Villa America by Liza Klaussmann

Why?

I follow a book club on facebook called BOOKWORMS: Leeds Book Club.  It's a private group and I've only recently joined but it is a way of finding new books.  Their book for Feb was "Tigers in Red Weather" but my desire to read that was complicated by my new level of budgeting.  I spent too much money in January so current rules are it either has to be less than £3 on kindle (it wasn't) or I need to be able to get it from the library.  I LOVE THE LIBRARY!  So many reasons but primarily that they park outside my house on a Sunday in a yellow van.  It's ace.  I will take pictures to prove it is true.  Additionally, Leeds Libraries has a brilliant android app (search on Leeds Libraries) which allows you to search and reserve books.  I am currently testing to see if I can pick up reservations from the brilliant mobile library (yellow van) but will let you know.  Anyway (for a woman of few words I am using too many), "Tigers in Red Weather" was available as audio (not my thing) so I searched for other books by Klaussmann and found this.

What?

Otherwise known as amazon spiel:
Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Pablo Picasso, Cole and Linda Porter, Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos - all are summer guests of Gerald and Sara Murphy. Visionary, misunderstood, and from vastly different backgrounds, the Murphys met and married young, and set forth to create a beautiful world. They alight on Villa America: their coastal oasis of artistic genius, debauched parties, impeccable style and flamboyant imagination. But before long, a stranger enters into their relationship, and their marriage must accommodate an intensity that neither had forseen. When tragedy strikes, their friends reach out to them, but the golden bowl is shattered, and neither Gerald nor Sara will ever be the same.
Ravishing, heart-breaking, and written with enviable poise, Villa America delivers on all the promise of Liza Klaussmann's bestselling debut, Tigers in Red Weather. It is an overwhelming, unforgettable novel.



Rusty words ☕ ☕ ☕ ☕ 

I'm scoring coffee cups out of five and this got four.  This is based on the true story of Sara and Gerald Murphy (he was an artist in what is referred to as the 1920 Lost Generation) and made me want to know so much more about all of them.  Klaussmann enables this with her recommendations for further reading and excellent notes at the end which detailed the biographical texts that she used.  Quite simply, I thought this book was beautiful and sad.  The writing is intelligent in the way that it blends the facts and Klaussmann's fiction.  Loved it. "Yes, it has magic.  It has magic"



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