You did it! We figured this one out! It is a truth universally acknowledged (by me for certain) that the Bitchery pretty much knows everything, and really, it's true. Scroll down to see the solution for this HaBO - and many thanks!
This HaBO is from Deepu, who is looking for a book that she and her mother both read:
Hello fellow readers,
I have been a lurker on this website for years, and now need some help. When my mother was visiting me last week, we got to talking about a book that we both read one summer about 15 years ago. I would really like to find it again.
It is a contemporary novel, where the heroine comes back home after having her heartbroken – though the Man she loves reciprocates her feelings, he can’t marry her because his grandfather who is an earl wants him to marry a cousin who is loaded with money which they need to save the estate.
To raise her spirits, the parents decide to go to Portugal. On the ship journey there, both the mom and daughter are bedridden due to sea-sickness while the Dad meets an Old Woman.
Anyway, they get off the ship at Lisbon, and travel to Sintra where they stay in a nice hotel. There, they drop by to meet the Old Woman again who insists that they stay with here. They do, but then they are told that this is her MO – get people to stay with her and at the end of the stay present then with a huge bill. They get out of it when she finds other more lucrative targets, but that turns out to be the Man and his Grandfather.
The lovers get back together, and the grandfather, when he learns that he also has been duped, decides to steal one of the Old Woman’s artifacts so he doesn’t have to pay the bill.
The author makes a big deal about the place, Sintra, and how much better it is than Lisbon. I do hope someone here has also read it, and can tell me the name of the book. My mum and I would love to get our hands on it again.
I can’t imagine that the tricking guests into staying with you and then billing them racket was consistently lucrative, but what do I know? Do you recognize this book? Help a Bitch Out!
“Be My Guest”/Come Be My Guest by Elizabeth Cadell
How odd… It seems Cadell published two versions of this book; her website says “*Note, ‘Be My Guest’ and ‘Come Be My Guest’ start out as the same story, but in the middle of the book the story changes remarkably.” So which is the one where the grandfather steals an artifact?
This is the OP. Yes, that is it. Thank you so much. My mum and I really enjoyed this book, and were racking our brains trying to think of its name and author.
I’m confused. Which book did it turn out to be, please?