Book Review: ‘Last Summer At The Golden Hotel’ Is A Delighful Novel By Elyssa Friedland

The Golden Hotel has been in business in the Catskills for more than 60 years and has been a destination for many. It’s been owned by two families, the Goldmans and the Weingolds, and generations of both families have grown up there. And today it’s not doing great business and a casino firm has offered to buy the hotel and land. Brian has been running it and is trying to keep up with everything but there’s just not enough business and money. So the families are coming up for a big week of meetings and discussions to decide the fate of the hotel. And it seems every family member has some sort of secret or issue. There’s Michael who is gay but his parents don’t seem to know. There’s Aimee, who’s marred to a doctor and he’s been dealing drugs and now is likely going to jail. As each day goes by secrets and situations arise and these people will either have to come together as a family or be torn apart, as the future of the hotel is decided.

This is one fun, well-written book that at its core is about family. The setting of the Catskills works perfectly here and each character is unique to the story and they all fit in great together. There’s some LOL moments that help break the tension. A fun Spring novel.

You can pick up Last Summer At The Golden Hotel in stores now from Berkley.