Ben Guterson

This book started off great. I was immediately intrigued by the hotel and Elizabeth is spunky and likeable. I can't say I really liked any of the other characters though.

Freddy gets mad at Elizabeth because he thinks she's too bossy, and that just rubbed me the wrong way. If it were a male main character you know he would be described as 'headstrong' or some such nonsense.

Also, Norbridge tells Elizabeth something along the lines of "If someone has 9 out 10 bad things about them, focus on the show more one good thing." WOW. That is the worst advice I have ever heard. Like, just focus on the fact that Hitler liked dogs & children. Forget about that pesky genocide.

Overall, I was disappointed more than anything because I really thought this was going to be at least a 4 star book when I started it. show less

Raised by her unloving Aunt Purdy and Uncle Burlap, who were as stingy as they were unpleasant, orphaned Elizabeth Somers was surprised one Christmas season to be sent away for three weeks to a luxurious mountainside hotel called Winterhouse. Here she made her first real friends, in the form of Freddy, a young boy her own age, as well as Norbridge Falls, the proprietor of Winterhouse, and enjoyed many fun activities, from skiing to jigsaw-puzzle solving. She also soon became involved in a show more mystery involving a long-missing member of the Falls family, a magical book said to contain a powerful message, and a sinister plot against Winterhouse itself...

I've been meaning to pick up Winterhouse for some time now, ever since I saw it compared to one of my recent middle-grade favorites, Greenglass House, and I'm glad that I finally did! It's an enjoyable, atmospheric read, and I can certainly understand the comparison to Milford's books, given the similarities in form (mystery with a fantastic element) and setting (snowbound hotel/inn at Christmas). I found Winterhouse itself an appealing setting - with all of the activities, the natural and man-made beauty, and the marvelous treats, I'd love to visit it myself! - and Elizabeth's story engaging. That said, I didn't find it quite as mysterious as I'd hoped, and unlike Milford's books, I saw all of the big reveals coming from miles off. It was immediately clear to me, for instance, that Elizabeth was Norbridge's long-lost granddaughter, or that the Hiemses were smuggling a body into the hotel, in their coffin-like "crate". Knowing these things ahead of time didn't ruin the story for me, although it did make it somewhat less gripping. My only other criticism would be the rather one-dimensional nature of the main villain, whose motivations are never really explored, but left chiefly as a matter of that person being evil.

Leaving aside these issues, this was still an appealing tale, especially for a debut, and I had no sooner finished it, than I was reaching for the sequel, The Secrets of Winterhouse. Recommended to middle-grade readers who enjoy atmospheric mysteries with a fantastic element to them. show less

Elizabeth Somers returns to her grandfather Norbridge Falls and his magnificent hotel in this sequel to Winterhouse, which is set (much like its predecessor) at Christmas time. Overjoyed to learn that she is now to live at Winterhouse for good, she settles back in to her old routine, spending time with her friend Freddy, who is a fellow anagram aficionado, helping Mr. Wellington and Mr. Rajput with their jigsaw puzzle, and assisting Leona in the fabulous Winterhouse library. She also makes show more some enemies, in the form of the obnoxious Powter family, and some dubious friends, in the form of the sometimes friendly, sometimes off-putting Elana. It isn't long before Elizabeth discovers that there is a new mystery afoot at Winterhouse, involving a series of tunnels and secret passages said to exist in and underneath the massive structure, and she isn't shy about getting involved in solving it. But is she ready to face the enemy that once again threatens to destroy her newly-discovered home and family...?

Although there were many things I enjoyed about The Secrets of Winterhouse - like the first book, Winterhouse itself is a fabulous, fully-realized setting, while Elizabeth's penchant for wordplay and puzzles is once again charming - I also found that there were some elements which were less than pleasing. Guterson often seems to tell, rather than show, when it comes to his characters and their emotions and motivations. Elizabeth's ups and downs, when it comes to her perceptions of Norbridge and how he is treating her, are a case in point. Although her feelings of frustration are natural, in a child her age, somehow the reader never feels convinced that she is actually feeling them. Guterson tells us she is, but fails to evoke any sense of fellow feeling in the reader, through his description. In addition to often feeling at an emotional disconnect from the heroine, I also found the villains here completely one-dimensional, and the conclusion of the mystery unconvincing. It felt like lazy storytelling to bring Gracella Winters back once again, as if Guterson couldn't be bothered to create a different scenario from the first book. I definitely intend to pick up the third book of this trilogy, The Winterhouse Mysteries, which is due out at the end of the year, so at least the story left me wanting more. That said, it is markedly weaker than the first. show less

***ARC provided by the publishers for review.

This was a pretty enjoyable (and easy) book to read, but I think the author was trying to do a bit too much for it to be properly successful. The story is ostensibly about the protagonist (eleven-year old Zack) learning to cope with his grief, but there are a few too many surrounding narratives to distract the reader. Zack and his family have recently moved to Vista Point for a fresh start, after his youngest sister died in a car accident, and are show more spending their summer fixing up an old mansion to establish a bed and breakfast to reinvigorate the rural neighourhood. The setting of the story is very intriguing, since we have a mysterious ancient-seeming rest stop, a forest for Zack and his sibling to explore, and lots of house renovations to complete before the summer ends, and the author does a decent job of building up the motley crew of Zack’s family into well-cast characters, but where things go a bit off the deep end is the introduction of a supernatural storyline. I’m usually all for stories that seamlessly blend fantasy elements into the real world, but I honestly think that the story would have been stronger if the secondary protagonist (Zack’s new friend Ann) didn’t turn out to be a ghost. I guess that was the whole point of the story, but it just didn’t quite work for me. show less