Hotel Portofino: NOW A MAJOR ITV DRAMA

I took note of the PBS series and was pleased to see it was based on a novel. As a reader, I purchased the book. It’s a good read and I liked some of the characters but it just sort of trails off like the author ran out of paper. There’s an unhappy marriage and an unhappy engagement, a petty blackmailer, stolen art and major fraud. Not one of these storylines is resolved. Maybe there is a sequel coming. I hope so because this book does not stand alone

I absolutely adored Hotel Portofino. But then I also adore Downton Abbey. Concentrating on the book, the reader will find a thin plot but a character-driven story full of a wonderfully complex cross-section of people.Bella Ainsworth, daughter of a wealthy British industrialist, is the central character as owner and proprietress of the Hotel Portofino. After the Great War, she convinced her husband that their entire family needed a fresh start and what better place than where they’d once honeymooned – Portofino, Italy. The hotel has just opened and there are the usual things that go wrong. But beyond that are the guests and staff of the hotel. Lady Latchmere and her great niece (what secret is the Lady hiding?); Julia Drummond-Ward and her niece Rose (Julia is the ex-lover of Cecil, Bella’s husband; Rose is the pawn that almost reunites the Ainsworths and the Drummond-Wards); Count Albani and his nephew Roberto (who give the storyline local flavor); Lucian Ainsworth (returned from the Great War with PTSD, son of Bella and Cecil); Alice Mays-Smith (widowed daughter of Bella and Cecil) and her young daughter Lottie; Jack Turner and Claudine Pascal (American mogul and his mistress); Plum and Lizzie (international tennis star and his wife); Constance (the young British nanny who harbors a secret of her own); Betty and Billy (the cook and her teenaged son both from Britain); and a host of other minor characters.Set in the spectacularly beautiful town of Portofino, the reader will become acquainted with this international blend of characters – some you’ll love, some you’ll hate, and some you’ll pity. Each characters is designed to bring out a different emotion for the reader. And throughout the story each character evolves in unforeseen ways.Many reviewers have said they didn’t care for the ending of the story, feeling it was rather abrupt. Yet I enjoyed the denouement for what it was – a beginning of chapter two in what I hope will be the Hotel Portofino saga. This book is intended, I believe, as more of a commentary on the foibles of humankind rather than a story with a defined outcome. We are left to imagine for ourselves what happens in the future to each of the characters. And with luck, we’ll find out one day.Happily, Hotel Portofino will be a PBS series sometime later this years – 2022. I look forward to watching it with high expectations.

This is a brilliant yarn and I, as a somewhat reluctant reader with poor concentration, could not put it down. The characters are well written and their individual stories are fascinating but the plot and sub plots keep you reading to the end.

Great read

As we traveled through the French and Italian riverias, this was a great book to be reading. I felt like I was living the book as I traveled through places named in the book. Can’t wait for the series now!!