Hotel Happiness begins with a life interrupted. Lana has been living with Julien on a farmhouse near Annecy, France. When she discovers he has been unfaithful, she leaves for Amsterdam. It is a decisive move, but a new address is only the beginning of the change.
Her job at Hotel Happiness brings her into a lively circle of coworkers and new acquaintances. The setting offers a contrast to the life she has left behind, along with the possibility of connections she could not have anticipated. The central question is not simply where Lana will live. It is how she will make sense of what has happened and what she wants next.
Lana and Julien: what has been left behind
Julien remains part of the story even after Lana leaves France. Her feelings about him are bound up with their shared life and the hurt that sent her away. Putting distance between two people does not necessarily settle what they mean to each other.
That unfinished emotional business sits alongside older grief. Readers meet Lana at a point when the future has opened up, but the past still has a voice. Her story makes space for the uncertainty of wanting a different life before knowing exactly what that life should look like.
Lenie and Omar: a new circle in Amsterdam
Lenie, a warmhearted woman from the Jordaan, takes Lana under her wing. Her welcome helps make Amsterdam feel like more than an unfamiliar city. She is one of the people through whom a fresh start begins to become a daily life.
Then there is Omar, whose charm makes the future look a little brighter. His arrival brings attraction and new possibility into Lana’s world. To say more about where those possibilities lead would take away the pleasure of finding out in the novel.
About the author and this edition
Floortje Sanders grew up in Amsterdam and worked as an actress and theater director. Hotel Happiness was her fiction debut, published in Dutch in 2022. It was followed by Zomer in Hotel Happiness.
This website presents Amsterdam Hotel Happiness for American readers, using the supplied English cover artwork. News about the English edition will appear on the Edition Updates page. A release date and an English Kindle purchase link have not yet been announced here.
For now, begin with the premise: Lana has left what she knows. A city, a hotel, and the people she meets there may help her imagine what comes next.