This was a weird book. You had to pay attention. Very much for fans of Blake Crouch. Shades of Alice of Wonderland.

The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart is a science fiction fantasy that does have an air of mystery and a thrilling side to the story. The story in The Paradox Hotel is one that involves time travel jumping, has an unreliable narrator and a complex plot.

January Cole has spent a lot of her career going through time and fixing problems that have arisen to keep a balance. Now January is head of security at the Paradox hotel because she is “unstuck” and has to battle slips of the timeline.

Due to January’s slipping in and out of time she finds a room that only she can see and a body that no one else notices. On top of January having to figure out just what the room means there are “accidents” happening to those around the hotel including live dinosaurs roaming the property.

I have to say that at the core of The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart is a strong story that I did enjoy. Of course my three and a half star rating shows that I did find some issues when reading The Paradox Hotel. For me the story wasn’t always easy to follow and I think could have been a little more clear in places especially the beginning when just diving into the book. That being said though I think the dinos and the snarky robot won me over enough that I’m glad I gave this a chance.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

Holy moly, this was a fun read! Imagine this - an ultramodern hotel in upstate New York full of wealthy patrons waiting for their turn to travel through time and witness history first hand. At the onset of the story a massive snowstorm is bearing down on them, a handful of the world’s richest men are arriving to bid on ownership of the hotel and timeport, and there are… aberrations occurring. Oh, and most of the hotel patrons are assholes, but so is the main character and she doesn’t care one bit to air her grievances or share her opinion.

January Cole is head of security at the Paradox Hotel and this unholy trifecta of events has exponentially increased her workload and stress levels which isn’t great, since she’s officially Unstuck. It’s the not-so-technical term for someone who has spent way too much time in the timestream and now she’s seeing ghosts from the past and having weird glitchy moments where she’s no longer in the present. She’s also the only person who can see the body in room 526, so in addition to all that other stuff, she now has a murder investigation on her hands. Her boss is also trying realllllly hard to get her to take a cushy job far away from the effects of the timestream, where she can relax and hope her symptoms don’t progress.

This book was honestly wild from page one and I loved it! I personally loved January though I could see how she might not be everyone’s cup of tea, or in her case, probably whiskey. She’s got a bad attitude and a job to do and no one is going to get in her way while she does it. Not senators, not the ultra-wealthy buyers, not even a trio of hangry dinosaurs. Between January and her trusty robot assistant Ruby (equipped with googly eyes for extra personality) nothing can stop her! She’s sweary and rude, but I appreciate that she takes zero shit from anyone. When you learn a bit more about her history you see that it’s really a defensive mechanism of sorts and she’s got some serious trauma that she needs to address.

I’ve gone off on a bit of a tangent, but let me reiterate how darn delightful this book was to read. It’s literally one terrible event after another, but looked at through the lens of January Cole it’s just a nasty puzzle that can’t stop her and I love a tenacious character. I love a good mystery and a well-done wonky time travel theme is pretty cool so this ended up being a win for me! I’d definitely recommend this for fans of Dark Matter and Recursion by Blake Crouch!

I only read occasionally from the Sci-Fi genre, but this one caught my eye due to its premise. January Cole is the Head of Security at a hotel frequented by the ultra rich before catching a “flight” to travel back in time. I immediately liked January and was quickly drawn into her world along with resolving her personal and professional issues. However, there are just too many characters, time jumps, and major/minor plot lines resulting in confusion, frustration, and, ultimately, disappointment.

I received an advance copy from Netgalley and Ballantine in exchange for an honest review.

This is a tough one for me. January works at a hotel that is basically a hub for time travel. I did not enjoy the main character, January, very much. The constant attitude was too much. I found the plot to be confusing. The ending left a lot to the imagination. This book will likely appeal to somebody that is huge into science fiction but it was a difficult read for me. I would try other books by this author but this one wasn't it for me. You may love it though.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Title: The Paradox Hotel
Author: Rob Hart
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 3.0 out of 5

January Cole’s job just got a whole lot harder.

Not that running security at the Paradox was ever really easy. Nothing’s simple at a hotel where the ultra-wealthy tourists arrive costumed for a dozen different time periods, all eagerly waiting to catch their “flights” to the past.

Or where proximity to the timeport makes the clocks run backward on occasion—and, rumor has it, allows ghosts to stroll the halls.

None of that compares to the corpse in room 526. The one that seems to be both there and not there. The one that somehow only January can see.

On top of that, some very important new guests have just checked in. Because the U.S. government is about to privatize time-travel technology—and the world’s most powerful people are on hand to stake their claims.

January is sure the timing isn’t a coincidence. Neither are those “accidents” that start stalking their bidders.

There’s a reason January can glimpse what others can’t. A reason why she’s the only one who can catch a killer who’s operating invisibly and in plain sight, all at once.

But her ability is also destroying her grip on reality—and as her past, present, and future collide, she finds herself confronting not just the hotel’s dark secrets but her own.

I kind of wish I hadn’t bothered to finish reading this. I think the only reason I did was for the velociraptors. (Yes, really.) January was a horrible person. Seriously terrible to everyone she interacted with. Every single time she opened her mouth, I knew something ugly was going to come out (and she knew it but did it anyway.). She was the worst, so I felt basically no sympathy for her. I didn’t care about anything going on in this story—except the dinosaurs—and the ending felt like…no resolution was reached, things just stopped.

Rob Hart lives in Staten Island. The Paradox Hotel is his newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Random House/Ballantine in exchange for an honest review.)

The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart is a difficult novel to rate. It’s a difficult one to rate because it is a big project to take on. There’s a lot of things that worked for me, but some things that were slightly off the mark. In general, it has a detective noir meets time travel vibe to it.
The Paradox Hotel is the hotel associated with the US government run time portal, a place where the ultra-wealthy come to travel to moments in history – seeing a play in The Globe, the pyramids being built, dinosaurs, you get the picture. January Cole is the detective of The Paradox Hotel, and she’s Unstuck. After working for years in the timestream, making sure people aren’t trying to alter history, she slides forwards and backwards in time, sometime unable to tell what’s really happening, what’s happened, or what may happen. The hotel and timestream are going private to the highest bidder, and January just found a dead body no one else can see. It’s just a coincidence, right?
This is a novel you must pay attention to when reading it. January is Unstuck, so she gets flashes of both the past and future dispersed in with her present, and it feels that way when you’re reading it. She isn’t always sure what’s real and neither do you as the reader. There’s no distinction in the formatting to tell you what is what, which is 100% deliberate and something I enjoyed in the writing style. As a reader, you get a glimpse into how confusing it is to live and experience the world that way. While I don’t think that will be everyone’s cup of tea, I really dug it.
I thought the character work Hart did was interesting and I enjoyed the cast of characters, especially Ruby, January’s hacked drone. It took me a little bit to get into it initially, but it did pick up and I read the back half really quickly. I wasn’t wholly satisfied with the ending choice, but it was worth the ride.
Thank you to Net Galley and Random House Pub. Group – Ballantine Books for the advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this book. It’s a complicated mix of time travelling sci-fi, exploration of grief, and finding family in those around you. It’s also surprisingly funny at parts. When dealing with time travel, something wacky has to happen-like tiny dinosaurs that make their way to the future and are now running around a hotel. I really liked how the author combined January’s illness with how she processes her grief. When you can constantly see the ghost of someone you love, how are you ever expected to move on? There’s a diverse cast of characters, a real sense of found family, and an urgency to the story that really keeps the pages turning.
Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for the opportunity to read and review this title. All opinions and mistakes are my own.

It’s the year 2072 and January Cole is a smart aleck Time Enforcement Agent and head of security at the Paradox Hotel. She has been working for the U.S. time travel organization for six years and has become unstuck. This negative side effect of frequent time travel is impairing her mental state. How can she continue preventing individuals from changing the timeline when she keeps finding herself in past and future moments? When she sees a dead body suspended in time, she wonders if she has finally lost it.

Meanwhile, a summit of trillionaires has been assembled to take bids on privatizing the Paradox Hotel due to its inability to turn a profit. The master clock malfunctions, the security camera is hacked, ghosts haunt the hotel, and dinosaurs roam the hallways. Oh, and a hit man is attempting to murder the trillionaires!

Can January save the day?

I loved Rob Hart’s The Warehouse with its completely original premise that kept me on my toes. The Paradox Hotel felt like it would be a perfect fit for me because I enjoy time travel, unreliable narrators, and locked room mysteries. However, this book was very difficult to follow due to its large cast of underdeveloped characters, too many plot points, and confusing timeline.

I really enjoyed January’s snarky attitude and adorable googly-eyed AI sidekick, Ruby. I applaud Hart for including Lesbian and Nonbinary characters as well for making a woman responsible for inventing time travel. This book might appeal to true science fiction afficionados, but my layman’s brain couldn’t wrap my head around it.

3/5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group and Ballantine Books for the ARC of The Paradox Hotel in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely LOVED this book! The Paradox Hotel has everything that makes a great story to me: a strong lovable protagonist, a host of great side characters, fascinating worldbuilding, an interesting setting, and a mystery that lasts all the way up to the finale.

January Cole is an amazing main character. She's a total can-do-anything badass (pardon the language but really it's the best word for it) but she's also a head-to-toe mess, a great dichotomy that plays out in every scene. She has her reasons for being how she is but the people around her both respect her and try their darnedest to help her too. I think Ruby was probably my favorite of these secondary characters but Cameo is right there vying for it. And, Allyn too. It's hard to choose! I would be remiss too if I didn't mention Mena. The love story between her and January is absolutely beautiful. It breaks your heart and mends it again. I haven't been so in love with a romance in a long time but theirs, unbreakable by time and space, will leave you breathless.

The world of the Paradox Hotel, of time travel / terminals as a (dangerous) vacation option, of wondering over the implications of it all, the whole bit of it was fascinating to me. It never gets technical but it makes you think and I love that as a reader. Bringing in the bit of Buddhist philosophy was also really neat.

Watching January piece together the case as both her external and internal worlds fall apart made me desperate. I wanted her to solve it but it pained me to watch her lose herself along the way. I was glad that the author decided there would be big risks / dangers to time travel because it gave decisions a lot more weight. There were many "I'm going to pull my hair out" moments and more than a few gasp aloud moments. Like a loopy-loop roller coaster at high speed, I couldn't put it down once the wild ride started.

All this to say: I love this book! Please read this book! It's amazing! I can't wait to read more from this author because The Paradox Hotel is definitely going to be a top read of 2022 for me and it's only February. I highly recommend this to any reader because it's an incredible story and, if any screenwriters are reading, this novel would make one helluva tv show.

Note: I received a free electronic edition of this book via NetGalley in exchange for the honest review above. I would like to thank them, the publisher, and the author for the opportunity to do so.

Ok, I did not like this at all. I was so psyched for this book and was thinking I’d be getting to see time travel into different worlds and times and place and that literally didn’t happen at all. The main character is SO unlikeable that i disliked almost all of her interactions. There are so many freaking characters that I was 60% thought the book thinking one character was a teenage male to only find out they were a middle aged woman. I just kept mixing everyone up because I had no idea who anyone was and the character development just wasn’t there. There is also so so so much action that goes on but I still felt bored by it - like I didn’t know the characters so I didn’t care what they did. I started skimming the book around the 70% mark until around 90% and realized I still didn’t care about the outcome and stopped completely. I have no idea how this book ends and I’m a ok with that. 1.5 rounded up to two literally only because this concept is still really cool to me, and the dinosaurs were fun.

January Cole is head of security at the Paradox - a hotel where the ultra-wealthy tourists arrive costumed for a dozen different time periods, all eagerly waiting to catch their “flights” to the past. There is never a dull moment at her job, where ghosts roam the halls, there's a corpse in room 526, and January can see things that others can't. Now the government has decided to privatize the Paradox, and it is going to the highest bidder. When "accidents' start happening to the bidders, January knows that it is no coincidence, and she is in a race against time to catch an invisible killer.
I don't read a lot of science fiction, but I really liked the premise of the book, so I thought I would give it a try. I don't usually do this, but I will give you the pros and cons. On the pros side: it was a fresh and original plot that was very timely, there were a lot of funny parts in the book, and there was a good mystery to it. Cons: it was a complicated plot with a lot of different threads so a bit of a mindbender (at least for me). All in all, it was a very good book, and if you are into science fiction, then I think you should check this one out.

Science fiction doesn’t usually appeal to me. The premise of the book is that time travel has become an elitist from of entertainment with the rich spending mega bucks to travel back to a time that appeals to them. The Paradox is the hotel associated with the time travel terminal. A place the rich stay before or after their voyages. Travel forward isn’t possible, but it seems they are just sorting how to handle the past. There's a group of enforcers that ensure any potential compromise to how events unfold are corrected but it comes at a neurological price. Our main character, January, is one of these enforcers and she knows she’s deteriorating, but something is up and she’s not going to be able to let it go. She’s also still mourning the loss of her love and seeing her where she knows she’s not. What will happen next?

I felt this was truly a page turner especially for someone like me who prefers other genres. Great book, great story, great main character. I couldn’t necessarily get some of the other characters straight but loved how the story had psychological elements to the mystery. Will be following the author.

If you could visit any time in the past, where would you go? When time travel is discovered and commercialized it is as easy as getting on a trip. The trip starts and ends at the Paradox Hotel. Security agent January solves issues such as chasing dinosaurs. But time travel has risks. When things start to go wrong and time is skipping, January needs to find out how to stop it.

I don’t read a lot in this genre but I’m glad I picked up this book. The idea of time travel is interesting and it’s not surprising that things go wrong. There are several sub storylines that kept me hooked. It is definitely a book you will enjoy if you like action books. The book is set in the future but it is completely believable.

Thanks to NetGalley, Random House Pub. Group-Ballantine Books, and Rob Hart for allowing me to read The Paradox Hotel in exchange for an honest review.

Thinking about taking an unforgettable vacation? Then, be sure to check into the Paradox Hotel! Plan your wardrobe accordingly because you need to be prepared for your time-travel adventures. You don’t need to keep track of time, especially since the clocks are often running backwards, and if you feel a chill in the air, you may have just passed a resident ghost! Sound like fun?
When you get there, look for January Cole, head of security. She might be a little busy since a handful of very wealthy visitors have arrived in hopes of being part of a government plan to privatize time-travel. And, by the way, there may be murderers in your midst, but only January can see them. What a fun, thought-provoking book! Have a good time at the Paradox Hotel!

I was absolutely drawn in by a description of a locked room murder mystery at a hotel for time travelers. Unfortunately this one didn’t work for me and I decided to DNF. I wasn’t connecting to the main character and kept finding myself easily distracted by other things. I am still intrigued by the idea of tourist time travel but this one just wasn’t for me. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance reading copy.

This is my first experience with Hart's writing. Time travel books are fun - though this one is a bit chaotic with the main character being "Unstuck" in time because of over-exposure to time travel can cause the mind to fracture a bit - seeing moments of the past and even the possible future. It's the year 2072 and January Cole is the head of security for the titular hotel. The hotel and nearby travel facility are currently run by the US government. An upcoming summit adds stress to Jan's life with the four highest bidders coming to the hotel. Soon, January has dinosaurs on the loose and a dead body that only she can see... While the time travel makes things a bit convoluted, the entire book takes place in the hotel. It's an entertaining read with a fairly large cast. The nonbinary character, Cameo, is handled well here. The book makes some interesting points about wealth. The main advancement in 50 years of technology, though, is really only time travel - well, and some robots. Overall, this is an entertaining read. While it is technically a bit of a locked room mister, the cast size doesn't really give it that feel. It's pretty fun, but the ending feels a bit rushed and a little jumbled. It's a refreshing read, and I think it would make for a good discussion starter for book clubs.

I was so intrigued by the idea and the beginning, but it just sputtered out. Two huge problems. #1 January Cole is shockingly mean all the time. I don't care about her past, no adult should be able to justify this. That she makes friends with her drone assistant eventually is truly too little, too late. #2 The author breaks his own time travel rules so many times. I know that's the point but by the end I literally lost track of who was killing whom (and why I should care). So disappointing.

Full disclosure - this book was offered to me by NetGalley and said it was by the author of The Warehouse. I remembered enjoying reading The Warehouse back in 2018, but it turns out the book I actually enjoyed was called The Store. You can see how I may have gotten those mixed up.

Anyways, this book got more complex, confusing, and unlikeable as it went on. The main character, January, is a former time cop who gets her own timelines mixed up. This serves to be a very unreliable narrator and I found myself getting confused a lot.

Not a whole lot happens in the mystery/sci Fi/thriller realm and it's more of a drama than anything. This one just didn't do it for me, but you may enjoy it more than me.

The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I think this is a case of I must have expected more out of this than I might have, otherwise. I loved the Warehouse and I've been glutting on a stream of great, quirky time travel novels by Jodi Taylor (St. Mary's, Time Police) that deal with institutional absurdities, politics, chaos while giving us a light humorous touch.

The Paradox Hotel is something like that. Selling joy-rides to the past for the rich and powerful, having a badass security-woman suffering from a PTSD-like time-ghost haunting condition, and a hotel as a base of operations with its own mysteries. It reads like harried insider officials and institutional/spook fiction.

Unfortunately for me, it felt a bit disorganized even for the disorganized attempt. Even in the chaos, there's self-consistency and the opportunity for some great humor just screams opportunity, but there were a number of missteps and pacing problems that let those fizzle out until I had to accept that it wasn't meant to be funny at all. And that's okay. But this also slapped this book back down to the level of some much older SF that did have a lot of the same institutional feel and focus -- including the realization that the rich will absolutely destroy us all.

I didn't hate this book, mind you. I just thought that my impression of missed opportunities overwhelmed my outright enjoyment of a book that might have been written fifty or sixty years ago.