ARC Review: A Castle in the Clouds by Kerstin Gier

I received this book for free from Books for trade in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

A Castle in the Clouds by Kerstin Gier
Published by Henry Holt & Company on January 28, 2020
Genres: YA Magical Realism
Pages: 336
Source: Books for trade
Format: ARC
My Rating:
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A Castle in the Clouds follows a girl as she navigates secrets, romance, and danger in an aging grand hotel.
Way up in the Swiss mountains, there's an old grand hotel steeped in tradition and faded splendor. Once a year, when the famous New Year's Eve Ball takes place and guests from all over the world arrive, excitement returns to the vast hallways.
Sophie, who works at the hotel as an intern, is busy making sure that everything goes according to plan. But unexpected problems keep arising, and some of the guests are not who they pretend to be. Very soon, Sophie finds herself right in the middle of a perilous adventure--and at risk of losing not only her job, but also her heart.

My Review:

I have loved this author ever since her Ruby Red series. And I was also a big fan of her Silver Trilogy even if I haven’t quite finished it yet. So as soon as I heard of another book by her, I was psyched and wanted a copy of it as soon as possible. While I was able to get signed up through Netgalley, I really wanted a physical copy to keep on my shelf, and so I had to resort to the Books for Trade hashtag on Twitter for that.

I really did enjoy this one. It was a very easy and quick read. The storyline was sweet, with a bit of a love triangle that to me wasn’t really completely settled, other than the fact that one of them just kind of took off as part of what his character really was. This old hotel set up in the mountains was quite romantic sounding, while a bit creepy in the way of the hotel in The Shining. There was always the possibility of ghosts or other magical things happening there, none that were really ever substantiated or explained. But I liked the way they happened and that while it added that tiny bit to the story, it didn’t take over and make it what it was all about.

This story had not only the setting of European luxury hotel with all the expected types of guests, but also had a jewel heist (or two), attempted kidnappings (or two), romance, and humor. Saving the hotel from being bought by someone who was going to completely gut it and modernize it was high on the list of things that needed to be done, but it wasn’t what the whole story was about. There was even a kind of Dirty Dancing moment when all the puzzle pieces were finally falling into place.

While her other two series really blew me away, this one was still sweet enough that I enjoyed it a lot and look forward to reading more by the author in the future.