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The Bird Hotel
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Joyce Maynard
- Length: 12 hrs and 47 mins
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The Bird Hotel
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Publisher's Summary
Enter the magical world of La Llorona with New York Times best-selling author Joyce Maynard.
After a childhood filled with heartbreak, Irene, a talented artist, finds herself in a small Central American village where she checks into a beautiful but decaying lakefront hotel called La Llorona at the base of a volcano.
The Bird Hotel tells the story of this young American who, after suffering tragedy, restores and runs La Llorona. Along the way we meet a rich assortment of characters who live in the village or come to stay at the hotel. With a mystery at its center and filled with warmth, drama, romance, humor, pop culture, and a little magical realism, The Bird Hotel has all the hallmarks of a Joyce Maynard novel that have made her a leading voice of her generation.
The Bird Hotel is a big, sweeping story spanning four decades, offering lyricism as well as whimsy. While the world New York Times best-selling author Joyce Maynard brings to life is rendered from her imagination, it’s one informed by the more than 20 years of which she has spent a significant amount of her time in a small Mayan indigenous village in Guatemala.
As the New York Times said, "[Maynard] has an unswerving eye, a sharply perked ear, and the ability to keep her readers hanging on her words." People Magazine said of her: "Maynard’s spare prose packs a rich emotional punch.”
What listeners say about The Bird Hotel
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Heidi (but books are better)
- 15-06-2023
Immersive & enchanting
What a beautiful, atmospheric books this was, full of the lyrical language, keen observations and magic that makes Maynard one of my favourite authors. I was hooked as soon as I met Irene, a young woman who has had to endure more than her fair share of tragedy and death. Desolate, and without much hope for the future, she boards a bus into the unknown and finds herself in a little Central American village at the edge of a large lake and at the foot of a volcano.
During Irene’s stay at La Llorona she comes not contact with a wide range of people, whose fate has brought them to this remote place, and whose lives will be forever changed after leaving here. As La Llorona becomes home for her, Irene slowly shakes off the layers of her grief and hopelessness that have ruled her life. But there are still some surprises in store for her …
Told through the eyes of Irene and flicking back and forth between the 1960s and the present, THE BIRD HOTEL was a heartwarming and magical story about loss, grief and starting afresh, peppered with a rich cast of unforgettable side characters. With her unflinching eye for detail and innate understanding of the human psyche, Maynard delivers us protagonists that are as flesh and blood as the people we have known all our lives, set against an atmospheric backdrop of a small Mayan village. Whilst Maynard clarifies that she has written the novel purely from the perspective of an expat, her rich details about Mayan life and culture were fascinating and made for wonderful armchair travel. I dare you not to be touched by at least one of the human tales in this story – I know that I shed a few tears along the way.
THE BIRD HOTEL is the type of immersive, enchanting story that makes Maynard such a great writer and sent this book straight to my favourites list. I loved every minute of it and thought about its characters long after finishing it. All the stars from me!
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