As someone who loves Seville and spends a lot of time in Spain, I was looking forward to the duel language of this read. I found it a fascinating read, and was drawn in to the story, which was engaging.

Thank you for the opportunity to review this book

A cross between a memoir and a history lesson with recipes, this does not really work. The recipes are not complete, they are merely lists of ingredients without any method. The amount of untranslated Spanish means various literacy points are meaningless. The authors story adds nothing, the paragraphs with dates numbers and places read like a text book. The grandmother's story is harsh, graphic and is the one redeeming feature

The topic of this book is good, and I was looking forward to reading it. But I started it and I'm not in a place to read it. I've had a difficult time getting into it. I need to put it aside for now. I think if I was able to get more into the story, I may enjoy it more, but the beginning is too matter of fact. I will try and finish reading it at a later date and will give a rating on goodreads then.

Married to Spain by Suzanne Marie Baum

The author starts and ends by addressing her French and Spanish students. They are reading the manuscript for this book, a highly factionalized story of her Spanish husband Oscar’s family.

Though the story describes endless details of Oscar’s grandmother’s escape to France during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and World War II, the gruesome accounts would have you picturing Nazi concentration camps, with recipes mingled in. Really?

Suzanne barely knows Spanish, yet manages to grasp the details of abuela’s (grandma’s) seven year sojourn in France. Horrors of this tragic period in Spain’s history cannot be discounted. The story’s beginning gives you a true picture of how Francisco Franco came to power and ruled with an iron fist for 36 years.

It is a nice attempt by the author to put together a history lesson with a caveat for us in present day America. Better editing would have helped. Three stars for this tale, and my thanks to #BooksGoSocial and #NetGalley for this ARC.

This story follows a woman listening to an abuelas life story through a war where she faced disgusting camps and horrible living conditions whilst she was young and pregnant. She tells her story only ever whilst cooking!i liked it but I didn't at the same time. I really liked reading from the abuelas perspective but sometimes it felt like a secondary school essay with facts everywhere. Seeing the conditions she lived in were extremely interesting and see how she grew as a person was beautiful. The writing style really let me down, it felt disconnected to the emotions and read just like someone who found adjectives for the first time.

An interesting biographical/autobiographical book with many food recipes from Spain.
The style of the writing was for me a bit clumsy as to the dialogues between the author and the abuela. They sounded a bit unnatural to me. However overall an interesting book.