Hotel

Joe Forester has left behind a church that wounded him over many years and settled in a small Midwest town. He hopes to open a retreat in a local hotel with a murky history. His curiosity soon shifts to the hotel's past and to the woman who owned it a century ago, whose story has been kept largely out of view.

As Joe digs into the records, old black-and-white photographs seem to take on a life of their own. The novel moves between past and present, each thread feeding the other. Along the way, Karl Forehand examines how religious trauma and life inside a close community can produce personal and social oppression, drawing on the struggles and slow recovery that many people face after faith and institutions have failed them.

The book ultimately turns toward self-love, self-discovery, acceptance, and forgiveness. Its final emphasis is that the most valuable things to find are not hidden in the hotel's walls but within oneself.