Everyone, seriously everyone, in
this book has a secret.
It’s 1997 and New York’s Statewide
program for the most talented high school singers and musicians is happening at
the dilapidated Bellweather Hotel in the Catskills. The Hatmaker twins Alice and Bertram (known
as Rabbit) are extremely excited to be there.
Alice will be singing in the chorus and Rabbit will be playing bassoon
in the orchestra. They both have high expectations
for the long weekend and the weekend does prove to be exciting. The first night Alice finds her roommate, a
child prodigy on the flute, hanging from the sprinkler system in their room by
an orange extension cord. She runs from
the room for help and when she returns with the concierge the girl is
gone. Where is the missing girl? Is she dead or alive? Why was she found in the same room, fifteen
years from the day, a bride shot and killed her new husband and hung herself,
in the exact same way as the missing dead/alive girl, in her bridal gown? What other secrets do the attendees and the
hotel hide?
I couldn’t put this book down. You know how sometimes you just find the
perfect book for that exact moment and you fly through it? That’s what this was like. I loved the characters and the fact that
every single person had some deep inner secret that more likely than not
involved another person staying at the hotel that weekend. It has a light tongue-in-cheek tone that fit
the story perfectly. Is the story absurd
and completely unbelievable? Yes it is,
but I didn’t care.
It also delves into the power of
music and how playing it can transport you.
It made me want to listen to classical music, which doesn’t happen often
for me, and I streamed a few of the pieces through NAXOS as I finished the
book.
