Hemingway's Girl
A Novel
By Erika Robuck
“She remembered when Hemingway had planted a banyan 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 the reliable 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.
Coming September 2012 from NAL/Penguin
Praise for Hemingway's Girl

"Robuck's breathtaking alchemy is to put us inside the world of Hemingway and his wife Pauline... Dazzlingly written and impossibly moving, this novel is a supernova."
Caroline Leavitt, New York Times Bestselling author of Pictures of You

"Robuck brings to vivid life the captivating and volatile world of a literary legend. Like a Key West hurricane, Hemingway's Girl gains power and momentum, destroying much in its path, and reminds the reader of the strength found in healing."
Kristina McMorris, author of Bridge of Scarlet Leaves

"I read Hemingway's Girl in a singe sitting--I couldn't put it down. I fell in love with Robuck's Hemingway and with the fiery Mariealla 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