Heartwood Hotel: Home Again: 04/21/20

Heartwood Hotel: Home Again by Kallie George is the conclusion of the series. Mrs. Prickles is getting married to Mr. Quillson but their festivities at the hotel are cut short by an approaching forest fire. It's best to evacuate before lives are lost. Will the tree be there after the fire?

Before needing to evacuate, Mona meets a mouse from a neighboring hotel who might be her aunt. She certainly knows about Mona's parents in ways that Mona herself can't recall. Mona decides to with the mouse to the Inn Between, figuring she might be family.

Like the previous three books, Home Again is situated on the road narrative spectrum. Taken together the four almost complete a triangle through with the last book being an adjustment or prime to the initial narrative state.

As the focus is once again on Mona's history and the deaths of her parents, she is the novel's orphan traveler (FF). The destination or goal is again home (66) but this time it's not a new home. Home for Mona is the Heartwood Hotel and the only reason she's leaving it is the danger of the forest fire. Her route, though, is what sets this book off from the first book, A True Home (2017)

In the previous three books, Mona travels offroad to get to her destination. In the first book, it's via flood waters and muddy paths. In the second book, it's through the snow. In the third book, it's through the forest.

Now, though, her route back to the Heartwood Hotel is more than an offroad one. Instead, it's through the labyrinth (99). The forest fire, while the driving force for much of the plot, doesn't ultimately pose an immediate threat to her. Other so-called dangers on her path, including a fox, end up not posing a life or death danger. Without blind alleys or other true dangers, the maze like path she takes can only be a labyrinthine one.

All together, the Heartwood Hotel series ends on the tale of an orphan leaving her home and returning to it via the labyrinth to learn about her past and to save her new family (FF6699).

Four stars

Comments (0)