The Heartbreak Hotel

✨ The Heartbreak Hotel by Ellen O’Clover ✨ 📖 Synopsis: A bed-and-breakfast for the brokenhearted might just hold the key to a second chance at love. After being dumped and left without a home, Louisa Walsh turns her mountain house into a retreat for the recently heartbroken. But her reclusive landlord, Henry Rhodes — a kind, quietly grieving veterinarian — doesn’t exactly love the idea. As the Comeback Inn fills with guests searching for healing, Lou and Henry find themselves drawn together in ways neither expected. Tender, hopeful, and full of second chances, this story reminds us that sometimes love finds us when we least expect it. 💔✨ — — — My Review: 💗 My Review (4⭐️): The Heartbreak Hotel by Ellen O’Clover immediately piqued my interest when I saw it as a BOTM option, and I quickly snatched it up for my October pick. I’m really glad I did. 🙂 While there were definitely some things that triggered me, overall I found this to be a beautiful, emotionally rich story. The idea of a bed and breakfast for hurting hearts in Estes Park, Colorado, felt both enchanting and magical. I would love to visit a place like this — somewhere safe to grieve, process, and heal — all while surrounded by breathtaking scenery. Truly… it sounds like heaven for tender souls. 😍 The characters wove their way deep into my heart from the very beginning. Their openness, their grief, their hardest truths — all of it felt achingly real in a way that resonated with me. I connected deeply with both Lou and Henry and the pain they each carry. When you’ve held traumatic pain in your own heart — the kind that’s easier to push down and avoid than to face — you recognize it instantly in someone else. Lou, especially, reminded me of something I know all too well: helping others through their pain can feel beautiful and meaningful… but it can also become a way to avoid tending to your own wounds. Her struggle with that felt incredibly true to life. The Comeback Inn itself was the shining light of this story for me. Seeing people gather in one place to grieve, to rest, to be held by community and compassion… there was something sacred and healing about those moments. Those scenes alone pulled this closer to a 4-star read. The romance between Lou and Henry was tender, raw, and at times very moving. I loved watching their connection grow from shared loss. However, I did feel the story spent a bit too much time on the physical longing between them. There are a few intimate, more explicit scenes that weren’t my personal preference — especially because I was drawn more to the emotional healing than the sensual moments. Still, their bond held such sweetness, and I truly enjoyed seeing their hearts unfold toward one another. This story does include crude language, drinking/drunkenness, cheating, and several heavy emotional themes. One of the most important content warnings I want to mention is the discussion of child loss. As a mother who has lost a child myself, those moments pierced me deeply and may be difficult for others with similar trauma. Despite those heavier elements, I’m giving this book a solid 4⭐️. It’s heartfelt, tender, and full of moments that speak directly to broken hearts searching for hope. I can definitely recommend it — especially to my fellow tender hearts — with gentle caution for certain triggers. You know who you are — and you are worthy, loved, and beautiful just as you are. 🫶 A beautiful ending quote: “Because that’s the thing, about hearts— broken or aching or otherwise. They don’t belong to any one time or place. We carry them with us: bruised and scabbed over, healing and changing, always and inherently our own. ‘I love you,’ Henry tells me. And there’s room for that, too. Every broken heart keeps beating, in the end. So will mine. So will his. So will yours.”

The reason this doesn't get a higher rating is that I felt like the story was rushed, especially the romance. I didn't feel that much of a build up to it. 

There are elements I really liked in this book- making boundaries, respecting different grieving styles, finding the right path for yourself, allowing vulnerability with people who give back, not giving up too much of yourself without receiving in return. But I am not sure about the pacing of the love story. Or about how quickly everything wraps up.