My thanks to NetGalley and Chicago Review Press for an eARC copy of this book to read and review.

Ok, this may be a minor quibble, but the sub-title of this book is "The Cuban Countess Who Captivated Havana, Madrid, and Paris". The book appears to be about Mercedes Merlin, a woman with a voice of gold who entranced all who met and heard her.

It's mostly about the areas where she lived, the things that happened in them and the people around her. Mercedes, who is a woman of talent and passion and life, is mostly, frustratingly, silent in her own book. It's a great book for bringing that time period and those locations, Havana, Spain and France to life, but not a great book to showcase Mercedes. I wanted to be wowed by an amazing woman, I wanted to be just as captivated as the rest of her contemporaries. I never once said wow about her and that saddens me, as she seems to have been an incredible dynamo of a woman, but we never really get to experience it.

There were a few contemporary books that were written that had her or her salons mentioned in them, so I added them to my Mt. TBR, so I can see what the people of the day thought of her because I want to know more. This book just never delivered.

And the ending was depressing AF. Yes, the end of anyone's life, especially back in that time period, was sad, but her ending seemed sadder than most. Her branch of the family always had issues with money, over spending, etc., but she added to it by trusting a lover to deal with the finances and by trying to keep him afloat and he made things SO much worse for her. I would think that after the second time, she would no longer trust him, but she was a very forgiving person I guess. I say "I guess", because we aren't really shown her warm-heartedness. We are told a few times, but we never get shown it, so suppositions are all the reader has when trying to understand why Mercedes would keep trusting someone who obviously didn't deserve it.

Also sad was her sons decided to contest the final will where she was trying to provide something for her daughters, as being a woman back then was a lot more difficult than being a man. Women had fewer options for making money, etc. Also, not sure why she didn't take more steps to make sure it wasn't able to be contested, as her father had a scandal with his final will, dying moments before he was able to sign in. That took over 14 years to resolve.

So, other than bringing Mercedes Merlin to my attention, this book did little to teach me about her. If it had been about that time period and those locations, with her life as the link, it would have been fine. Since she was supposed to be the focus but wasn't, it didn't work nearly as well.

Mercedes wrote a lot of autobiographical works, but the author states that Mercedes liked to embellish, so it is difficult to tease the kernel of truth from the rest. Even so, I would have liked to see more words from Mercedes than we had.

I will admit, I expected a certain something with this book which I didn't get, so I am disappointed. It's not bad or badly written, but it doesn't succeed in bringing Mercedes Merlin to life like I had hoped it would. If you go into it without that expectation, and just for the historical significance of it, I think you will get more enjoyment out of this than I did.

2.5 stars, rounded up to 3, as it did at least introduce a remarkable woman to me, even if she wasn't as fully fleshed out as she could have been. Well researched and informative about that era and area of the world.