The Guests

THE GUESTS

Book Two of The Open Circle Series
By Anthony Zinno Sr.

Some guests check in. Others are never meant to leave.

Connecticut, September 1904.

Overlooking the restless waters of Long Island Sound stands the magnificent Bellamere Hotel, one of New England's most prestigious seaside resorts. For decades, its grand ballroom, elegant dining rooms, luxurious suites, and sweeping verandas have welcomed wealthy travelers seeking an escape from the outside world.

But behind its polished doors and beautiful architecture, the Bellamere holds secrets that no guest was ever meant to discover.

As the summer season draws to a close, assistant manager Thomas Barrett prepares the hotel for the quieter months ahead. Having spent years working his way through the ranks, Thomas knows every corridor, staircase, and hidden passage within the sprawling resort. He is a practical man who believes every mystery has a reasonable explanation.

Until a frightened woman asks him for directions to Room 214.

Thomas watches her enter the room.

Minutes later, a scream echoes through the hotel.

When he rushes upstairs to investigate, the room has vanished.

According to the Bellamere's records, Room 214 has never existed.

And the woman who entered it was never a guest.

Soon, other strange occurrences begin disturbing the hotel's carefully maintained elegance. Guests disappear without explanation. Photographs change. Names vanish from the registration books. Husbands forget their wives, families lose all memory of loved ones, and conversations Thomas remembers clearly are suddenly denied by everyone around him.

Determined to uncover the truth, Thomas begins documenting everything. He records names, collects evidence, and searches the Bellamere's forgotten passages, convinced that someone-or something-is deliberately erasing people from existence.

But the more he investigates, the less he can trust what he sees.

Clocks display impossible times. Mirrors reveal doorways that shouldn't exist. Corridors stretch beyond the hotel's physical boundaries. And a mysterious dark-haired little girl appears throughout the building, seemingly aware of secrets that have remained hidden for generations.

As Thomas's search becomes an obsession, even his own memories begin betraying him.

What begins as an investigation into a missing hotel room soon becomes a terrifying journey through forgotten lives, impossible architecture, and a mystery that reaches far beyond the Connecticut coastline.

Because the Bellamere isn't simply hiding what happened to its guests.

It's hiding what happened to the hotel itself.

And when Thomas finally discovers the truth, he will face a choice more devastating than anything he could have imagined.

Blending the haunting elegance of classic Gothic literature with the suspense and relentless pacing of a modern supernatural thriller, The Guests explores the fragile nature of memory, the depths of human grief, and the dangerous lengths people will go to preserve what they cannot bear to lose.

Every guest has a story.

Some stories have already ended.

The Bellamere Hotel simply refuses to admit it.