"Vaill here does for 1930s Spain what she did for 1920s Paris in Everybody Was So Young: Gerald and Sara Murphy--A Lost Generation Love Story. She illuminates a cataclysmic time and place through the lives of intriguing individuals.... History lovers will melt. " (Barbara Hoffert, "Barbara's Picks," Library Journal)"Magical and meticulous . . . [
Hotel Florida] is a masterful reconstruction of one of the most tumultuous conflicts in 20th Century Europe." —Jane Ciabattari, BBC.com
"[An] energetic group biography . . . [Vaill] is a diligent researcher and a spirited writer who confidently inhabits and channels her historical characters. Her set pieces are numerous and well turned." —Charles Trueheart,
The American Scholar
"Beautifully told, Vaill’s story captures the timeless immediacy of warfront reporting with the universal struggle to stay in love." —
Publishers Weekly"[Vaill’s] gift for character portrayal keeps [
Hotel Florida] moving along . . . It is bound to be popular with general readers of 20th-century history." —
Library Journal
"War, sex, friendship, betrayal, celebrity, rivalry, jealousy, idealism, foolishness and foppery—all this and more gather in the lobby of Madrid’s Hotel Florida." —
Kirkus Reviews
"
Hotel Florida gathers literary giants among the international volunteers for Spain’s civil war of everyday dreamers. In this masterful narrative, with unfailing judgment and artistry, Amanda Vaill captures heartache and obsession on a vast but intimate scale before the era of national-security states." —Taylor Branch, author of
The King Years
"A highly original, beautifully written, and utterly compelling account, by turns gripping and heartbreaking, of the intrepid—and sometimes crazy—journalists who risked everything to report on the Spanish Civil War." —Amanda Foreman, author of
The Duchess
"Combining a historian’s meticulous research with her accomplished skills as a biographer, in
Hotel Florida Amanda Vaill tells the fascinating interwoven stories of six people whose lives were forever changed as they fought for ‘the last great cause.’" —Scott Donaldson, author of
Hemingway vs. Fitzgerald
"A stunner—cinematic in scope and detail, and speaking urgently to questions of truth and betrayal that are still compelling today." —Mary Dearborn, author of
Mistress of Modernism
"The tragedy of the Spanish Civil War has never quite emerged from the fog of its own propaganda. In
Hotel Florida, Amanda Vaill has dispelled that fog at last by telling the truth about three larger-than-life couples—men and women whose passion for one another mingled with the passions of war. It’s a moving, powerful story—and nobody has ever told it better." —Stephen Koch, author of
The Breaking Point
"
Hotel Florida is a riveting tale of politics, propaganda, and indifference, told with conviction and real heart." —Brenda Wineapple, author of
Ecstatic Nation
"Not since Orwell’s
Homage to Catalonia has there been so shattering a picture of the Spanish Civil War. A magisterial work of biography and history,
Hotel Florida recounts a heartbreaking story with precision and passion. Page after page, Amanda Vaill writes scenes you will never forget." —Marion Meade, author of
Dorothy Parker
"Timely, powerful, enchanting. Amanda Vaill’s compelling heroes, their allies and enemies, remind us why the Spanish Civil War remains the defining struggle of hope and betrayal, for activism and justice—across so many generations." —Blanche Wiesen Cook, author of
Eleanor Roosevelt
Praise for
Everybody Was So Young
“A marvelously readable biography . . . Elegantly written.” —Brooke Allen,
The New York Times Book ReviewPraise for
Somewhere: The Life of Jerome Robbins
“I can’t imagine a better book about Robbins ever being written.” —Terry Teachout,
The Wall Street Journal