The Lonely Hearts Hotel

A Novel

By: Heather O'Neill

Narrated by: Julia Whelan

Named a best book of 2017 by The Boston Globe and The San Francisco Chronicle.

From the author of When We Lost Our Heads, a spellbinding story about two gifted orphans - in love with each other since they can remember - whose childhood talents allow them to rewrite their future.

The Lonely Hearts Hotel is a love story with the power of legend. An unparalleled tale of charismatic pianos, invisible dance partners, radicalized chorus girls, drug-addicted musicians, brooding clowns, and an underworld whose economy hinges on the price of a kiss. In a landscape like this, it takes great creative gifts to thwart one’s origins. It might also take true love.

Two babies are abandoned in a Montreal orphanage in the winter of 1914. Before long, their talents emerge: Pierrot is a piano prodigy; Rose lights up even the dreariest room with her dancing and comedy. As they travel around the city performing clown routines, the children fall in love with each other and dream up a plan for the most extraordinary and seductive circus show the world has ever seen.

Separated as teenagers, sent off to work as servants during the Great Depression, both descend into the city’s underworld, dabbling in sex, drugs, and theft in order to survive. But when Rose and Pierrot finally reunite beneath the snowflakes - after years of searching and desperate poverty - the possibilities of their childhood dreams are renewed, and they’ll go to extreme lengths to make them come true. Soon, Rose, Pierrot and their troupe of clowns and chorus girls have hit New York, commanding the stage as well as the alleys, and neither the theater nor the underworld will ever look the same.

With her musical language and extravagantly realized world, Heather O’Neill enchants us with a novel so magical there is no escaping its spell.

©2017 Heather O'Neill (P)2017 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"So filled with vivid descriptions and complex characters that the reader's experience is virtually cinematic...Utterly compelling." (The Washington Post)

this could be a movie

I loved the store line and the idea of a forever love. I could see this as a movie as well. loved the comparative writing of the author. it helped me visualize through details of the book.

So vivid!

It’s such an odd wonderful story of tragedy and love. I love how vivid the imagery was. The narrator is one of my favorites as well.

Poetic justice

Julia whelan is amazing as always. The book has good prose. I got a very different story than what I had expected but I’m pleasantly surprised. Listening to this book was like watching a movie. It’s whimsical and lush with imagery.

A story of love and loss

I loved the overall storyline. Loved the way it didn’t have a cliche ending (these aren’t spoilers).

Go into this knowing you’ll have your heart broken several times for the characters and you will be rooting for them.

10/10 recommend it but be warned it tackles the topic of SA and the lasting impact it has on children - well into their adulthood.

Excellent!

This book kept me company in the 25 hour drive from Minneapolis, MN to Tampa, FL. Thanks for a great book and performance. 👍

Exceptional

This book was recommended to me by a friend. I don’t read a lot of fiction, but everything about this novel (character development, imagery, pacing, plot, scene, etc) was so good. It’s a gritty, disturbing book, but it was well-written enough to provoke a visceral response. I look forward to more by this author. I listened in a single sitting. Wow.

Enthralling

The beginning with the child abuse was hard to stomach, but that's what made it so good. It felt real. Great book. Highly recommend.

Beautifully magical, painfully crude and inspiring

One minute you are spell bound by the childish magic and before you know it, shocked by crude vulgarity of reality.

Strange and literary

Beautifully written story about the lives of two orphans during difficult times at the turn of the century. Interesting examination of clowning, gangsters and the drug trade, passion, sex, and the enduring and devastating love between them. Always love Julia Whelan as the narrator!

Superb book, story, narrator!

1t was a ltl disheartening at first and all the things tht happened to Rose ...but it really did turn into a very great book!