Review: DO NOT DISTURB by Tilly Bagshawe *****

"Honor Palmer has always been a fighter. First, for her father's love, approval or even just his attention. When that failed, Honor switched her efforts to saving the family hotel that shares her name. Palmers, a beautiful old jewel of a building nestled on the coast of the Hamptons, used to be the most glamorous destination in the world. Now Honor wants to restore its reputation, its glitz and its guestlist. But there's a new boy in town with a different plan.
Lucas Ruiz is no stranger to struggle. He's worked his way up from the grimy hotel laundries of Ibiza, via Sweden and London, and now as manager of the new hotel on the block, he wants to bring modern boutique-chic to the States. He's got no time for the faded traditions of Palmers - or the ball-breaking girl who's trying to save it.
As Honor and Lucas prepare to go head to head to get the rich and famous checking in, the locals are busy checking out the backstairs gossip. Blackmail, adultery and the dirtiest of dirty tricks are all in a day's work behind the scenes of the five-star facades. Whisking you through the doors of the world's most exclusive hotels, Do Not Disturb is a blockbusting romp that's smart, sexy and more than a little scandalous."

Firstly, I'm not writing a summary for this one because it would take me forever as the book is quite long and there are also sooo many characters and subplots. Namely, this is a proper bonkbuster set in the lives of the filthy rich, featuring two strong characters, both hotel managers, who are mortal enemies at first, but after learning that they've both been destroyed by the same man, they eventually join forces to bring him down.

That would be a very rough summary, but there's a lot more happening in the book. There's adultery, drugs, sex tapes, fighting and all sorts of other scandals. The action in the book is spread over five years and it's a tad bit long, but it was never boring as there is always something going on.

Obviously, this book not a masterpiece, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I thought it was well-written with regards to the genre and there was a lot of witty dialogue (the book really cracked me up several times). Be warned, there's also a lot of swearing so it's not for the faint-hearted, but that's something I persoanlly don't mind in a book at all, I actually think it makes characters more real. Speaking of characters, I found all of them quite well-portrayed in the book; I particularly liked how they were all so driven and passionate and yes, ruthless, but I think their personalities added to the story and made it more exciting - characters like that just can't be boring!

This book is incredibly trashy, but I mean that in the best possible sense of the word, haha! I feel like it shouldn't be a 5/5 as it's so trivial, but on the other hand it was great escapsim and pure fun and I can hardly find any fault with it. I highly recommend this one as the perfect summer read! Ms Bagshawe has written a few other books too and I'm quite excited about reading both Flawless and Adored - just watched a video of the author talking about the latter and she says there's nothing real about it, just fun and escapism, which sounds just perfect to me!

overall rating: 5/5
plot: 4/5 | writing: 5/5 | characters: 5/5 | cover: 5/5