I’ve seen many fans of Maggie Stiefvater express hesitancy after reading the synopsis of her newest book, The Listeners. Not only is it her first book for adults, but the words “historical fiction” are being used in marketing, which doesn’t really “sound” like a Maggie Stiefvater book.
To those fans, I am here to say: FEAR NOT.
The synopsis:
January 1942. The Avallon Hotel & Spa has always offered elegant luxury in the wilds of West Virginia, its mountain sweetwater washing away all of high society’s troubles.
Local girl-turned-general manager June Porter Hudson has guided the Avallon skillfully through the first pangs of war. The Gilfoyles, the hotel’s aristocratic owners, have trained her well. But when the family heir makes a secret deal with the State Department to fill the hotel with captured Axis diplomats, June must persuade her staff—many of whom have sons and husbands heading to the front lines—to offer luxury to Nazis. With a smile.
Meanwhile FBI Agent Tucker Minnick, whose coal tattoo hints at an Appalachian past, presses his ears to the hotel’s walls, listening for the diplomats’ secrets. He has one of his own, which is how he knows that June’s balancing act can have dangerous consequences: the sweetwater beneath the hotel can threaten as well as heal.
June has never met a guest she couldn’t delight, but the diplomats are different. Without firing a single shot, they have brought the war directly to her. As clashing loyalties crack the Avallon’s polished veneer, June must calculate the true cost of luxury.
The Listeners is Maggie Stiefvater, through and through. Everything you have loved about her mastery of atmosphere, strong characters, and mythical overtones is right here, packaged in a compelling, well-researched, though perhaps not well-known place and time in American history.
I had no idea that following Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government gathered foreign diplomats from Germany, Italy, and Japan to detain them at various Appalachian luxury resorts before shipping them back to their respective countries. The Listeners is a story about one such (albeit fictional) hotel, a kind of forced-proximity examination of what that must have looked and felt like for everyone involved. But à la classic Stiefvater, something else is at work in the hotel, as well. Something mythical, elemental. Something reflecting – and possibly influencing – the emotional high stakes of this unique and troubling situation.
The Listeners brings together a cast of characters so distinct and interesting you can’t help but care what happens next, whether that’s wishing them well or harm. I’ve seen one blurb that calls The Listeners cinematic, and the characters are just one of the reasons I would agree – each lifted right off the page for me, and I felt like I could see and hear each of them. The hotel itself – The Avallon – and the sweetwater flowing beneath it, are characters, too, as is the West Virginia mountain setting. Stiefvater’s superpower with writing place and atmosphere is on full display in The Listeners.
I want to give a special nod to the romance in this book, too. It has a slow-burn, spell-bound quality to it, restrained but sexy, with surprisingly electric text like “he wanted to put her words in his mouth.” There is also a maturity to the characters’ discovery of how love, self, and identity are related that feels both tender and powerful.
If there’s one caution I would give, it’s for the reader to be patient as the puzzle pieces of The Listeners come together. As one example, a variation of the phrase “the incident with Sandy” is mentioned several times before you ever learn what happened to Sandy – I kept flipping back to see if I had missed something. There are hints and references like this to several key plot points before their significance is revealed. Just pay attention, let yourself be caught in the book’s enchantment, and it will all make sense.
I’m so excited for fans of Maggie Stiefvater to read – and love – The Listeners. It’s a little like your child seeing their schoolteacher at the supermarket – at first, it feels disorienting to see someone you know so well in a different context. But then suddenly it’s like, “Oh! You come here, too!” I think The Listeners proves that no matter where I find her, I can count on Maggie Stiefvater to produce amazing work and books that become some of my very favorite reads.
*Many thanks to Penguin Random House and Edelweiss for an advanced digital copy of The Listeners for review.
BOOK:30 