The Dream Hotel : Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2025

Sara is returning home from a conference abroad when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside at the airport. Using data from her dreams, their algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming her husband. For his safety, she must be transferred to a retention centre, and kept under observation for twenty-one days.

But as Sara arrives to be monitored alongside other dangerous dreamers, she discovers that with every deviation from the facility's strict and ever-shifting rules, their stays can be extended - and that getting home to her family is going to cost much more than just three weeks of good behaviour...

The Dream Hotel is a gripping speculative mystery about the seductive dangers of the technologies that are supposed to make our lives easier. As terrifying as it is inventive, it explores how well we can ever truly know those around us - even with the most invasive surveillance systems in place.

About the Author

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. Industry Reviews

'A gripping, Kafkaesque foray into an all-too-plausible future' - JENNIFER EGAN

'Extraordinary' - RUMAAN ALAM

'Absolutely unputdownable' - SANDRA NEWMAN