Super Host cover art

Super Host

the charming, compulsively readable novel of life, love and loneliness

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Super Host

By: Kate Russo
Narrated by: James Lailey
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About this listen

Being lost in a place you know by heart is one of life's most disconcerting feelings

Bennett Driscoll is a Turner Prize nominated artist who was a Bright Young Thing. Now, aged 55, his wife has left him, the reviews have dried up, and his gallery wants to stop selling his paintings, saying they'll have more value retrospectively...when he's dead. So, left with a large West London home and no income, he moves into his painting studio in the back garden and rents out the house, soon reaching status as a Super Host on AirBed.

At last, the money is coming in, but he's loveless and, well, lonely. Turns out his house guests are as quirky, lost and entertaining as Bennett himself, unwittingly unlocking the parts of Bennett's life that have been forgotten to him for too long, but can they help him feel less lost in the place he knows best?

Wry, rueful and rich in observation, SUPER HOST provides a delicious portrait of middle-age, marriage, and the underlying fears and loneliness that colour so many lives.

(P)2020 Headline Publishing Group Ltd©2020 Kate Russo
Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Marriage Heartfelt

Critic reviews

Exploring identity, creativity and second chances, Russo's midlife drama is wise, tender and surprising
Brimming with...pure affection
Funny, sharp, and artistic...A wonderful book flanked with irony, perversity, Rear Window voyeurism, and women who understand the task of reinvention, Super Host is a case study of what we talk about when we talk about success
In Russo's charming and poignant debut...the author writes with warm sympathy and humour. A treat for fans of Nick Hornby and Tom Perrotta
This is the compulsively readable story of Bennett, a once-famous artist now divorced and impoverished, who lives in his garden studio and spies on his tenants through the windows. Super Host is hilarious, and touching, too; Kate Russo is a terrific storyteller.
I gobbled up Super Host, Kate Russo's smart, funny, and surprising first novel. She writes with such a generous and insightful eye about love, loneliness and artistic ambition, and has redrawn the lines that connect people in fiction through the most modern and unlikely of settings, the home share.
Kate Russo's debut Super Host is pure delight-smart, fun, poignant, and deeply satisfying. I loved it
Super Host isn't just a charming, compulsively readable, romantically suspenseful novel about a lonely man who gets himself emotionally enmeshed with a series of short-term tenants. Kate Russo's wise and funny debut also has a lot to say about the courage it takes to start over in the middle of your life. It's a joy from start to finish.
All stars
Most relevant
I like a book with a happy ending, I’ll be honest. What I loved about this book, it not only could I not predict the end, but I didn’t even know what I wanted the end to be.

The book moves between characters’ perspectives, some more likeable than others, but all of them engaging. I would definitely recommend this read.

Just what I was after...

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I downloaded this book as I needed a light listen while I was pulling apart my wardrobe to make way for a replacement. It was perfect book for the job- entertaining, decent characters, great narration. I think my only complaint is the ending felt a bit rushed and personally I was disappointed that the main character chooses the woman I liked least....and we don’t get to hear how his exhibit turns out! This is the reason I only gave it a 4. But I did enjoy the book and the narrator. Worth the listen for some lighthearted entertainment.

Entertaining

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