Synopses & Reviews
From Paris in the 1920s to London after the Blitz, two women find that a secret from their past reverberates through years of joy and sorrow....
As recovery from World War II begins, expat American Nora Tours travels from her home in southern France to London in search of her missing sixteen-year-old daughter. There, she unexpectedly meets up with an old acquaintance, famous model-turned-photographer Lee Miller. Neither has emerged from the war unscathed. Nora is racked with the fear that her efforts to survive under the Vichy regime may have cost her daughters life. Lee suffers from what she witnessed as a war correspondent photographing the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps.
Nora and Lee knew each other in the heady days of late 1920s Paris, when Nora was giddy with love for her childhood sweetheart, Lee became the celebrated mistress of the artist Man Ray, and Lees magnetic beauty drew them all into the glamorous lives of famous artists and their wealthy patrons. But Lee fails to realize that her friendship with Nora is even older, that it goes back to their days as children in Poughkeepsie, New York, when a devastating trauma marked Lee forever. Will Noras reunion with Lee give them a chance to forgive past betrayals
and break years of silence to forge a meaningful connection as women who have shared the best and the worst that life can offer?
A novel of freedom and frailty, desire and daring, The Beautiful American portrays the extraordinary relationship between two passionate, unconventional women.
Readers Guide Included
Review
"You'll love this robust, tender story of love, grief, and survival on Key West in the 1930s...Addictive."—Jenna Blum,
New York Times bestselling author of
Those Who Save Us and
The Stormchasers "Robuck's breathtaking alchemy is to put us inside the world of Hemingway and his wife Pauline." —Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You
"Richly realized...Readers will delight in the complex relationships and vivid setting."—Publishers Weekly
"I fell in love with Robuck's Hemingway and with the fiery Mariella Bennet, but what I loved most was the novel's message: that we can inspire each other to be better human beings." —Ann Napolitano, author of A Good Hard Look
"Evokes a setting of the greatest fascination...This is assured and richly enjoyable storytelling." —Margaret Leroy, author of The Soldier's Wife
"Brings to vivid life the captivating and volatile world of a literary legend." —Kristina McMorris, author of Letters From Home and Bridge of Scarlet Leaves
"An inspiring story of heartache and renewal. Readers will be sure to enjoy this ode to a literary icon." —Sarah McCoy, bestselling author of The Baker's Daughter
"Colorful, atmospheric, and a pleasure to plunge into." —Joseph Wallace, author of Diamond Ruby
Review
Praise for Call Me Zelda “In this richly imagined story, Erika Robuck has captured the creative brilliance and madness of Zelda Fitzgerald…an unsettling yet tender portrayal of two women inextricably bound by hope and tragedy.”
—Beth Hoffman,
New York Times bestselling author of
Saving CeeCee Honeycutt “[A] haunting and beautifully atmospheric novel…brilliantly brings Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald to life in all their doomed beauty, with compelling and unforgettable results.”—Alex George, author of
A Good American “A Jamesian sense of the uncanny haunts Erika Robuck's poignant, compassionate portrait of Zelda Fitzgerald's desperate dance with mental illness… mesmerizing, page-turning, and provides us with a fresh, very human look at two literary icons.”—Maryanne O'Hara, author of
Cascade Praise for Hemingway’s Girl
“You’ll love this robust, tender story of love, grief, and survival on Key West in the 1930s…addictive.”—New York Times Bestselling Author Jenna Blum “Fans of Paula McLain’s The Paris Wife will adore Erika Robuck’s spellbinding tale…an irresistible, exhilarating story of love and adventure.” —Dawn Tripp, Bestselling Author of Game of Secrets “Dazzlingly written and impossibly moving, this novel is a supernova.” —Caroline Leavitt, New York Times Bestselling Author of Pictures of You “Brings Key West to life.…Readers will delight in the complex relationships and vivid setting.”—Publishers Weekly “Evokes a setting of the greatest fascination.…This is assured and richly enjoyable storytelling.”—Margaret Leroy, Author of The Soldier’s Wife “Imagines the powerful and resilient women behind the mythical man. An inspiring story of heartache and renewal.”—Sarah McCoy, Author of The Baker’s Daughter “I couldn’t put it down. I fell in love with Robuck’s Hemingway and with the fiery Mariella Bennet.”—Ann Napolitano, Author of A Good Hard Look “Brings to vivid life the captivating and volatile world of a literary legend.” —Kristina McMorris, Author of Letters from Home and Bridge of Scarlet Leaves
Review
"Dollface is as intoxicating as the forbidden liquor at the heart of it. Rosens Chicago gangsters are vividly rendered, and the gun molls stir up at least as much trouble as their infamous men. Fans of Boardwalk Empire will love Dollface. I know I did."—Sara Gruen, New York Times bestselling author of Water For Elephants
Review
“Vivid and passionate.” —Susan Spann, author of
Claws of the Cat
“Heather Webbs epic novel captivates from its opening in a turbulent plantation society in the Caribbean, to the dramatic rise of one of Frances most fascinating women: Josephine Bonaparte. Perfectly balancing history and story, character and setting, detail and pathos, Becoming Josephine marks a debut as bewitching as its protagonist." -Erika Robuck, author of Hemingway's Girl
“With vivid characters and rich historical detail, Heather Webb has portrayed in Josephine a true heroine of great heart, admirable strength, and inspiring courage whose quest is that of women everywhere: to find, and claim, oneself.” --Sherry Jones, bestselling author of The Jewel of the Medina
“A fast-paced, riveting journey, Becoming Josephine captures the volatile mood of one of the most intense periods of history—libertine France, Caribbean slave revolts, the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars—from the point of a view of one of its key witnesses, Josephine Bonaparte.” -Dana Gynther, author of Crossing on the Paris
"Vivid and passionate, Becoming Josephine captures the fiery spirit of the woman who stole Napoleons heart and enchanted an empire. -Susan Spann, author of The Shinobi Mysteries
“Spellbinding . . . Heather Webbs novel takes us behind the mask of the Josephine we thought we knew.” -Christy English, author of How to Tame a Willful Wife and To Be Queen
“Enchanting prose takes the reader on an unforgettable journey . . . Captivating young Rose springs from the lush beauty of her family's sugar plantation in Martinique to shine in the eighteenth century elegance of Parisian salon society. When France is torn by revolution, not even the blood-bathed terror of imprisonment can break her spirit.” -Marci Jefferson, author of The Duchess of Richmond (Thomas Dunne Books, 2014)
Review
Praise for Fallen Beauty
“Robuck's winning mix of imaginative storytelling and historical research makes for a gripping tale. Fallen Beauty is a must-read for fans of the fascinating poet Edna St. Vincent Millay.”—J. Courtney Sullivan, New York Times bestselling author of Maine
“Erika Robuck brings the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay to life in all her beauty and insatiability. This is an electrifying read, one that crackles with passion on every page. The book reads like poetry.”—Alyson Richman, national bestselling author of The Lost Wife
“This finely tuned, lyrical novel is Robuck's strongest work to date, and destined to become an American classic.”—Simon Van Booy, award-winning author of The Illusion of Separateness
Praise for Call Me Zelda
“This gem of a novel spins a different, touching story.…You will love it, as I absolutely did.”—Tatiana de Rosnay, New York Times Bestselling Author of Sarahs Key
“Richly imagined…an unsettling yet tender portrayal of two women inextricably bound by hope and tragedy.”—Beth Hoffman, New York Times Bestselling Author of Looking for You
“Haunting and beautifully atmospheric…brilliantly brings Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald to life in all their doomed beauty, with compelling and unforgettable results.”—Alex George, Author of A Good American
Praise for Hemingways Girl
“Youll love this robust, tender story of love, grief, and survival on Key West in the 1930s…addictive.”—Jenna Blum, New York Times Bestselling Author of Those Who Save Us
“Readers will delight in the complex relationships and vivid setting.”—Publishers Weekly
“Evokes a setting of the greatest fascination...This is assured and richly enjoyable storytelling.”—Margaret Leroy, Author of The Soldiers Wife
"Robuck's breathtaking alchemy is to put us inside the world of Hemingway and his wife Pauline, and add a bold young woman to the mix with a story uniquely her own. Dazzlingly written and impossibly moving, this novel is a supernova."—Caroline Leavitt, New York Times Bestselling Author of Pictures of You
Review
Praise for The House of Hawthorne "Bring[s] the brooding author and the idealistic artist brilliantly to life."—Amy Belding Brown, author of Flight of the Sparrow
Praise for Fallen Beauty
“Erika Robuck brings the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay to life in all her beauty and insatiability. This is an electrifying read, one that crackles with passion on every page.”—Alyson Richman, National Bestselling author of The Lost Wife
Praise for Call Me Zelda
“This gem of a novel spins a different, touching story.…You will love it, as I absolutely did.”—Tatiana de Rosnay, New York Times Bestselling Author of Sarahs Key
Praise for Hemingways Girl
“Youll love this robust, tender story of love, grief, and survival on Key West in the 1930s…addictive.”—Jenna Blum, New York Times Bestselling Author of Those Who Save Us
Review
Praise for Erika Robuck's Novels "Bring[s] the brooding author and the idealistic artist brilliantly to life."—Amy Belding Brown, author of Flight of the Sparrow, on THE HOUSE OF HAWTHORNE
“This gem of a novel spins a different, touching story.…You will love it, as I absolutely did.”—Tatiana de Rosnay, New York Times Bestselling Author of Sarahs Key, on CALL ME ZELDA
Review
Praise for The Beautiful American
"Mackins ability to re-create history and to create believable characters and situations makes her new work a transfixing story that is hard to put down. Sure to be loved by fans of Mackin and of the historical novel; very highly recommended."--Library Journal
“Readers will rank [it] right up there with The Paris Wife…. A brilliant, beautifully written literary masterpiece…”--New York Times bestselling author Sandra Dallas
“Will transport you to expat Paris… and from there take you on a journey through the complexities of a friendship…breathes new life into such luminaries as Man Ray, Picasso, and, of course, the titular character, Lee Miller, while at the same time offering up a wonderfully human and sympathetic protagonist in Nora Tours.”--Suzanne Rindell, author of The Other Typist
“Leaves its essence of love, loss, regret, and hope long after the novel concludes."--Erika Robuck, author of Fallen Beauty
“Achingly beautiful and utterly mesmerizing… Sure to appeal to fans of Paula McLain's The Paris Wife and Erika Robuck's Call Me Zelda, or indeed to anyone with a taste for impeccably researched and beautifully written historical fiction.”-- Jennifer Robson, author of Somewhere in France
“An engaging and unforgettable novel. I couldnt put it down.”--Renee Rosen, author of Dollface
"An exquisitely imagined and beautifully rendered story of the talented, tragic, gorgeous Lee Miller."--Becky E. Conekin, author of Lee Miller in Fashion
“Beautiful…A fascinating account of a little-known woman who was determined to play by her own rules.”--Historical Novel Society
“Lovers of the film A Midnight in Paris will definitely enjoy this.”--Chick Lit Plus
“[An] exquisitely depicted story of love, betrayal, forgiveness.”--Crystal Book Reviews
“An engrossing novel…Compulsively readable.”--BookNAround
Review
“Erika Robuck resurrects the shadowy figure of Sophia Hawthorne, wife of the novelist, Nathaniel, and their intense love and commitment to each other during a life of creative inspiration, sacrifice, and loss.”—C.W. Gortner, author of
Mademoiselle Chanel
"Robuck's sure storytelling brings accomplished artist Sophia Peabody into the light and into your heart. Luminous, vivid, enchanting."—Lynn Cullen, bestselling author of Mrs. Poe
"Bring[s] the brooding author and the idealistic artist brilliantly to life."—Amy Belding Brown, author of Flight of the Sparrow
Synopsis
She remembered when Hemingway had planted a banyan tree at his house and told her its parasitic roots were like human desire. At the time she d thought it romantic. She hadn t understood his warning. In Depression-era Key West, Mariella Bennet, the daughter of an American fisherman and a Cuban woman, knows hunger. Her struggle to support her family following her father s death leads her to a bar and bordello, where she bets on a risky boxing match...and attracts the interest of two men: world-famous writer, Ernest Hemingway, and Gavin Murray, one of the WWI veterans who are laboring to build the Overseas Highway.
When Mariella is hired as a maid by Hemingway s second wife, Pauline, she enters a rarified world of lavish, celebrity-filled dinner parties and elaborate off-island excursions. As she becomes caught up in the tensions and excesses of the Hemingway household, the attentions of the larger-than-life writer become a dangerous temptation...even as straightforward Gavin Murray draws her back to what matters most. Will she cross an invisible line with the volatile Hemingway, or find a way to claim her own dreams? As a massive hurricane bears down on Key West, Mariella faces some harsh truths...and the possibility of losing everything she loves.
"
Synopsis
From the bestselling author of The House of Hawthorne comes a historical fiction novel that gives life to the women behind novelist Ernest Hemingway in a "robust, tender story of love, grief, and survival on Key West in the 1930s."* In Depression-era Key West, Mariella Bennet, the daughter of an American fisherman and a Cuban woman, knows hunger. Her struggle to support her family following her father's death leads her to a bar and bordello, where she bets on a risky boxing match...and attracts the interest of two men: world-famous writer, Ernest Hemingway, and Gavin Murray, one of the WWI veterans who are laboring to build the Overseas Highway.
When Mariella is hired as a maid by Hemingway's second wife, Pauline, she enters a rarified world of lavish, celebrity-filled dinner parties and elaborate off-island excursions. As she becomes caught up in the tensions and excesses of the Hemingway household, the attentions of the larger-than-life writer become a dangerous temptation...even as straightforward Gavin Murray draws her back to what matters most. Will she cross an invisible line with the volatile Hemingway, or find a way to claim her own dreams? As a massive hurricane bears down on Key West, Mariella faces some harsh truths...and the possibility of losing everything she loves.
Synopsis
“She remembered when Hemingway had planted a banyan tree at his house and told her its parasitic roots were like human desire. At the time she’d thought it romantic. She hadn’t understood his warning.” In Depression-era Key West, Mariella Bennet, the daughter of an American fisherman and a Cuban woman, knows hunger. Her struggle to support her family following her father’s death leads her to a bar and bordello, where she bets on a risky boxing match...and attracts the interest of two men: world-famous writer, Ernest Hemingway, and Gavin Murray, one of the WWI veterans who are laboring to build the Overseas Highway. When Mariella is hired as a maid by Hemingway’s second wife, Pauline, she enters a rarified world of lavish, celebrity-filled dinner parties and elaborate off-island excursions. As she becomes caught up in the tensions and excesses of the Hemingway household, the attentions of the larger-than-life writer become a dangerous temptation...even as straightforward Gavin Murray draws her back to what matters most. Will she cross an invisible line with the volatile Hemingway, or find a way to claim her own dreams? As a massive hurricane bears down on Key West, Mariella faces some harsh truths...and the possibility of losing everything she loves.
Synopsis
Everything in the ward seemed different now, and I no longer felt its calming presence. The Fitzgeralds stirred something in me that had been dormant for a long time, and I was not prepared to face it.... From New York to Paris, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald reigned as king and queen of the Jazz Age, seeming to float on champagne bubbles above the mundane cares of the world. But to those who truly knew them, the endless parties were only a distraction from their inner turmoil, and from a love that united them with a scorching intensity. When Zelda is committed to a Baltimore psychiatric clinic in 1932, vacillating between lucidity and madness in her struggle to forge an identity separate from her husband, the famous writer, she finds a sympathetic friend in her nurse, Anna Howard. Held captive by her own tragic past, Anna is increasingly drawn into the Fitzgeralds’ tumultuous relationship. As she becomes privy to Zelda’s most intimate confessions, written in a secret memoir meant only for her, Anna begins to wonder which Fitzgerald is the true genius. But in taking ever greater emotional risks to save Zelda, Anna may end up paying a far higher price than she intended....
READERS GUIDE INCLUDED
Synopsis
America in the 1920s was a country alive with the wild fun of jazz, speakeasies, and a new kind of womanthe flapper. Vera Abramowitz is determined to leave her gritty childhood behind and live a more exciting life, one that her mother never dreamed of. Bobbing her hair and showing her knees, the lipsticked beauty dazzles, doing the Charleston in nightclubs and earning the nickname Dollface.”
As the ultimate flapper, Vera captures the attention of two high rollers, a handsome nightclub owner and a sexy gambler. On their arms, she gains entrée into a world filled with bootleg bourbon, wailing jazz, and money to burn. She thinks her biggest problem is choosing between them until the truth comes out. Her two lovers are really mobsters from rival gangs during Chicagos infamous Beer Wars, a battle Al Capone refuses to lose.
The heady life shes living is an illusion resting on a bedrock of crime and violence unlike anything the country has ever seen before. When the good times come to an end, Vera becomes entangled in everything from bootlegging to murder. And as men from both gangs fall around her, Vera must put together the pieces of her shattered life, as Chicago hurtles toward one of the most infamous days in its history, the St. Valentines Day Massacre.
READERS GUIDE INCLUDED
Synopsis
A sweeping historical debut about the Creole socialite who transformed herself into an empress
Readers are fascinated with the wives of famous men. In Becoming Josephine, debut novelist Heather Webb follows Rose Tascher as she sails from her Martinique plantation to Paris, eager to enjoy an elegant life at the royal court. Once there, however, Roses aristocratic soldier-husband dashes her dreams by abandoning her amid the tumult of the French Revolution. After narrowly escaping death, Rose reinvents herself as Josephine, a beautiful socialite wooed by an awkward suitorNapoleon Bonaparte.
A debut as bewitching as its protagonist.” Erika Robuck, author of Hemingways Girl and Call Me Zelda
Vivid and passionate.” Susan Spann, author of The Shinobi Mysteries
Synopsis
Without sin, can we know beauty? Can we fully appreciate the summer without the winter? No, I am glad to suffer so I can feel the fullness of our time in the light.”
Upstate New York, 1928. Laura Kelley and the man she loves sneak away from their judgmental town to attend a performance of the scandalous Ziegfeld Follies. But the dark consequences of their night of daring and delight reach far into the future.
That same evening, Bohemian poet Edna St. Vincent Millay and her indulgent husband hold a wild party in their remote mountain estate, hoping to inspire her muse. Millay declares her wish for a new lover who will take her to unparalleled heights of passion and poetry, but for the first time, the man who responds will not bend completely to her will.
Two years later, Laura, an unwed seamstress struggling to support her daughter, and Millay, a woman fighting the passage of time, work together secretly to create costumes for Millays next grand tour. As their complex, often uneasy friendship develops amid growing local condemnation, each woman is forced to confront what it means to be a fallen woman
and to decide for herself what price she is willing to pay to live a full life.
Lovers of the Jazz Age, literary enthusiasts, and general historic fiction readers will find much to love about Call Me Zelda. Highly recommended.” Historical Novel Society, Editors Choice
Synopsis
The Paris Wife was only the beginning of the story . . .
Paula McLains New York Timesbestselling novel piqued readers interest about Ernest Hemingways romantic life. But Hadley was only one of four women married, in turn, to the legendary writer. Just as T.C. Boyles bestseller The Women completed the picture begun by Nancy Horans Loving Frank, Naomi Woods Mrs. Hemingway tells the story of how it was to love, and be loved by, the most famous and dashing writer of his generation. As each wife struggles with his mistress for Ernests heart, and a place in his bed, each marriage slips from tenderness to treachery. Each Mrs. Hemingway thought it would last forever. Each one was wrong.
Told in four parts and populated with members of the fabled Lost Generation”including Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott FitzgeraldMrs. Hemingway interweaves the love letters, diaries, and telegrams of four very different women into one spellbinding tale.
Synopsis
From Erika Robuck, bestselling author of Hemingways Girl
, comes a brilliant new novel about a literary couple. The unlikely marriage between Nathaniel Hawthorne, the celebrated novelist, and Sophia Peabody, the invalid artist, was a true union of passion and intellect.
Beset by crippling headaches from a young age and endowed with a talent for drawing, Sophia is discouraged by her well-known New England family from pursuing a womans traditional roles. But from their first meeting, Nathaniel and Sophia begin an intense romantic relationship that despite many setbacks leads to their marriage. Together, they will cross continents, raise children, and experience all the beauty and tragedy of an exceptional partnership. Sophias vivid journals and her masterful paintings kindle a fire in Nathaniel, inspiring his writing. But their childrens needs and the death of loved ones steal Sophias energy and time for her art, fueling in her a perennial tug-of-war between fulfilling her domestic duties and pursuing her own desires.
Spanning the years from the 1830s to the Civil War, and moving from Massachusetts to England, Portugal, and Italy, The House of Hawthorne explores the tension within a famous marriage of two soulful, strong-willed people, each devoted to the other but also driven by a powerful need to explore the far reaches of their creative impulses. It is the story of a forgotten woman in history, who inspired one of the greatest writers of American literature
Synopsis
America in the 1920s was a country alive with the wild fun of jazz, speakeasies, and a new kind of womanthe flapper. Vera Abramowitz is determined to leave her gritty childhood behind and live a more exciting life, one that her mother never dreamed of. Bobbing her hair and showing her knees, the lipsticked beauty dazzles, doing the Charleston in nightclubs and earning the nickname Dollface.”
As the ultimate flapper, Vera captures the attention of two high rollers, a handsome nightclub owner and a sexy gambler. On their arms, she gains entrée into a world filled with bootleg bourbon, wailing jazz, and money to burn. She thinks her biggest problem is choosing between them until the truth comes out. Her two lovers are really mobsters from rival gangs during Chicagos infamous Beer Wars, a battle Al Capone refuses to lose.
The heady life shes living is an illusion resting on a bedrock of crime and violence unlike anything the country has ever seen before. When the good times come to an end, Vera becomes entangled in everything from bootlegging to murder. And as men from both gangs fall around her, Vera must put together the pieces of her shattered life, as Chicago hurtles toward one of the most infamous days in its history, the St. Valentines Day Massacre.
READERS GUIDE INCLUDED
Synopsis
“She remembered when Hemingway had planted a banyan tree at his house and told her its parasitic roots were like human desire. At the time she’d thought it romantic. She hadn’t understood his warning.” In Depression-era Key West, Mariella Bennet, the daughter of an American fisherman and a Cuban woman, knows hunger. Her struggle to support her family following her father’s death leads her to a bar and bordello, where she bets on a risky boxing match...and attracts the interest of two men: world-famous writer, Ernest Hemingway, and Gavin Murray, one of the WWI veterans who are laboring to build the Overseas Highway. When Mariella is hired as a maid by Hemingway’s second wife, Pauline, she enters a rarified world of lavish, celebrity-filled dinner parties and elaborate off-island excursions. As she becomes caught up in the tensions and excesses of the Hemingway household, the attentions of the larger-than-life writer become a dangerous temptation...even as straightforward Gavin Murray draws her back to what matters most. Will she cross an invisible line with the volatile Hemingway, or find a way to claim her own dreams? As a massive hurricane bears down on Key West, Mariella faces some harsh truths...and the possibility of losing everything she loves.
About the Author
Erika Robuck is a contributor to the fiction blog Writer Unboxed, and she maintains her own blog, Muse. She is a member of the Hawthorne Society, the Hemingway Society, the Historical Novel Society, and the Edna St. Vincent Millay Society. She lives in Annapolis, Maryland, with her husband and three sons. She is the author of Receive Me Falling, Hemingway's Girl, Call Me Zelda and Fallen Beauty.