Hotel Exile

[An] exceptional work of non-fiction – you couldn’t just call it a history book, it’s more than that … Rogoyska captures the historical moment with a rare combination of urgency and empathy … [She] has trawled memoirs from hotel staff and ex-officers, unearthing stories that are peculiarly resonant … This is a scintillatingly good book. I think it will win prizes – not least because it is subtly experimental … It slips in and out of the present tense like a contemporary novel … It feels thrillingly immersive. In fact, I’ve rarely felt such a sense of the historical moment. Or indeed the present moment. Because if ever a book were about now as well as then, it’s this one.

James McConnachie, The Sunday Times

Rogoyska proves such a fresh, astute and unaffected writer that there’s not a dull page, so vividly is the drama of it all communicated… A hauntingly vivid account

Rupert Christiansen, Literary Review

Impressive and original... vivid and thoroughly researched... a masterclass

Patrick Marnham, Spectator

A devastating and ­memorable account of lives thrown into upheaval by Nazism

Irish Independent

Beautifully written ... this is a compelling book full of lessons we may not wish to hear

Country Life

Poignant and richly layered

History of War magazine

Powerful

Mail on Sunday

Riveting – and heartbreaking

The Economist

Transformed from hotel to hospital, the Lutetia... and the dramas it witnessed are brought here to vivid, searing life

The Tablet