Hotel Fen

Nine, Book 1

By: Meri Benson, Marie Sinadjan

Narrated by: Rebecca Lemke

Are you ready for the vacation of a lifetime?

Victor has always had a passion for Norse history and mythology, but after hitting a dead end with his book on Valkyries, even that passion is enough to move him forward. Just when he's ready to abandon the project, he receives an email: He's won a free trip to Hotel Fen, a remote vintage resort in the Scandinavian Mountains.

Silje has always felt that her life was fairly unremarkable. She cares deeply about people, and that has led her to find her purpose at a nursing home in Oslo. When a resident dies and leaves her an all-expense paid vacation package to Hotel Fen, however, she takes the opportunity to experience something different. It all starts innocently enough, with a little meet-cute in the hotel elevator that takes forever to arrive on their floor.

But the longer Victor and Silje remain together, the more dangerous the hotel becomes, and the more they question where reality ends and the impossible begins.

©2021 Meri Benson and Marie Sinadjan (P)2023 Meri Benson and Marie Sinadjan

Star crossed Norse lovers

I won an audible code for this, I believe from the narrator, so I gave it a listen. The production value is a bit rough, and it is more of reading aloud, as there is no demarkation between narration and dialogue.

This book meshes hotel horror with Norse mythology. It starts with Victor arriving at the hotel after receiving a free trip from a radio show he can’t seem to remember participating in. When he meets Silje, the woman staying in the room next to him, he can’t help but feel as if he’s known her for a long time. It is from there that things get a little… strange.

It mixes magic, eternal and fated lovers, action, suspense, and expansive knowledge of Norse mythology. It handles the pacing pretty well while only feature a handful of characters. But it does miss the mark of atmospheric horror for me, which I believe had to do with length. The blurb mentions The Shining, but this has a shorter opening, so I didn’t get that eerie back-of-the-neck creeping feeling.

Personally a 4/5* for me. I look forward to checking out more by the authors.