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    Hotel Moscow: A Novel
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    Hotel Moscow: A Novel
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    Hotel Moscow: A Novel
    Ebook448 pages7 hours

    Hotel Moscow: A Novel

    By Talia Carner

    3/5

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    About this ebook

    From the author of Jerusalem Maiden comes a mesmerizing, thought-provoking novel that tells the riveting story of an American woman—the daughter of Holocaust survivors—who travels to Russia shortly after the fall of communism, and finds herself embroiled in a perilous mafia conspiracy that could irrevocably destroy her life.

    Brooke Fielding, a thirty-eight year old New York investment manager and daughter of Jewish Holocaust survivors, finds her life suddenly upended in late September 1993 when her job is unexpectedly put in jeopardy. Brooke accepts an invitation to join a friend on a mission to Moscow to teach entrepreneurial skills to Russian business women, which will also give her a chance to gain expertise in the new, vast emerging Russian market. Though excited by the opportunity to save her job and be one of the first Americans to visit Russia after the fall of communism, she also wonders what awaits her in the country that persecuted her mother just a generation ago.

    Inspired by the women she meets, Brooke becomes committed to helping them investigate the crime that threatens their businesses. But as the uprising of the Russian parliament against President Boris Yeltsin turns Moscow into a volatile war zone, Brooke will find that her involvement comes at a high cost. For in a city where “capitalism” is still a dirty word, where neighbors spy on neighbors and the new economy is in the hands of a few dangerous men, nothing Brooke does goes unnoticed—and a mistake in her past may now compromise her future.

    A moving, poignant, and rich novel, Hotel Moscow is an eye-opening portrait of post-communist Russia and a profound exploration of faith, family, and heritage.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJun 2, 2015
    ISBN9780062388605
    Author

    Talia Carner

    Talia Carner is the former publisher of Savvy Woman magazine and a lecturer at international women’s economic forums. This is her sixth novel.

    Read more from Talia Carner

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    Reviews for Hotel Moscow

    3/5

    31 ratings17 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Not an easy read. Could have been much better. Too much going on and an uneven read.
    • 3/5
      This book is about Brooke Fielding, a thirty-eight year old New York investment manager and the daughter of jewish holocaust survivors find your life suddenly upended in late september of 1993 when her job is unexpectedly put in jeopardy. She accepted an invitation to go to moscow to help women with their business skills and then gets into a world of trouble and it's all a bit much.
    • 2/5
      I think this story had an excellent and heart-pounding start. Immediately, readers are immersed in a world of greed, bribes, rape, bullying, corrupt banks, and mafia hold ups, not to mention dirty police/security. We see the plight of women in Russia in the nineties, right after the fall of communism. It's educational. Enlightening. I had no idea women were dealing with these issues in what one does not consider a third-world country.Women are not being encouraged to work. Anarchy reigns, opening the doors to the mafia. Every cent becomes protection money and even then, your business can be plundered in an instant, as well as your body.It's frightening, really. And it made the book a bit ugly. This is not light reading. I didn't like it though and bailed at the halfway point because I couldn't seem to come to care for the heroine at all. I became tired of hearing about her Holocaust parents and how she grew up in that shadow. Then a romance develops literally out of nowhere and put me off even more. I love a good romance, but it has to feel right, make sense. This one didn't. Not enough build up maybe?This just wasn't for me.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed the storyline and characters in this book. It captured my interest and I finished the entire book in one sitting. Brooke is the main character in the book traveling to Russia just after the fall of communism. Brooke herself is going through upheaval with her job because her company gas just been purchased. She decides to travel to Russia to share her business expertise and is embroiled in a much deeper mystery than she ever anticipated. I found all of the characters to be engaging and frequently found myself outraged at the treatment if the Russian women. It also made me very grateful for having grown up in our society with it's structure and laws. For those who enjoy mysteries and a strong female lead, I definitely recommend this book. Reader received an early readers copy from Library Thing Early Reviewers.
    • 2/5
      This was a difficult book to read, I had to quit after a hundred or so pages. The events only get worse and I read something that made me uncomfortable enough to DNF. It's definitely not something I would recommend to anyone I know. I didn't care for the characters to bother with the story. They seemed more like cardboard stereotypes than people.
    • 4/5
      Hotel Moscow takes place in 1993, shortly after the fall of communism in Russia. The housing is insufficient, food is scarce, unscrupulous bureaucrats deal in corruption and extortion enforced with mafia like gangs. Alcoholism is rampant and the shocking treatment of women is pervasive. Brooke Fielding goes to Moscow with a group of women to teach entrepreneurial skills to Russian business women and finds more she bargained for. The author,Talia Carner,went on just such a mission herself in 1993 and she based her novel on her experiences there. I quote here what she wrote in her author's notes about what she found in Russia. "The Russians still harbored the souls of embittered, subjugated people,a dispirited nation that had known no freedom,privacy or choices. They were unprepared for democracy, freedom of press, personal choices or free market economy. The regime that bloomed after the fall of communism embraced the same mind set as its predecessors, using the former KGB under a new cloak, revering bureaucrats-turned -oligarchs and exploiting brutal tactics to silence criticism and opposition." All of these facts made for a riveting novel. With thanks to LibraryThing for the chance to preview Hotel Moscow
    • 2/5
      I found this book to be a waste of time -- poor character development, lousy plot, and overall poorly written. I did not finish it and will quickly consign the book to my library donation box. There are too many great books out there to waste time on this one.
    • 3/5
      Hotel Moscow by Talia Carner was an enjoyable read. There were parts in the beginning that focused a little too much on business practices which made those sections read like a text book. Luckily those were few and far between. I agree that having some background information on the subject adds value to the character showing her expertise on the subject, but too much can make a reader lose interest. Overall, the story was entertaining.
    • 4/5
      Brooke Fielding opts to use her accumulated vacation days on a trip to Russia, intent to help in a women’s mission “to help Russian women vault over decades of stagnation” with a friend, already active. It is nary under 2 years since communism relinquished it’s steadfast hold. Or so it’s said.Arriving in the airport, it is one instance of. Control. After another until she points out the document bearing the name of her host, a man of obvious influence, as she is instantly treated with dignity and subservience.. along with worry over their initial attempts to intimidate. Finally meeting up with her welcome party, her “vacation” beginsNot the best start to a new year. What horrid conditions, aside from the bleary coldness. Russia is no longer communist and is now ganstah heaven. Mafia, rogue ruffians, corrupt officials..and then there's those just trying to get ahead. Female? As if. A clutch of successful American women travel to Moscow to help upstart businesses succeed, or at least get started on a better footing. But if protection is not bought, (or even if it is) there are obstacles far too depressing to to attempt. Sure gives credence to the old saying "I used to cry cuz I had no shoes until I saw a man who had no feet." Shoeless and freezing, straped and hungry... Russia.
    • 3/5
      Talia Carner, like her heroine Brooke Fielding, traveled to Moscow in the early days of that city’s emergence from decades of communism. She apparently went with the intention of training Russian entrepreneurial women in basic business practices, also as in Hotel Moscow. I hope like crazy she didn’t face all the same threats from Russian men, the Russian Parliament, and chauvinistic Russian attitudes as her heroine. For these threats and grave dangers fill Hotel Moscow from beginning to end. Brooke is detained for no reason at Sheremetyevo airport when she first arrives; she is injured when Russian mafia thugs destroy a small clothing factory; and she suffers further injury in the artillery exchange when Parliament rises up against Boris Yeltsin.These bruising episodes stand in for the systemic bias against women, and especially against Jewish women, in Russia as it struggled to shake off decades of government by paranoia. Ms. Carner does an exceptional job of bringing these prejudices clearly into focus - that’s one chief accomplishment of this book. The author attempts an inward journey for her main character; she pulls this off with less success. She shows her heroine looking at herself unblinkingly, and finally comes to own and acknowledge past misjudgments and mistakes. Perhaps there was too much going on in Brooke’s life, as in our experience while reading of the confusing, threatening whirlwind of her visit. This inward dialog falls short - we want a deeper, less stereotypical Brooke.Be warned though: women suffer rape and other tortures in this book. Ms. Carner has chosen not to spare us these details, and they serve her fiction - they are not gratuitous scenes at all. I admire her all-encompassing recitations of these evils.Overall the book left me glad to be done. I tired of Brooke and her disjointed visit, honestly. Scenes that I thought would climax in some heart-pounding suspense just petered out. The result was uneven. I applaud the clarity and comprehensive storytelling the author employs to describe the range of abuse heaped on women by Russian men, but not the unreliable structure supporting it.
    • 3/5
      *I received this book through LibraryThing Early Reviewers.*An interesting tale of an American businesswoman who joins a group of women traveling to Russia to aid Russian women starting their own businesses in the wake of the collapsed Soviet Union. While the communism had fallen, corruption, violence, and civil upheaval remained prominent and threatened American visitors as much as Russian citizens. A very interesting picture of post-Soviet Russia, that hinted at the struggles involved in transforming a command economy into a demand economy, and an inspiring message.
    • 3/5
      As someone whose traveled to Russia, studied Russian history, and read a multitude of books on the country, I still managed to learn a lot! My studies generally ended around the fall of communism, so I was generally aware of the corruption that seeped into the country afterwards, but I had no idea the extent of it, and especially aimed at women! This novel explores what life was like for young entrepreneurial women (and women in general) in post communist Russia. It was no cakewalk as American financial advisor, Brooke Fielding, finds out first hand. Brooke has identity and personal issues of her own, and helping these Russian women just may help her solve those problems and help others in the process. Eye opening and intriguing!
    • 2/5
      This book was difficult to finish. The characters were shallowly drawn and stereotypical, making them difficult to sympathize with. The plot dragged, there were gratuitous sex and masturbation scenes and it was just an all-around poor read. Not recommended.
    • 5/5
      This book is great and could not put it down.
    • 2/5
      Since this book is based on the author's experiences in Russia during the events depicted in the novel, this should have been a compelling read. Instead, what I found was a disjointed, poorly written book totally lacking in character development.Brooke Fielding is a 38-year-old investment manager in New York and the daughter of Russian Holocaust survivors who harbors not one, but two BIG SECRETS. When her firm is being taken over by another, she is told to take vacation and not come into the office so the acquiring firm's bankers can do due diligence on the purchase. To fill her empty hours, she volunteers to go to Russia to teach entrepreneurial skills to Russian businesswomen & also, while she's at it, add some stellar points to her resume.The group, seemingly composed of one clueless woman after another embarks on their journey without any briefings on the current political situation in the country, no Russian speaking members or any idea of the local culture. Naturally disaster ensues almost immediately and things go from bad to worse over the seven days they're in the country. The leader of the group is some kind of starry-eyed New Age thinker who thinks burning scented candles will solve all their problems and another vulgar member of the group seems more interested in making sexual /liaisons than in helping the Russian women. Our heroine, Brooke, seems to be reckless in the extreme and totally in the dark as to how she is endangering the very people she has come to help.The heavies in this story are stereotypical caricatures who are almost laughably unbelievable. And, of course, there is a "love interest" of sorts who is also a cartoon character. As the reviewer in the Philadelphia Jewish Voice wrote in her review of this book, it "ill serves the thousands of courageous Eastern European and Western women who serve in, and benefit from, the support of NGO’s—-non-governmental organizations bringing aid, training and spiritual support to post-Soviet states. It was disturbing to see the very well-portrayed narcissism of the main character attributed as an issue among children of Holocaust survivors." If I hadn't received this book as part of the Early Reviewer program, I would have quit reading it after the first 50 pages. This book is a mess.
    • 5/5
      This is one of those rare books that I wanted to rush through because it had me so totally engrossed in the story. I felt the fear and intensity as unbelievable incidents were described. But once I reached the last few pages I found myself slowing down. On one hand I wanted to quickly read those pages to find out what would happen. But on the other hand I did not want the story to end.Brooke Fielding, an ambitious young investment manager, accepts an invitation to travel to Moscow as part of a team to teach entrepreneurial skills to the Russian women. While eager to share of herself with the women she is also apprehensive. Her parents were born in Russia and escaped from the pogroms against the Jews. Her mother was the only survivor from her family as the others died in a concentration camp. Her father’s first wife and three children were killed. Thus, Brooke has grown up hearing of the anti-Semitism in Russia. The story begins in 1993 just weeks after the fall of Communism. Left as a country with no laws, the Duma is busy making up laws as they go. However Yeltsin is frustrated and impatient with them and fires them. As the members of their Duma are democratically elected, Yeltsin did not have the authority to fire them. Thus, a stand-off develops between the members of the Duma and Yeltsin as he calls in the Army to remove the Duma. The entire team encounters MAJOR culture shock. As Communist control ended, theft and gangs quickly filled the void. “Connections” and bribes were required for the simplest of services. Corruption has taken over. Time after time, the Russians are impressed by how white the Americans’ teeth are. Many of them have rotted teeth but proudly support one gold tooth as it shows they can afford it. People stand in line for hours, sometimes days, for food, gasoline, money from the banks. The descriptions of the living conditions of most Russians were shocking. The photos of “communal apartments” in the back of the book were definitely eye-opening.Svetlana is assigned as the group’s translator. She knows several languages and would have been translator for the Foreign Minister. However, she was labeled as having “loose morals” after being gang-raped. Dr. Olga Rozanova, a sociologist from the Institute for Social Research, is ashamed that the Americans are so poorly treated in her homeland. Brooke forms friendships with these women, but can the friendships survive the anti-Semitism of the culture? And how can she teach Western capitalism to a people who are afraid to even trust their neighbors? There is a good sampling of the male characters. There are primarily four Russian male characters and they are very different from each other.Brooke’s early family history is revealed slowly, like layers of an onion being peeled away, layer by layer. Being in Russia makes her face parts of her past that she had been running from her entire life. There is a possible love interest for her but she is very distrustful of men. Her past relationships are also slowly revealed making it understandable why she is so distrustful of men. Brooke carries secrets that she is afraid of revealing. One of the secrets could cost her her job. She also struggles with the question of “What does it mean to be Jewish?” Should she hide her Jewish identity in this land that is rampantly anti-semitic?Ms. Carner visited Russia in 1993 and experienced some of the events told in the book. Her descriptions made me think of several social issues. Is this the way all oppressed societies behave once they get that first taste of freedom? I was amazed at the pride the Russian people still exhibited toward their country, no matter how corrupt it had become. Yet underneath it all, people are people, proving that compassion and trust still exist in the most lawless of societies. I also looked at my own Jewishness, just as Brooke was forced to look at hers. In spite of the corruptness, this was a beautiful story. I look forward to reading her other three books.
    • 3/5
      Interesting - as far as coverage of political turmoil at that moment of Russian history(1993), but too simplistic as far as writing...