fiction   
Rating: 4 out of 5

January 1942. The Avallon Hotel & Spa has always offered elegant luxury in the wilds of West Virginia, its mountain sweetwater washing away all of high society’s troubles.

Local girl-turned-general manager June Porter Hudson has guided the Avallon skillfully through the first pangs of war. The Gilfoyles, the hotel’s aristocratic owners, have trained her well. But when the family heir makes a secret deal with the State Department to fill the hotel with captured Axis diplomats, June must persuade her staff—many of whom have sons and husbands heading to the front lines—to offer luxury to Nazis. With a smile.

Meanwhile FBI Agent Tucker Minnick, whose coal tattoo hints at an Appalachian past, presses his ears to the hotel’s walls, listening for the diplomats’ secrets. He has one of his own, which is how he knows that June’s balancing act can have dangerous consequences: the sweetwater beneath the hotel can threaten as well as heal.

June has never met a guest she couldn’t delight, but the diplomats are different. Without firing a single shot, they have brought the war directly to her. As clashing loyalties crack the Avallon’s polished veneer, June must calculate the true cost of luxury.

I love Maggie Stiefvater’s YA books, so I was really looking forward to reading this. The world of the Avallon was fascinating to me! This whole ecosystem contained in this building with the lives of everyone who works there completely contained inside the walls. Fascinating.

The characters were interesting people, and I enjoyed getting to know them. I had no idea what was going on with the sweetwater, but I was invested in finding out! This felt almost leisurely, but it was a compelling read.

Maggie Stiefvater is a bestselling author. The Listeners is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Penguin Group/Viking in exchange for an honest review.)

(Blog link live 6/7).

I love the premise of the book - but the historical time period and the idea of a magical hotel were intriguing to me. However, I found the story a bit convoluted and it didn't really draw me in. The formatting of the ebook was also quite problematic (at least in my download) and really intruded on the reading experience - that never helps when I'm trying to immerse myself in a new time and place. As a result I ended up giving up on this one part way through (unusual for me!).

The Listeners is an immersive historical novel set during a very difficult time period in US history. The historical aspects and the setting of the story are very well done. I certainly felt transported to the beginnings of WWII and to the hills of West Virginia.

The story is an intriguing one as well. I never really thought about what might have happened to all of the diplomats living in the US when Pearl Harbor was attacked. I found that part of the story fascinating and I thought it was well done. The fact that the US treated these diplomats so well, kind of boggles the mind, especially when you learn about what was happening to their counterparts in the Axis countries.

The story is mostly told through two adult characters and one child’s perspective. Both June and Tucker are well developed characters and had interesting childhoods. They both grew up in the coal mining area of West Virginia and it certainly influenced who they became as adults. June is intimately connected to the hotel and to the family who owns it. I found her to be a strong woman who was doing a man’s job at a time that discouraged women from working outside the home. But everyone at the hotel respected her. Tucker was also an interesting character with a difficult past. He is also at a crossroads in his life trying to decide between obligation and happiness. As much as I liked the two of them, I did struggle with their romance. It just never felt whole or fully fleshed out to me. But that might be because I never felt fully connected to either of them.

Hannelore, the young child whose voice also narrates part of the story, was easily my favorite character. She is neurodiverse and the daughter of one of the german diplomats. Her understanding of what was going on around her and her connection to the sweetwater was interesting. We didn’t get as many chapters from her as I would have liked but enjoyed the ones we did.

The hotel, the Avalon, and the sweetwater that ran through it, was almost a character unto itself. The water and its relationship to June and to the hotel was the magical realism part of the story. The overall feeling of the hotel and water gave the story a mysterious and haunting feeling. But the magical realism felt a little underdeveloped as well. I just wanted a bit more about June’s connection to the water and the hotel.

The writing is of course beautiful and very lyrical. I totally felt transported to the hotel and felt like I knew all of the characters while I was reading it. It is definitely a character driven story rather than plot, as not much happens. But the rather sedate pace matched the story nicely so I didn’t mind it that much.

This is a beautifully written story that takes a look at a difficult time in the US. I enjoyed it, but never felt fully invested in the story or the characters. If you are a fan of the author, than certainly give this one a try. If you like historical fiction than this is one you want to give a chance.

Set amidst the opulence of the Avallon Hotel & Spa in 1942 West Virginia, Maggie Stiefvater’s The Listeners deftly blends historical intrigue with deep emotional stakes. June Porter Hudson, the resourceful general manager, must navigate impossible moral dilemmas when her aristocratic owners arrange for the hotel to host captured Axis diplomats—an act that tests her leadership and her ideals. Stiefvater masterfully captures the tension between duty and personal conviction, highlighting her characters' resilience in a time of war.
Parallel to June’s story, FBI agent Tucker Minnick, with his hidden past and secret motives, listens for shattering truths beneath the hotel’s polished surface. As loyalties clash and secrets unfold, both characters grapple with the dangerous cost of their choices. Stiefvater’s lyrical storytelling and richly drawn setting evoke a haunting sense of suspense, exploring how war affects even the most refined of places and the people within.
The Listeners is a compelling tale of moral complexity, loyalty, and the shadows cast by warfare. It’s a vivid reminder that sometimes, the true battles are fought behind the scenes—in silence, in secrets, and in the subtle spaces where trust is tested and truths emerge.

Thank you to NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP Viking Penguin for my arc in exchange for my unbiased opinion.

"The Listeners" promised to be a lil romp through the 1940s in a cool location. The title was cool, the premise interesting, and Stiefvater is a writer whose books I've been known to reread.

Unfortunately, her foray into adult fiction just didn't land for me. I had a difficult time buying that this was taking place in 1942 and that the characters were from the era. It made it really difficult for me to feel immersed in the story and I read through this pretty quickly because I struggled.

This one just wasn't for me--even though I very much wish it had been. There were basically no stakes at all until 60% of the way through. The character development is, for the most part, fairly superficial. The inclusion of supernatural elements doesn't really work and, frankly, cuts against all of the historical detail. It's hard to talk about this without giving too much away, but it's not really about World War II or romance or anything else that the blurb promises. It is, in fact, mostly about West Virginia coal country and some supernatural water. It wasn't terrible... I finished it. But it wasn't great.

Stiefvater's first venture into the world of adult fictions worked for me. She brought everything I love about her writing style - the verb choices, the smooth rhythmic pulse of sentence structure, etc. I am not the biggest fan of historical fiction, but the contents of this book were accessible in a way that few books of the genre are. The hotel felt alive, the dynamics between characters masterfully complicated. 5 BIG stars for The Listeners.

June Porter Hudson is the director of the Avallon Hotel and Spa, a five-star luxury resort in the Virginia mountains. She climbed her way up from the lowest rungs, catching the eye and heart of the Gilfoyle family magnate when he learned that she was a Listener. For not only do the caretakers see to the running of the hotel, they keep the water sweet. Gilfoyle effectively raised June with his own children, and when none of them were up to the task after their father died, June took over management. Her organizational skill and inbred understanding of the land and its residents makes the Avallon run like a finely-tuned clock, but when the government commandeers several luxury hotels to constrain the movement of axis-power diplomats, Hudson's abilities are stretched. Not only does she have to keep her foreign guests satisfied, she must also contend with their keepers. Government agents headed by Tucker Minnick, a Virginia native, set restrictions on guest and employee movements, upending the tightly-regulated running of the hotel. Will June be able to keep the guests contentedly confined? Will the sweet water turn?

This is one of my favorite books of 2025. I am a big Stiefvater fan, familiar with her ability to weave fantasy into modern spaces. The Virginia mountains are replete with fragments of folk and fairy; Stiefvater lifts the mossy rocks and stirs pools of fall leaves to uncover their sources. I appreciate her research work to make this historical period come alive. The Listeners encompasses a small sweep of time in a small geographical plot, but the story delves deep. The writer-archeologist's brushstrokes reveal exquisite detail, cracks in characters. As the shovels dig, the sweet water pools.

My thanks to Viking and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy. I am not compensated for my reviews.

Thanks to NetGalley and Viking for this advance readers copy, in exchange for an honest review. I think any description I try to give this book will not do it justice so, I won’t attempt it. Read the blurb and trust me when I say that yes, this is WWII fiction but, it’s unlike any that you’ve read. This was a wholly unique story for me, which I think in itself is a huge triumph, considering the plethora of WWII historical fiction already available.

This book was a huge win for me. With the aforementioned fresh historical fiction take, coupled with a bit of magical realism (related to water of all things, which was just ethereal and so beautiful), and some serious Downton Abbey/The Remains of the Day vibes— it was just fantastic. This is not a perfect book but, all of these other factors made it phenomenal anyway, at least in my eyes. The main character, June, reminded me of some of my favorite Downton Abbey “downstairs” characters, while still being wonderful and unique in her own light. She was a strong character to lead this book and was so easy to root for. There were a good number of supporting characters to follow but, once we were settled in the story, they all felt familiar.

This book is quiet but, leaves you with a whole lot— there are enough plot points to keep the book moving at a steady pace, while still leaving you with a bit of magic in the quieter moments. I’ve mentally returned to this book in the few days since I finished it and almost want to go back to the beginning, now that I understand how the plot unfolds at the end.

Needless to say, I wholeheartedly recommend this book and hope to reread it myself. Historical fiction fans, magical realism fans, strong female lead readers— this one is for you!!

I really enjoyed this. I was thrilled to see Stiefvater writing for adults and this was as good as I expected. It highlighted an aspect of WWII history I was unaware of, while maintaining the touch of the esoteric I enjoy in her YA books.

4.75 ⭐️Thank you NetGalley and publisher for the ARC! The Listeners was truly an immersive read, filled with dark secrets along side a heavy helping of whimsical atmosphere. This new release kept the dreamlike and almost unsettling undertone that her Raven Cycle series has, but paired it with a historical fiction feeling and a lot more grown themes. Being set in the 1940’s our main character June really has to weigh what is more important to her. The life long work and love of creating a bubble of luxury no matter the circumstance of the outside world and the fact that a war is on their doorsteps, what that means for her staff, the hotel, and it’s foreign guests now inhabiting it. Along with this battle of morality and duty, we also have a multifaceted underlying mystery that sends a slight chill up and down your spine which makes you want to race to the end to see what it is about this water that is so special and enigmatic. I really loved this and it has stuck with me and keeps me thinking !