The Lonely Hearts Hotel: A Novel
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read)
"So filled with vivid descriptions and complex characters that the reader's experience is virtually cinematic. . . Utterly compelling." – The Washington Post
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.
If you are having problem transferring a title to your device, please fill out this support form or visit the library so we can help you to use our eBooks and eAudio Books.
Heather O'Neill. (2017). The Lonely Hearts Hotel: A Novel. Penguin Publishing Group.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Heather O'Neill. 2017. The Lonely Hearts Hotel: A Novel. Penguin Publishing Group.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Heather O'Neill, The Lonely Hearts Hotel: A Novel. Penguin Publishing Group, 2017.
MLA Citation (style guide)Heather O'Neill. The Lonely Hearts Hotel: A Novel. Penguin Publishing Group, 2017.
| Library | Owned | Available |
|---|---|---|
| Shared Digital Collection | 3 | 3 |
OverDrive Product Record
- images
- cover:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/1523-1/{8EB05FCF-75A2-4508-BD07-D887B8C9CAA8}Img100.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- thumbnail:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/1523-1/{8EB05FCF-75A2-4508-BD07-D887B8C9CAA8}Img200.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover150Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/1523-1/8EB/05F/CF/{8EB05FCF-75A2-4508-BD07-D887B8C9CAA8}Img150.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover300Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/1523-1/8EB/05F/CF/{8EB05FCF-75A2-4508-BD07-D887B8C9CAA8}Img400.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover:
- formats
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780735213753
- name: Adobe EPUB eBook
- id: ebook-epub-adobe
- identifiers:
- identifiers:
- type: ASIN
- value: B01FEY5C6S
- name: Kindle Book
- id: ebook-kindle
- identifiers:
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780735213753
- name: OverDrive Read
- id: ebook-overdrive
- identifiers:
- mediaType
- eBook
- primaryCreator
- role: Author
- name: Heather O'Neill
- title
- The Lonely Hearts Hotel
- dateAdded
- 2017-01-12T16:50:00-05:00
- contentDetails
- href: https://link.overdrive.com/?websiteID=141&titleID=2716058
- type: text/html
- account:
- name: Sacramento Public Library (CA)
- id: 1151
- sortTitle
- Lonely Hearts Hotel A Novel
- crossRefId
- 2716058
- subtitle
- A Novel
- id
- 8eb05fcf-75a2-4508-bd07-d887b8c9caa8
- starRating
- 3.5
OverDrive MetaData
- isPublicDomain
- False
- formats
- fileName: TheLonelyHeartsHotel_9780735213753_2716058
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 1073290
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780735213753
- rights:
- type: Copying
- value: 0
- type: Printing
- value: 0
- type: Lending
- value: 0
- type: ReadAloud
- value: 0
- type: ExpirationRights
- value: 0
- name: Adobe EPUB eBook
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-epub-adobe
- onSaleDate: 2/7/2017
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=8eb05fcf-75a2-4508-bd07-d887b8c9caa8&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- fileName: TheLonelyHeartsHotel_2716058
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 0
- identifiers:
- type: ASIN
- value: B01FEY5C6S
- name: Kindle Book
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-kindle
- onSaleDate: 2/7/2017
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=8eb05fcf-75a2-4508-bd07-d887b8c9caa8&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- fileName: TheLonelyHeartsHotel_9780735213753_2716058
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 1073270
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780735213753
- name: OverDrive Read
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-overdrive
- onSaleDate: 2/7/2017
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=8eb05fcf-75a2-4508-bd07-d887b8c9caa8&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- keywords
- value: night
- value: stage
- value: Montreal
- value: Friendship
- value: literary fiction
- value: Nuns
- value: smugglers
- value: Rose
- value: Historical
- value: romance
- value: Moon
- value: train
- value: sex
- value: clown
- value: Burlesque
- value: Fiction
- value: novels
- value: show
- value: Quebec
- value: Equality
- value: Performance
- value: love
- value: gangster
- value: hotel
- value: Historical Fiction
- value: lust
- value: magical realism
- value: french
- value: Dreams
- value: broadway
- value: the great depression
- value: heroin
- value: feminism
- value: Travel
- value: orphans
- value: Canada
- value: smuggling
- value: new york city
- value: Circus
- value: literature
- value: Alternate History
- value: fiction books
- value: lights
- value: border
- value: drugs
- value: historical novels
- value: Pierrot
- value: snowflake
- value: icicle
- value: historical fiction books
- value: books fiction
- creators
- role: Author
- fileAs: O'Neill, Heather
- name: Heather O'Neill
- imprint
- Riverhead Books
- publishDate
- 2017-02-07T00:00:00-05:00
- isOwnedByCollections
- True
- title
- The Lonely Hearts Hotel
- fullDescription
- NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2017 BY THE BOSTON GLOBE AND THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
"So filled with vivid descriptions and complex characters that the reader's experience is virtually cinematic. . . Utterly compelling." – The Washington Post
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. - reviews
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
Starred review from March 6, 2017
In a love story of epic proportions, O'Neill's (Daydreams of Angels) excellent historical novel plumbs the depths of happiness and despair for two orphans determined not to let the world get them down. Stepping into the minds of children, circus performers, prostitutes, gangsters, and into the dismal days of the Great Depression, the world on these pages is unforgettable and larger than the moon. Pierrot and Rose are abandoned to an orphanage in 1914 Montreal, where they grow up together and discover their talent for absurdist, Vaudevillian-style performances in front of the other orphan children, then later in front of rich patrons in the city. Pierrot, with his mesmerizing piano, and Rose, with her invisible dancing bear, make lavish plans for their artistic career, fall in love with each other, and are inseparableâuntil they are forced apart as teens. Through the ensuing years, each holds on to their dreams of extravagant circus shows and of finding each other again, while entering a dark world of drugs, sex, starvation, and survival. At the very end of the tunnel are floodlights to the stage, sad clowns, gigantic moon props, chorus girls, and the one thing that time and distance cannot diminishâtrue love grander than any circus act. This novel will cast a spell on readers from page one.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
Starred review from December 1, 2016
Walking the hypnotic line between tragedy and fairy tale, O'Neill's latest novel (The Girl Who Was Saturday Night, 20014, etc.) follows two spectacularly talented orphans as they fall into the bleak underworld of 1930s Montreal.Both born in 1914 to poor teenage mothers ill-equipped to take care of them, Rose and Pierrot are abandoned at the same joyless orphanage, left to be raised by the same joyless nuns. But even as young children, their chemistry is evident, so much so that the Mother Superior makes a note to keep the then-4-year-olds apart. "It was necessary to thwart all love affairs in the orphanage," O'Neill writes. "If there was one thing responsible for ruining lives, it was love." But like talent, their bond is irrepressible: Pierrot, it turns out, is a brilliant pianist despite a total lack of formal training, while Rose is mesmerizing onstage, a born comedian. Together, they enchant the city's elite, performing as a duo for Montreal's wealthiest households. For a while, at least, the nuns need the money more than they need to keep the pair apart. But the artistic romance of their childhood comes to a crashing halt in adolescence, and--with some interference from the sisters--their fates diverge: sensitive Pierrot is taken in by a fabulously wealthy old man who is enchanted with his musical gifts, while self-assured Rose is sent to work as a governess, looking after the children of a powerful businessman who runs the city's illicit nightlife. Such stability is short-lived. With the Great Depression swirling around them, both Rose and Pierrot descend into a dark world of sex, drugs, and crime, each of them haunting the city in search of the other. Grotesque and whimsical at once, the love story that unfolds is a fable of ambition and perseverance, desperation and heartbreak. But while Pierrot is unforgettable, the novel belongs to Rose, a woman who--if she cannot carve out space for herself in upstanding daylight--will rise to power in the underworld of night. O'Neill's prose is crisp and strange, arresting in its frankness; much like the novel itself, her writing is both gleefully playful and devastatingly sad. Big and lush and extremely satisfying; a rare treat.COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
Starred review from December 1, 2016
Abandoned as infants to the nuns in a Montreal orphanage in 1914, Rose and Pierrot pass dreary years of hunger and abuse until their stage talent pushes them into entertaining wealthy orphanage patrons (making money for the sisters). Later, a rich man is enchanted by Pierrot's piano performance and brings him home as a companion, while Rose is eventually engaged as a (very bad) governess. Apart they flounder, sinking into impoverishment and depravity, but finally they reconnect and renew their dream of staging a show they call Snowflake Icicle Extravaganza. Suddenly the story plunges into a whirlwind of dazzling imagery, as visual and outre as Moulin Rouge. O'Neill is a mistress of metaphor and imagery ( her sobs were flung on the deck ). This is brilliant tragicomedy, filled with story, setting shifts, shady characters, and nearly too many clever similes ( horses hooves sounded like a room full of children with hiccups ), all moiling around in a melancholy love story that brings to life the bygone days of theatrical revues. It's a little weird and a lot of fun, evoking a sad smile, like Margaret Drabble's melancholy but witty The Sea Lady (2007) and Juliette Fay's The Tumbling Turner Sisters (2016), which offers a lighter look at vaudeville-era showmanship and its personalities.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
September 15, 2016
Short-listed for the Governor General's Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction and twice for the Giller Prize, O'Neill dreams up the story of Rose and Pierrot, orphans in Depression-era Montreal who long to open an extraordinary circus when they grow up.
Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
Starred review from January 1, 2017
Rose and Pierrot, born in difficult circumstances to young single mothers in 1914, are left as babies at the spartan Catholic orphanage on the outskirts of Montreal. Kindred spirits unbroken by the nuns' cruel and abusive treatment, they are imaginative children and natural-born performers drawn to each other from an early age. O'Neill's (Lullabies for Little Criminals) prose is gorgeous and understated, with arresting imagery, thankfully lacking any over-the-top lyricism or excessively heavy-handed magical realism. This simultaneously heartbreaking and life-affirming novel depicts the range of the human experience through the eyes of its almost preternaturally charismatic hero and heroine, who journey from the margins to high society, from the orphanage to the criminal underworld in Montreal and New York City. It could even do its part to rehabilitate the current reputation of clowns in our society, depicted here as philosophers and wise men, expressing the beauty and sadness of the human condition. VERDICT The star-crossed love affair of the poor orphans who team up to create an enchanting circus might sound like a book that has already been written once or twice, but don't be fooled. This is an original and unforgettable novel. [See Prepub Alert, 8/8/16.]--Lauren Gilbert, Sachem P.L., Holbrook, NY
Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
January 1, 2017
Rose and Pierrot, born in difficult circumstances to young single mothers in 1914, are left as babies at the spartan Catholic orphanage on the outskirts of Montreal. Kindred spirits unbroken by the nuns' cruel and abusive treatment, they are imaginative children and natural-born performers drawn to each other from an early age. O'Neill's (Lullabies for Little Criminals) prose is gorgeous and understated, with arresting imagery, thankfully lacking any over-the-top lyricism or excessively heavy-handed magical realism. This simultaneously heartbreaking and life-affirming novel depicts the range of the human experience through the eyes of its almost preternaturally charismatic hero and heroine, who journey from the margins to high society, from the orphanage to the criminal underworld in Montreal and New York City. It could even do its part to rehabilitate the current reputation of clowns in our society, depicted here as philosophers and wise men, expressing the beauty and sadness of the human condition. VERDICT The star-crossed love affair of the poor orphans who team up to create an enchanting circus might sound like a book that has already been written once or twice, but don't be fooled. This is an original and unforgettable novel. [See Prepub Alert, 8/8/16.]--Lauren Gilbert, Sachem P.L., Holbrook, NY
Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
- popularity
- 953
- links
- self:
- href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/v1L1BWwAAAA2I/products/8eb05fcf-75a2-4508-bd07-d887b8c9caa8/metadata
- type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json
- self:
- id
- 8eb05fcf-75a2-4508-bd07-d887b8c9caa8
- starRating
- 3.5
- images
- cover:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/1523-1/{8EB05FCF-75A2-4508-BD07-D887B8C9CAA8}Img100.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- thumbnail:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/1523-1/{8EB05FCF-75A2-4508-BD07-D887B8C9CAA8}Img200.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover150Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/1523-1/8EB/05F/CF/{8EB05FCF-75A2-4508-BD07-D887B8C9CAA8}Img150.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover300Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/1523-1/8EB/05F/CF/{8EB05FCF-75A2-4508-BD07-D887B8C9CAA8}Img400.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover:
- isPublicPerformanceAllowed
- False
- languages
- code: en
- name: English
- subjects
- value: Fantasy
- value: Fiction
- value: Literature
- value: Historical Fiction
- publishDateText
- 02/07/2017
- otherFormatIdentifiers
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780735213739
- mediaType
- eBook
- shortDescription
- NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2017 BY THE BOSTON GLOBE AND THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
"So filled with vivid descriptions and complex characters that the reader's experience is virtually cinematic. . . Utterly compelling." – The Washington Post
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... - sortTitle
- Lonely Hearts Hotel A Novel
- crossRefId
- 2716058
- subtitle
- A Novel
- publisher
- Penguin Publishing Group
- bisacCodes
- code: FIC014000
- description: FICTION / Historical / General
- code: FIC019000
- description: Fiction / Literary
- code: FIC061000
- description: Fiction / Magical Realism
