Heartbreak Hotel

Finished March 18
Heartbreak Hotel by Deborah Moggach

This amusing novel is in the same style as her previous novel These Foolish Things (read before I started blogging), later made into the popular movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Here we have aging actor Russell "Buffy" Buffery, who is unhappy with the direction his London neighbourhood seems to be going on, taking a chance on the impulse to move to Wales. Why Wales? Well, an old friend of his has died and left him her bed and breakfast house in Knockton, and he decides to try running it himself. He comes up with the idea to  add on a variety of courses to appeal to city folk, as package deals.
Buffy is a fascinating old charmer, who has had three wives (one now dead) and 5 children (by four different women, only two of them his wives). He has decent relationships with all his kids and his stepdaughter, and they all make appearances of some sort here.
Along the way we meet a variety of people all either looking for some sort of change in their life, or who have had change thrust upon them. As various courses attract them to Knockton, they find different sorts of change than they had been looking for, but mostly very satisfactory ones. From postmen to writers, makeup artists to bankers, we meet an interesting group of characters.
A humourous, upbeat novel that will have you laughing out loud, touched, and definitely entertained.