When I ordered this book I didn’t realise that it was over 600-pages in length. I was hoping then that it wouldn’t be rubbish as I was going to be stuck with it for a while. Luckily I needn’t have worried. It just meant that I had longer to spend in the character’s world that was built up right from the beginning.
The book is split into two halves. The first half focuses on the rivalry of two hotels and their managers. “Honor Palmer and Lucas Ruiz are the protagonists at the heart of what is being dubbed the Five-Star Wars, a battle for supremacy between two great Hampton hotels: the world-famous Palmers and the new architecturally acclaimed Tischen, the Herrick.”
Honor is the "spiky tomboy" grown up into the Palmers riches, but determined to keep the family legacy alive, i.e. the once great Palmers that is now just “another dime-a-dozen “luxury” hotel, perhaps even a little shabbier than its rivals”. Lucas is the “handsome, cocky, arrogant” womaniser driven by ambition to be the greatest hotel manager in the world before realising his “fantasy of one day owning his own hotel. His hotel would be an aura not just of luxury but of peace” all under the name “Luxe.”
Lucas is directed from on-high by the owner of the Herrick, Anton Tisch, who wants “Palmers out of business by this time next year. I want her penniless and scrounging at my feet”.
But then Lucas gets too big for his boots, “ever since the boy had started taking sole credit for the Herrick’s success” so Anton Tisch destroys him, along with Palmers at the same time. The second half of the book looks at the aftermath now that Honor and Lucas have a common enemy.
The book is a good read with lots of characters that have distinctive characteristics and motivations. It is a light read and a good world to inhabit through its 600 pages plus. If you like your 600-page bonkbusters then get it.
Publication date: 14th May 2013 (this edition, originally published on 7th Feb 2008)
Amazon UK link: Do Not Disturb
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