Hotel Queens has been in my digital To-Be-Read pile for a while. It came out in 2020 and, though I was highly enthusiastic about lesbian fiction by that point, I wasn’t yet ready to admit being in love with romance. And even when I fell hard for this genre, to begin with I was mainly interested in Age Gap stories. Lee Winter has written some of my all-time favourites, in particular The Brutal Truth and her On the Record series. But Winter is such a wonderful writer that I became curious about her other work, and when Jade (AKA Sagacious Sapphic) mentioned Hotel Queens had autistic representation, I bumped it to the top of my TBR.
Amelia Duxton is a perfectionist. She uses her first class education in hospitality & management, stellar work ethic, and extraordinary eye for detail to run the European division of her family’s global hotel chain. But though Amelia has the drive and talent, her younger (and straighter) brother is in pole position to inherit – until his latest scandal brings the prestigious Duxton brand into disgrace. As damage control, Amelia’s sent to investigate the mismanagement ruining his flagship hotel in Vegas. If Amelia can clean up her brother’s mess and close the deal on a luxury new hotel, she’s in with a chance of being named heir. But a chance encounter with a confident stranger gets under Amelia’s skin, and she goes undercover as staff.
Kai Fisher is the Closer, a fierce negotiator who can charm anyone. Except for the no-nonsense Ice Queen who sees right through Kai’s strategy for delivering Optimal Interactions to win people over. But Kai doesn’t have time to get hung up on a woman, no matter how impressive. She’s in Vegas to snatch the deal of the decade out from under the Duxton family’s upturned noses. Kai loates their corruption, entitlement, and exploitation of blue-collar employees. But when her Ice Queen turns out to be Amelia – who’s every bit as horrified upon uncovering her family’s abuses of staff – Kai is forced to reassess her blanket hatred of this dynasty.
Hotel Queens is a spectacular read. The kind with the power to transform an entire day of waiting and travelling via public transport into a sheer delight. Instead of wishing myself home or worrying about making each transfer, I was grateful to spend hours immersed in this novel. Lee Winter’s writing is immaculate – sharp, clever, and intensely sexy. Aside from being a top tier romance, Hotel Queens is a whip-smart story about corporate espionage. Nobody constructs a thrilling plot quite like Winter. In both style and substance, this novel is excellent.
Going in, I’ll admit I wasn’t sure the hotel setting and rival businesses could entertain in the same way as the investigative journalism adventures or Olivia Pope style political fixers of Winter’s other novels. But that’s the last time I will ever underestimate her. Hotel Queens has a compelling mystery at its heart, which our heroines can only unravel by joining forces and taking the risk of trusting each other. And – without giving anything away – I spent most of this novel’s second half in awe of Lee Winter’s brain. This plot is next level ingenuity. Yet again Winter has proven herself one of the most innovative writers in sapphic romance.
Plus, Amelia and Kai are quite a couple. Amelia is a consummate Ice Queen – polished, analytical, and infinitely more concerned with facts than feelings. Whereas Kai runs hot, with an explosive temper levelled against those who cross her and a deep-rooted loyalty to those she loves. In fact, this character is so iconic that she’s now recognised as the first of a new archetype in sapphic romance: the Fire Queen. If you’re looking for a definition, nobody has said it better than the brilliant Carrie Byrd on the Strictly Sapphic Podcast:
“The Fire Queen hides her vulnerability behind a blaze. She doesn’t freeze you out; she will burn you up with her words, with her actions. She is a forest fire – she is out of control. With the Fire Queen, the goal isn’t to put her out in the same way that you melt the Ice Queen. The Fire Queen’s journey is about learning to use her fire differently. It’s about learning to use her fire as a source of heat and light rather than as something destructive.”
– Carrie Byrd, Strictly Sapphic, Episode 11 (from 17.32)
Hotel Queens smoulders as an Opposites Attract romance, with our leading ladies’ contrast in temperaments creating steamy hot sexual tension between them as ice and fire meet. The dynamic between Amelia and Kai is hypnotic, their story impossible to put down. They complement one another beautifully on a professional level, too – Amelia opens Kai’s eyes to the bigger picture, providing some much-needed context; and, emboldened by Kai, Amelia finds the confidence to fully claim her power.
With her Fire Queen, Winter set a completely new trend. But to me this book’s autistic representation is just as exciting, if not more so. Amelia has stellar pattern recognition skills, a strong sense of justice, and sees wrongdoing purely in black and white. Amelia also craves order and is meticulously honest – so much that she is initially incapable of guessing at the true extent of other characters’ duplicity, though Winter does leave a trail of breadcrumbs for the discerning reader.
There are some harmful depictions of autistic-coded characters, both in the sapphic romance world and beyond, so it was a joy to read a novel where an autistic woman (as confirmed by the author!) was recognised as desirable, brilliant, and capable. Amelia’s autistic traits are a big part of what make her so spectacular, both at her job and as a protagonist.
I absolutely adored Hotel Queens, and can’t recommend this novel highly enough. It’s an outstanding romance with an absolute juggernaut of a plot. And Winter fully deserves her status in the sapphic canon. With every book she finds new ways to surprise and delight while retaining the whip-smart plots and smouldering sexual chemistry that characterise her work.
Lou Morgan 