Room for Romance - UK & Ireland: The Ultimate Guide to Romantic Hotels [Paperback]

This book was a gift from the boyfriend at Christmas and I have had three fabulous weekends away since . A lifesaver - women, present your men with a copy! Not your typically repetitive guide to rather bland corporate hotels, nor a rather highbrow collection of hotels you'd need to skip holidays abroad to be able to afford.
Room for Romance has something for every pocket, including 'olde worlde' country inns on the riverside from as little as £60 a night. Granted, there's expensive ones too (Blakes at £400!), but the point is there's a good eclectic mix to suit everyone.
They're also a collection of unique, characterful hotels - none of the mass produced chain hotels full of businessmen exploiting their expense accounts!
This is a kind of coffee-table book, but it's actually a useful one that doesn't just sit there looking pretty. The entries are quite short and sweet, so you tend to get drawn into reading the one where the book falls open and then get immersed in comparing it with all the others; all the while fantasizing about spending weekends away at these places. Having said that, they are informative and seem to offer a good, seemingly objective, description of each hotel along with snapshots of their most appealing and quirky features. As close as you'll get to the sort of reports you'd expect from people who've actually stayed at these hotels, rather than being enticed by the marketing jargon that appears in advertisements and most other guides.
All in all a very colourful and informative read, and a must for anyone who is always keeping an eye out for somewhere a little bit special and different to go on a weekend. Book one of these places for a surprise weekend and your other half will never forget it!
By the way, there's a website to give you a flavour ... but it misses out most of the detail and doesn't really give you the full picture of the hotels. I think it's ...[money]... well spent.

Not the sort of book I'd usually buy, but saw it promoted in the Evening Standard last week and thought it might have some good suggestions for Valentine's day. A lifesaver! Not your typically repetitive guide to rather bland corporate hotels, nor a rather highbrow collection of hotels you'd need to skip holidays abroad to be able to afford.
Room for Romance has something for every pocket, including 'olde worlde' country inns on the riverside from as little as £60 a night. Granted, there's expensive ones too (Blakes at £400!), but the point is there's a good eclectic mix to suit everyone.
They're also a collection of unique, characterful hotels - none of the mass produced chain hotels full of businessmen exploiting their expense accounts!
This is a kind of coffee-table book, but it's actually a useful one that doesn't just sit there looking pretty. The entries are quite short and sweet, so you tend to get drawn into reading the one where the book falls open and then get immersed in comparing it with all the others; all the while fantasizing about spending weekends away at these places. Having said that, they are informative and seem to offer a good, seemingly objective, description of each hotel along with snapshots of their most appealing and quirky features. As close as you'll get to the sort of reports you'd expect from people who've actually stayed at these hotels, rather than being enticed by the marketing jargon that appears in advertisements and most other guides.
All in all a very colourful and informative read, and a must for anyone who is always keeping an eye out for somewhere a little bit special and different to go on a weekend. Book one of these places for a surprise weekend and your other half will never forget it!
By the way, there's a website to give you a flavour ... but it misses out most of the detail and doesn't really give you the full picture of the hotels. I think it's ...[money]... well spent.

We bought this book and have stayed at a few of the recommended hotels and yes they are nice. However, we recently stayed at one of the recommended hotels on a break around Devon & Cornwall. We found the hotel to be OK, it was clean & well presented. However the hotel was a very long walk from the centre of the town, it gave the impression that with the sea views the beach was only a few minutes away. This fact was omitted from the description of the hotel in the book. Also the hotel was the most expensive that we stayed in during our trip by far. We were expecting a lot more for the money. Indeed, it was double the cost of another hotel that we stayed in and that other hotel was ten times superior in many ways.
So here you go - don't trust the pretty pictures and write ups - have a look on tripadvisor.co.uk instead!