The Dream Hotel

* LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2025 *
* A READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK MARCH 2025 *
Sara is at the airport, travelling home from a work conference. Out of nowhere she's pulled aside by agents from the Risk Assessment Administration. Their algorithm has determined that she's an immediate threat to her husband, and must be kept under observation at a retention centre for twenty-one days.
The evidence? Data collected from her dreams.
When she arrives at the centre, she discovers that each deviation from their strict and ever-changing rules - loitering in the hallway, a 'non-compliant hairstyle' - results in her stay being extended. Desperate to return to her family, Sara must make a choice. Does she play by their rules, or risk taking matters into her own hands?

Laila Lalami is the author of five books, including The Moor's Account, which won the American Book Award, Arab American Book Award and Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. It was on the longlist for the Booker Prize and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. Her essays appear regularly in the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Nation, Harper's, Guardian and New York Times. She has been awarded fellowships from the British Council, the Fulbright Program, the Guggenheim Foundation and the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University. She lives in Los Angeles.