Wow. This is going down as a new favorite for me. The blend of magic, time travel, and mystery was exquisite.

This is a slow burn that explores themes of grief, trauma, and love. Normally I prefer faster paced stories, but the beautiful descriptions and interesting magical elements of the hotel kept me hooked. It's very twisty, but I enjoyed how it kept me guessing how everything would turn out in the end. And I'll admit, it made me tear up at times. Once I finished I found myself sitting back and thinking over all the puzzle pieces.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!!

This author was a first for me and I lovedddd it!! I’ll admit I was a bit confused at times with the timelines—turns out time travel isn’t my thing, apparently—but I still enjoyed it immensely! There isn’t a single page in this book that isn’t brimming with magic and beauty. This is the type of magical realism I enjoy!! but it also felt heartbreakingly romantic in a tragic way. I thought of 'timeless' by Taylor Swift.

There’s so much I want to say, but I don’t want to spoil anything—just know that this story keeps you guessing. The structure and pacing make you constantly second-guess the timeline, the characters, and everyone’s intentions. And somehow, while your brain is spinning, you’re also just having the best time following Eve through the enchanting White Octopus Hotel as she searches for clocks, octopuses, and the truth.

I loved it so much!! This was definitely a 4.5-star read for me. I was just a little confused at times with the timelines, but the magical elements more than made up for it.

I wish I loved this more than I did. The last third was great and the writing was good. The themes of grief and mental illness were approached in a darkly whimsical way that I found interesting. Some of the pacing just didn't work for me, though. The opening was intriguing, but then it felt like not much really happened for the next ~25% (when we got to the hotel).

I also struggled with the main character for much of the first half. She just seemed inconsistent to me at times. For example, it didn't make any sense to me how someone who sees a rabbit no one else does, draws octopuses that come to life, and even has one on her own body that moves around all over her was so immediately dismissive when she heard others' experiences with magical objects/artifacts as she initially sought answers. She seemed curious, but then a little too skeptical for too long.

I really do wish I had enjoyed it more. I enjoyed the story overall. And I believe others may be able to look past some of these things that personally didn't work for me.

Thank you to Del Rey and NetGalley for the ARC.

I didn’t really know what to expect with this book - it was either going to be exception in its effortlessness or it was going to be forced and disappointing. I am so glad it was the former - it was eerie and creepy without feeling forced or unnatural. The storyline was hard to predict and developed so well. It was different, and in the best way. Very happily surprised by this book.

The White Octopus Hotel surprised me in the best way. I went in not really knowing what to expect, but I found myself drawn in by the quiet intensity of the story and the way it unfolded. The setting felt vivid and eerie without being overdone, and there was a real emotional undercurrent that caught me off guard at times.

I wouldn’t call it a fast-paced read, but that actually worked in its favour—it gave me time to sit with the characters and their isolation, their longing, and all the little tensions that simmer just under the surface. There were moments I had to pause and reread a line just because it hit a bit deeper than I expected.

It’s not perfect—some parts felt a bit drawn out—but overall, it left a lasting impression. One of those books that lingers after you’ve finished the last page.

Have you ever had a tragedy that so marked you that you felt your life never progressed beyond that moment? It is an all too common experience of survivors of war or other less dramatic but equally tragic events. The protagonists of this story are stuck in the process of living when they don't feel that they deserve to be, and somehow through the miracle of The White Octopus Hotel they find a way to forgive themselves and learn to move on. Eve is a 28 year old art curator who has been literally haunted by an event that happened on her 4th birthday. She feels that it is her fault that her family broke up, that her mother and she can't be in the same room, that she deserves no joy in her life. One day, an elderly man comes to her and gives her a white octopus figurine. She can't understand why the octopus looks like the pictures she has been drawing for as long as she can remember, and she feels compelled to figure out where the octopus comes from. The story reminds me of Audrey Niffenegger's Time Traveler's Wife in some ways, though this story is more about self-love and forgiveness being required in order to allow yourself to love another than a traditional love story. As soon as I finished it, I felt compelled to go back and see if I could see the foreshadowing by rereading it, and that was as enjoyable as reading it the first time. The visuals are so well written that I felt like I could imagine the hotel in my mind. There are quite a few mysteries that are never resolved by the end of the book, such as where the White Octopus Hotel came from originally, and who the man behind the curtain is, but magic realism doesn't require its magic to be explained.

This was incredible! Think the Grand Budapest Hotel meets The Warm Hands of Ghosts!
What incredible prose and plot.

I've loved Alexandra Bell's previous books so i knew this would also be a hit for me, but I didn't realise how much it would be! I couldn't stop reading this, it was so intriguing. I would say if you read this one, please give it some time - you don't need to figure the mystery out in the first 20 pages. It's one that'll grow on you over time and the pay off is so worth it..

A mysterious hotel and two lost souls, this is a maze of a book but so worth your time!

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC.

Gorgeous GORGEOUS book. I'm in love with so much in these pages that it's difficult to begin describing.

Thanks to a quiet afternoon in my clinic with no appointments booked in, I got to finish this book today after just starting it yesterday night. After I turned the last page I felt I had lived many lifetimes through the duration of the story. I half expected to look up and see the looming White Octopus Hotel shrouded in fog amongst the Swiss mountains, not the gloomy walls of my little clinic room.

This book is many things all at the same time; its a meditation on grief and how we carry it with us always and how it changes us and shapes us, it's a look at love and the timeless nature of it, the power of memory and the hold it has on us, it's a love letter to the power of faith and imagination, a treatise on escapism but also home.... it's many things.

The general premise is that Eve is handed a small octopus figurine in the present day by an elderly man, Max Everly, impossibly, he is her favourite composer who lived over 100 years ago. The octopus is an exact replica of the one she draws incessantly in her sketchbooks and has tattooed on herself, and yet she can show no one as the ink is alive and moves, both across the page and across her body. Eve knows there is more to this, and she begins to look for the origins of this octopus, and so hears of a legendary hotel that disappeared from the history books. Its whispered about in certain auction circles, as some of the objects from the hotel have propped up in private auctions over the years, all with different magical properties. A phone that lets you get a call from the dead, notepaper that lets you write to the past, and so on. She goes on a journey to find the hotel, find herself, and find the past.

There is not a single page of this book that is not brimming with magic and beauty. This is magical realism at its finest, but also I found it it heart wrenchingly romantic in a tragic way. There's a lot I can't say without spoiling, so I'm trying to keep it brief and general, but wow! The nature of the plot and the way everything is set up is to question everything, question the timeline, question the characters, question the motives, but while doing so you have an enormous amount of fun with Eve on her treasure hunt throughout the grand White Octopus hotel, looking for clocks, octopuses, and answers.

I subtracted 1 star purely because some of the timeline in the explanation at the end didn't make 100% sense to me, and I wished it went in a slightly different direction. This in no way takes away from the overall enjoyment of the book. I just need this to be published asap so someone smarter than me can read it and explain to me the timeline just once more to make it make 100% sense.

4/4.5

This book works like a puzzle, piece by piece, until the masterpiece is completed at the end. Don't rush to understand it all from the first few pages, and let it flow. Every single piece is solved at the end. This book is incredibly well-written and well-plotted.

I enjoyed reading The White Octopus Hotel. The blurb got me intrigued. How could a magical hotel bring together two lost souls? This is my first book by Alexandra Bell, and it didn't disappoint. Because the book works like a puzzle (or a maze), I can imagine it will be hard to follow for some readers. Too many floors, too many doors, a lot of octopuses. If you don't like time loops, don't bother, because this is just a big time loop.

Pick it up for:
- Fantasy (but make it from the 30s but not only)
- Healing
- Romance (don't expect the characters to jump each other's bones by 20%, this is not the vibe)
- Art, music (I had to search about cigarette cards, who knew it was such a hype)

A note: the theme of grief is central to this book. If this is something you struggle with, be aware.

4.25 stars!

I love an unapologetically weird historical fantasy! I think if you liked The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater or The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden you will eat this up.

Other than the monstrous rabbit that follows her and the octopus tattoo that crawls around her body, Eve Shaw's life as an art appraiser is fairly dull, until the day an old man shows up claiming to be her favorite composer–Max Everly, a man who disappeared in 1935. Max's gift leads Eve back to the ruins of a mysterious and mythical hotel, and Eve can't help but feel that she's been there before. I like historical fantasy, octopuses (do not argue with me about the proper plural form, I don't care), and time travel so this book was practically made in a lab for me specifically.

The vibes of the hotel and some of the magical elements are the highlights of this book. I love the living octopus tattoo, it's such a cool idea and I wish it played a bigger role in the story. Honestly, (slight spoiler warning) I thought it would be the final octopus in the scavenger hunt, that would have tied things together nicely. The atmosphere of the hotel was so weird and beautiful, it perfectly suited this kind of story.

Max and Eve are solid characters. I didn't emotionally engage with them a whole lot but that's fine. I think they may have also been like one too many layers of time travel, because it didn't totally feel like everything came together. I also have trouble believing the twists as they turned out. And the horse! Why was there a horse! I mean I know why there was a horse but every time the horse showed up I couldn't stop laughing at the idea of a horse staring at Eve through a window while sad music plays, and that's a bit of a detriment because those are supposed to be sad scenes.

Imperfect but really beautiful and fun! A little more cohesion in the story could have gone a long way, I think.

Thank you to Alexandra Bell and Del Rey for this ARC in exchange for my full, honest review!

Happy reading!

I want to start by saying thank you to netgalley and the publishers for this arc.

This is not my usual choice of book so I wanted to branch out a little. And honestly Im finding it hard how to get my thoughts down. I think it was very much wasted on me as I did personally find it abit hard to follow/understand everything. Alexandra Bell certainly has a way to capture the whimsical in her writing though so absolutely no fault there.

If you like-
Magical realism
time travel
emotional grief
Then you will probably love this and understand it a lot better than I did 🙂 Maybe I just need to chat to someone smarter than me to understand it.


3.75 stars rounded up to 4

The Widows' Detective Club' is a captivating mystery that masterfully weaves together suspense, intrigue, and humor. When a human skull disrupts a wedding, Ginny Cole and her fellow widows - JM, Tuppence, and Hen - embark on an investigation to unravel the truth behind the sabotage. As they dig deeper, they expose a complex web of family feuds, village rivalries, and long-buried secrets.

With its well-crafted characters, unexpected twists, and dark village secrets, this book is sure to appeal to fans of Richard Osman, Sarah Yarwood-Lovett, and Robert Thorogood. The engaging narrative and skillful plotting make it a compelling read. Highly recommended, 5 out of 5 stars."

A very interesting time jumping fantasy novel with a great female lead. Enjoyed the mystery and the mind stretching twists and turns in this novel thank you to the author. Thank you to #netgalley and the publisher for an ARC.

This book came at a perfect time as it gave me a rollercoaster of emotions. It gives you joy, love, sorrow, friendship, grief and pain but all in such a blend that you cannot stop reading. It doesn't happen often that a book has made me that emotional.

The hotel is full of mysteries and wonders, time travel and star-crossed lovers which are all meaningful and all have a connection with each other. It's hard to describe it without giving any spoilers so would definitely recommend people to pick it up.

There were times that I was annoyed with the main character Eve, however I liked that the author was not afraid to shy away from it. The interactions between Eve and Max felt honest with all the emotions that you can expect, honest, messy, funny, sharp and layered.

The White Octopus Hotel will be a book that I will be thinking about for a long time, thank you for that

Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with an arc for an honest review

The White Octopus Hotel is a novel that resists being neatly boxed into a genre. It’s strange and gentle, whimsical and quietly devastating. At its heart, it’s about two people—Eve and Max—from different centuries who meet in a mysterious hotel in the Swiss Alps. But really, it’s about so much more: grief, memory, time, and the invisible weight of what we carry.

The hotel itself is magical, but not in a showy way. It’s full of surreal touches—a horse from someone’s past, a loyal octopus companion, doors that don’t lead where they should—that feel less like fantasy and more like emotional metaphors come alive. It’s one of those books that doesn’t beg to be explained, but invites you to feel your way through.

Eve and Max’s connection is the emotional core of the book. Their relationship is tender, sometimes awkward, sometimes funny, always layered. There’s a softness to their dynamic that never dips into cliché—just two people trying to hold space for one another while wrestling their own ghosts.

That said, I’m giving it four stars, not because it isn’t beautiful—it absolutely is—but because the pacing, at times, felt too slow for the season of life I’m in. It lingers, and it wants you to linger with it. And while that might not have matched my current rhythm, I still couldn’t ignore the delicacy and intention in every page.

This is the kind of story that builds slowly, quietly, with small emotional echoes that eventually bloom into something bigger. It’s not loud, it’s not flashy, but it matters. I’ll be thinking about this book for a long time—because even with its softness, it left something sharp inside me.

This book was such a pleasure to read but it's hard to put into words how it made me feel. This was such an amazing tale of grief and how it can keep you trapped in that moment. I really enjoyed the characters and the little crumbs the author would leave for us throughout the book so we could try to figure this out on our own. I loved the setting and could easily picture this place in my head. I think this would make an amazing tv series as well.

This book ticked every of my boxes:
- Fancy Hotels
- 1930's
- Time traveling
- Magical objects
- Starcrossed lovers

and a ton of emotional damage.

I am a sucker for stories about fancy hotels, throw in some time travel, starcrossed lovers and the potential for emotional devastation for me as reader and I'm in.

I loved this book. The setting, the story, the fact that I had trouble figuring out what would be the clue until about 70% into the book. I couldn't stop reading. Did I bawl my eyes out at some points? Yes. Could I put this book down? No. I am very sorry for my boss, as about 50% of my workday today was spent at the White Octopus Hotel.

I have to say, there were times where I really disliked Eve as a character, but that did not diminish my joy of reading this book. Would definitely reccomend people to discover and enjoy this story.

*The White Octopus Hotel* by Alexandra Ball is a dreamlike, eerie escape into a world that feels both whimsical and unsettling—a surreal fairytale with a dark undercurrent. From the moment I stepped into the hotel’s strange, shifting halls, I knew I was in for something special.

Ball’s prose is elegant and atmospheric, wrapping every scene in a fog of mystery and wonder. The setting is so richly imagined it almost feels alive—its rooms, its staff, its secrets all pulsing with quiet menace beneath their polished surfaces. There’s a sense of timelessness here, like the story could be happening in the past, the future, or somewhere just outside reality.

What I loved most was how the book plays with perception. Nothing is ever quite what it seems, and the more I read, the more disoriented—in the best way—I became. But there’s heart, too. Amid the strangeness and the suspense, Ball weaves a tender story about belonging, memory, and the ghosts we carry with us.

*The White Octopus Hotel* is enchanting and eerie in equal measure—a beautifully strange story that invites you to get lost and never quite find your way out. I adored it.

“People go sometimes. They just go and there’s nothing at all we can do about it except let them leave. And turn up for the people who are still there”

Thank you to NetGalley and Alexandra Bell for this advanced copy of The White Octopus Hotel. A friend recommended I apply for the ARC and I’m so happy she did and thankful to read it.

This story was intriguing, kept me on my toes, but also cozy in a sense. It gave me a sense of nostalgia while trying to unravel the mystery.

I love the aesthetic the story painted of the hotel. And many points hit incredibly home for me.

Absolutely astounding and I cannot wait to get my trophy copy when it releases in October 2025.

🐙

London, 2015. When reclusive art appraiser Eve Shaw shakes the hand of a silver-haired gentleman in her office, the warmth of his palm sends a spark through her.

The White Octopus Hotel, 1935. In this belle époque building high in the snowy mountains, Eve and a young Max wander the winding halls, lost in time.

This was a very unique read. It was very enjoyable. This is definitely a book worth reading.