Book Review: The Suite Spot (Beck Sisters #2) (ARC)

Author: Trish Doller

Trish Doller’s The Suite Spot is a charming romance novel about taking a chance on a new life and a new love.

Rachel Beck has hit a brick wall. She’s a single mom, still living at home and trying to keep a dying relationship alive. Aside from her daughter, the one bright light in Rachel’s life is her job as the night reservations manager at a luxury hotel in Miami Beach—until the night she is fired for something she didn’t do.

On impulse, Rachel inquires about a management position at a brewery hotel on an island in Lake Erie called Kelleys Island. When she’s offered the job, Rachel packs up her daughter and makes the cross country move.

What she finds on Kelleys Island is Mason, a handsome, moody man who knows everything about brewing beer and nothing about running a hotel. Especially one that’s barely more than foundation and studs. It’s not the job Rachel was looking for, but Mason offers her a chance to help build a hotel—and rebuild her own life—from the ground up. 

The Suite Spot is the sequel/companion novel to Float Plan featuring the other Beck sister, Anna. The story begins with Rachel working as a full-time night manager at a Florida hotel. She balances her job with being a mother to her three-year-old daughter, Maisie. Brian, the father of Maisie, had an on-off relationship with Rachel, but he never fully had his life together when it came to helping to raise Maisie or being a partner to Rachel. When she is falsely accused by a guest, she is fired from her job. She applies to work as a brewery manager on Kelley’s Island in Ohio where she ends up moving with her daughter and leaves Brian behind. As Rachel is not only uprooting her own life, but the life of her daughter, I liked that it was not an easy transition or decision, and it added some nice realism to the story.

When she arrives, she discovers that the resort is still being renovated and not what she expected. She meets Mason Brown, the owner, and the two of them work together to get the hotel ready to open. Mason loves brewing and this hotel is his dream, but it has not been easy after he went through the loss of his daughter and a divorce. Both characters are going through changes in their life after rocky events in their pasts. Each is approaching this point in their life differently, so the characters nicely provided balance to the story as one was more stuck on the past and the other was more eager to move forward. The tension between Rachel and Mason was very well done in a slow-burn manner. The two complimented each other well and had great chemistry. I loved how they brought out the best in each other and their interactions felt very natural.

I loved the setting of this novel as it made me want to take a nice outdoor adventure soon, whether it be camping or a hotel in a gorgeous location. The two characters building the hotel from the ground up and the brewing process were interesting additions as they created great interactions between the characters. While the romance was amazing, I liked that it was not always at the forefront of the story. Each character is going through their own changes and finding ways to open themselves up again. Rachel and Mason helped each other and worked through things on their own. Overall, I loved this story and I cannot wait to read what the author writes next!

**I give a special thank you to Netgalley and the publisher, St. Martin’s Press, St. Martin’s Griffin, for the opportunity to read this entertaining novel. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.**