A dismal, unflattering portrait of the hidden side of British life is contained in the details of Eloise Moss's well-researched The Secret Life of the Hotel: Sex, Crime and Protest in British Guesthouses Since 1981 … An eye-opening publication.

The Independent

Stuffed with entertaining and sometimes hair-raising anecdotes, The Secret Life of the Hotel is a vivid examination of how twentieth-century hotels, big and small, often operated (and still operate) on the transgressive borders of British civil society. Moss demonstrates how establishments that once simply provided a service for travellers became places of reinvention, fantasy and often danger, where conmen, adultery and criminality flourished.

Lucy Lethbridge, Journalist and Author, UK

A truly inclusive history of the exclusions of modern Britain. Weaving together rich stories and voices from the margins, Moss exposes the stratification as well as the empowerment of the hospitality industry, bringing hotels to life with the same vivid personality as their proprietors, workers, and patrons.

Elizabeth Prevost, Professor of History, Grinnell College, USA

This is an engaging and incisive history of the hotel in modern Britain, underpinned by deep research and cutting edge scholarship. In these pages you will find scandals, murders and dramatic human stories aplenty, all of which are used to shed light on the political, social, cultural and economic changes of the last century. Highly recommended.

Adrian Bingham, Professor of Modern British History, University of Sheffield, UK

A vivid and compelling history of hotels as you've never known them. Eloise Moss is at her exquisite best in her latest work, which seamlessly blends engaging storytelling with extensive research, illuminating how hotel life reflects and shapes broader currents in national identity, class, gender, race relations, and globalization. Using individual examples of the characters who helped shape hotels: politicians, chambermaids, adulterers, criminals, architects, dancers and people of colour, Moss brings to life the empty and anonymous hotel room marketed to travelers, and explores the role of hotels as historic sites where power and desire intersect. Beautifully crafted, engagingly written, and conceptually innovative, this book is a delight.

Amy Bell, Professor of History, Huron University College, Canada

Written with customary verve, Eloise Moss's The Secret Life of the Hotel shows us how hotels were central to stories of crime, protest and sexual identity in twentieth-century Britain. Check-in to your room, make a cup of tea and enjoy this engaging social and cultural history of the hotel.

Lizzie Seal, Professor of Criminology, University of Sussex, UK