Set in depression era, Key West Florida, Mariella Bennet has even rougher than most.  She is only 18 years old and her fisherman, father recently died, leave her mother, two younger sisters and herself.  Her mother, still greiving is unable to care for the family, she just sits in her chair day after day smoking.  It is up to Mariella to care for and feed the family.


At first she was taking odd jobs on the docks and some of the fishermen who knew her father would give her a fish to feed the family.  However, her luck changed when she went to a boxing match at the area bar, Slopy Joes, dressed as a boy.  That was when she first met Ernest Hemingway.


He told her that he always wanted a daughter and that she should call him Papa.  They started going out together, he at 35 years of age but she also meets one of the boxers, Gavin from that night’s match.  Will she end up with either of them?


Finally, Mariella gets up the nerve to ask Hemingway for a job and starts working at his family estate.  His wife, Pauline isn’t too happy about it because she know her husband has his sights on Mariella.  However, now Mariella is bringing home pay every week and can better care for the family.


Full with a cast of both regular and eccentic charicters Erika Robuck makes use of a hurricane to build tensions in this book.  She examines Hemingway, the man in his habitat and shows though he did appear larger than life, he was just a man.  With warts and all.


I really enjoyed this book for the laid back summer read it was and warmed up to it more and more as I read more.  The story was written is an easy to read style.  I would have like the author to delve a bit deeper but like I said, I still enjoyed it.


3.5/5


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I received a copy of this book for my honest review.
Thanks to Heidi Richter Senior Publicist at Penguin Group ( USA), Inc., I am giving away one copy of Hemingway’s Daughter.  This giveaway is open to Canada and the U.S. and ends on October 11, 2012.  Please use Rafflecopter to enter.

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