Some places are built, while others are dreamed into existence. When we first began shaping the Hazelnut Inn, architecture and story often found themselves occupying the same space. The North Star Suite — with its deep colours, private corners, and a ceiling that opens onto a sky of its own — was influenced by many of the fantasy worlds I’ve explored through the years.

I’ve always loved reading, and I’m particularly fond of Naomi Novik’s work. Her fierce, deeply empathetic characters and richly imagined worlds have stayed with me long after the final page.

If you are packing your bags for a stay beneath our stars, here are two of her books I’d recommend for the North Star Suite.

A Deadly Education

The North Star Suite, with its midnight tones and quiet private spaces, has a certain darkness that makes Novik’s A Deadly Education an easy companion.

The novel takes place in the Scholomance, a school that is actively trying to eat its students. Its enclosed, perilous world offers an interesting contrast to the quiet of the North Star. The room provides the sanctuary; the book provides the danger.

His Majesty’s Dragon

For something altogether different, I’d consider His Majesty’s Dragon.

The story trades the claustrophobic danger of the Scholomance for historical adventure and open skies. Captain Laurence and his dragon, Temeraire, feel like they belong beneath the suite’s sweeping celestial ceiling.

Perhaps the best books to bring with you are the ones that make the room around you feel a little different by the time you reach the final page.

There is a distinct magic reserved for the edges of the world. It belongs to salt-sprayed horizons and the belief that the stars were put in place to guide you home.

If your partner is a romantic who keeps a treasure map tucked inside their daydreams, chart a course for the North Star Suite — a proposal destination that is equal parts grand expedition and intimate sanctuary.

Send a Message in a Bottle

Great love stories deserve to be written on parchment that crinkles under your fingers. Before you pack your bags, secure your materials: a sheet of fine paper, a length of twine, and a vintage glass bottle.

Draft a handwritten letter detailing your shared voyage. Chart your major milestones — from the first week you navigated life together, to the exact moment you realized your compass always points back to them.

Roll the letter tightly, tie it with weathered twine, slip it inside the bottle, and pack it safely in your luggage.

Leave your creation on the suite’s antique coffee table for them to discover. Once your partner uncorks the bottle and reads your words, they will find the final guiding instruction you’ve written at the bottom of the scroll: "To set your course, consult the stars.”

Navigate by Starlight

When your partner finishes reading, point to the celestial map painted on the ceiling above. Remind them that for thousands of years, sailors and dreamers have looked to the night sky to find their bearings.

Tell them that your heart has steered you toward them — and that they are your true North Star.

In this quiet moment, ask them to sail with you forever, through stormy seas and over calm horizons.

A New Chapter Begins

This moment marks the end of your separate paths and the launch of your life together. The world outside may be unpredictable, but you are one another’s safe harbour.

The Captain’s Keepsake

Take the message in the bottle home with you. Display it on your mantelpiece as a permanent reminder of the night your courses aligned forever.

Some foundations are laid in myth rather than mortar. If your heart beats to the rhythm of a distant tide, you will eventually find your way to the North Star.

There, the weathered hull of the Avellana pierces the stone tower like an salt-bitten thorn. The ship still vibrates with the pulse of Temperance Longbottom, a woman so resolute that sea parted to let her pass.

As a child, Temperance possessed a green thumb so potent that yarrow bloomed at the sound of her laughter. But the valley grew too small for a heart that beat in time with the tides. She traded her garden for the salt-sprayed deck of the Avellana, a vessel navigated by the scent of destiny rather than the stars. As Captain, she became a legend in the indigo mists — a woman who once routed a pirate fleet not with a cannonade, but with a gaze so steady it calmed the sea.

From those villains, she reclaimed wonders that defied reason: coins that sang in ancient tongues and limestone giants who wept the brine of forgotten oceans. Temperance could feel the thrumming magic within these relics, yet she could never wield it. Haunted by the beauty she could not wake, she spent her twilight years on a feverish odyssey to return every artifact to its rightful shore, chasing the mirage of Atlantis until the horizon finally claimed her.

Temperance vanished into the deep, but her ship refused to sink. Carried by a final, impossible wind, the Avellana took to the sky, sailing over mountains to embed itself forever into the walls of her childhood home.

If you feel your heart beating in time with a tide you cannot see, come to the North Star. The stone giants still sleep in the garden, dreaming of the deep, and the Avellana sits waiting for a new soul to take the wheel.