With thanks to netgalley and the author for allowing me to review this book.

I loved The Paris Wife by Paula Mclain and Love and Ruin was just as good as the Paris Wife.

I'm a sucker for Paula McLain and it's not because I particularly enjoy her books. I liked, for example, The Paris Wife, but I wasn't enamoured of Circling the Sun and a Mind of Her Own was almost unreadible. Thankfully, Love and Ruin feels like a return to form. I find Hemmingway an interesting character. He's clearly incredibly intelligent but also a bit of an arse. It's always good to read a fictional history from the view of the woman though.

Thank you for approving this title for me and I'm sorry it's taken so long for me to review it.

I am in charge of the senior library and work with a group of Reading Ambassadors from 16-18 to ensure that our boarding school library is modernised and meets the need of both our senior students and staff. It has been great to have the chance to talk about these books with our seniors and discuss what they want and need on their shelves. I was drawn to his book because I thought it would be something different from the usual school library fare and draw the students in with a tempting storyline and lots to discuss.
This book was a really enjoyable read with strong characters and a real sense of time and place. I enjoyed the ways that it maintained a cracking pace that kept me turning its pages and ensured that I had much to discuss with them after finishing. It was not only a lively and enjoyable novel but had lots of contemporary themes for our book group to pick up and spend hours discussing too.
I think it's important to choose books that interest as well as challenge our students and I can see this book being very popular with students and staff alike; this will be an excellent purchase as it has everything that we look for in a great read - a tempting premise, fantastic characters and a plot that keeps you gripped until you close its final page.

Excellent biographical fiction - a genre I love. I really enjoyed The Paris Wife and this one is just as good. I love fiction based on facts and to learn about people from history in a fictional way - what could be nicer. As a novel this worked really well and kept me interested and as biography it really informed and made we want to know more.

I really like what McLain does with fictionalising real people. Admittedly, so far she hasn't done one on anyone who's life I was already massively familiar with, but I'm not sure I care. In Love and Ruin, McLain returns to Hemmingway's life - but this time through the eyes of his third wife, legendary war correspondent Martha Gellhorn. It's a fascinating portrait of a relationship between two incredibly strong characters, neither of whom are prepared to let go of what they want to do (although Gellhorn definitely makes more compromises than Hemmingway does). I would happily read another 100 pages of What Martha Did Next - and came away from this with even more respect for her than I already had. Really, really good - and very readable.

This is a story based on fact which is currently my favourite kind! Martha Gelhorn is a writer and in a chance encounter meets Ernest Hemmingway and the course of her life is altered.
She falls in love with him and eventually becomes his wife - the story is of her passion for writing and their passionate relationship. She becomes a War Correspondant and becomes very good at her job - I knew nothing of Martha and Ernest so I really enjoyed this account of them - I have read another novel by Paula Mclain called Circling The Sun and this was also a historical fiction novel based on the life of Beryl Markham the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic .

I wasn't keen on this book. I don't normally mind fictionalised accounts of real events e.g. Robert Harris's recent Munich novel, but this seemed to go too far in revealing the essentially unknowable inner thoughts of Gellhorn. Apart from that, it just seemed to be a regurgitation of apparently well-researched facts from other sources without any new slant.
There are also some anachronisms - did Americans - or anyone else in the late 1930s drink "builders tea" ? was there really plastic sheeting used for temporary shelter in late '30s Spain ? And is Spanish mimosa really pink rather than the yellow everywhere else I've see it (including my own garden in Italy for 15 years) ?
Small things, but irritating so I'm afraid I skipped a lot of the book, despite the writing being decent in other respects.

Superb book about a fascinating subject. Writers make for difficult subjects, but this was great. Sensitively done, with lots of exploration of the characters and good historical detail.

“Love and Ruin” is a fascinating account of the life of Martha Gellhorn, the third wife of Ernest Hemingway. Like all love stories, it is messy and highly emotional, and like some love stories, the love doesn’t last. (Though I would argue that when Martha leaves Ernest to pursue her own career, that’s a happy ending for her.) This is a well-written and insightful novel about a fascinating woman and the man she married.

Thank you to NetGalley and Fleet for a review copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Martha Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway falling in love amidst the Spanish civil war, gellhorn has to choice between her heart and her head- dedicate her life to being the wife of a famous writer or forge her own path as a journalist and break two hearts.

It’s a well research, written and plotted story. McLain is a wonder at bringing the past to life and making you feel the emotions of the characters and you root for them. This was another historical masterpiece with beautifully portrayal of woman on the cusp of a new world, where she doesn’t need to be the extra of her husband but she can have her own identity and value.

Gellhorn became a wonderful journalist- but at what cost...

I received an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, Little, Brown Book Group UK, and the author Paula McLain.
I’m not going to be shouting from the rooftops about this one, but I definitely enjoyed this historical fiction novel about Martha Gellhorn, Hemingway’s third wife.
It appears as though she was often unfairly represented in life and after death, subject to gossip and speculation that overshadowed her groundbreaking work as a war correspondent.
She toiled in the shadow of her more famous husband, but this book shows us that she was as much a writer and force of nature as he was. Often lauded, here is a depiction of Hemingway that shows him to be tempestuous, immature, and incredibly selfish at times.
Having known little of Hemingway and nothing of Gellhorn, it was fascinating to learn about their lives, and the circumstances that eventually drove them apart.
3.5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read, enjoy and review this novel.

This is a fantastic companion to 'The Paris Wife', continues the story of Hemingway's life, by following his relationship with the extraordinary Martha Gellhorn. Their passionate relationship, her drive to write, to report on conflict and to do this despite his demands upon her time and emotional energy, is fascinating.

These two exceptional people work together and support each other before, ultimately, being torn apart by the need to express themselves creatively. It is a book I have read really slowly, frequently setting it aside as it is frustrating to read of such overwhelming focus on work, a focus that is easily read as selfishness. It serves to question the preoccupation of the creative mind and, as such is a really rewarding read

A superbly written account of an incredible life and difficult relationship between Gellhorn and Hemmingway, two strong and dominant characters. Paula McLain writes that she wishes she'd known Martha Gellhorn and through this book, I do too. The author has bought her to life and it make captivating reading. This is a brilliant book, powerfully written by a very adept hand and I absolutely loved each fascinating page.

I’ve loved all of Paula McLain’s novels and especially The Paris Wife. She has drawn me in to an era I never knew about and made it real. Buy this and definitely her earlier books. You won’t be disappointed.

Ya’ll know I love me some Ernest Hemingway and having read and loved Paula McLain’s novel, The Paris Wife, which focused on Hemingway’s first wife, Hadley, so of course, I was going to leap at the chance to read another of her books about one of the many Mrs Hemingways!

In 1937, twenty-eight-year-old Martha travels alone to Madrid to report on the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War and becomes drawn to the stories of ordinary people caught in devastating conflict. She also finds herself unexpectedly—and uncontrollably—falling in love with Hemingway, a man already on his way to becoming a legend. In the shadow of the impending Second World War, and set against the tumultuous backdrops of Madrid, Finland, China, Key West, and especially Cuba, where Martha and Ernest make their home, their relationship and professional careers ignite. But when Ernest publishes the biggest literary success of his career, For Whom the Bell Tolls, they are no longer equals, and Martha must make a choice: surrender to the confining demands of being a famous man’s wife or risk losing Ernest by forging a path as her own woman and writer. It is a dilemma that will force her to break his heart and her own.

This book focuses on Martha Gellhorn, writer, journalist, war reporter, and wife of Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway had a lot of wives and many of them were overshadowed by him, but I always found Martha to be fascinating because she was a writer in her own right and she had published two novels before she’d even met Hemingway. There is a collection of novels now about the wives of the great American writers and this was just as interesting as the others. It serves as both a biography and a novel shining a light on the second world war in Spain – a time that I rarely get to read about.

This story depicts the setting of the War in Europe brilliantly, while not detracting from the lives of the main characters. We mostly follow Martha’s life, establishing her personality and desires, her meet-cute with Hemingway and then their relationship and how it progressed. I make no secret of the fact that Hemingway is one of my problematic faves, he wasn’t a particularly nice chap, no matter how good he was at writing and this book portrays him exactly as I expected him to be, he cheats, he drinks, he’s self-centered and immature. Martha is such a strong, wonderful woman and we get to see her courage and her guts throughout this book, she embraces the war and her place in it, especially when she’s interviewing POWs and witnessing the horrors of Nazi forces in Germany and the government in Spain as it becomes a dictatorship. Hemingway is a major player in this story, but this is all about Gellhorn, her life, and her passions.

One great thing about biographical novels like this is you get a sense of a person and their place in the world and it was a genuine pleasure getting to know Martha. Paula McLain is a very talented writer and has clearly found her niche writing about Hemingway and his wives but I would like to check out some of her other books. That being said, I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next and hope that we get to meet another incredible woman.

A moving and relatable read following an affair with America’s most famous writer.
Heartbreaking words and well drawn out characters.

I loved The Paris Wife a few years back and was very excited to read this one. I knew a few things about Gellhorn before reading this but by the end I really did feel I'd got to know her a lot more, and again if fleshed out my ideas of Hemingway.
I did enjoy this book but found that it did seem to be more about Hemingway than Gellhorn and I've liked it to have been the other way round.
I do hope that McLain does continue to explore Hemingway and his private life.

I am afraid that I didn’t finish this book. Somehow it didn’t grip me. It could have just been the mood I was in, or just that I am getting lazier about persisting with a book that doesn’t immediately seize my imagination. Don’t let this put you off, therefore, as it could have just been me.

This is my first experience of Paula McClain and it won’t be my last! From Little, Brown Book Group UK.
We follow the story of Martha Gellhorn, who is trying to establish her career as an author/journalist, when she meets Ernest Hemingway whilst reporting on the Spanish Civil War, although he is married, there is an instant attraction.
The story of how their lives became in twined, whilst Ernest was drinking heavily and Martha was following her dream of becoming a renowned author is both intriguing and sometimes quite sad. Through all, Martha’s strength shines.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, couldn’t put it down.
Thank you to Netgalley for approving my request.

The written word can be a strong bond.

In 1937 Martha Gelhorn travels alone to the war-torn country of Spain to report on the devastating fighting there.

She meets her idol, author Ernest Hemmingway and soon a torrid affair starts amongst the rubble. They fall in love, but Ernest is still married.

While they are travelling the world to bring the news of the upcoming war, they set up home in Cuba, which becomes their retreat from this war, divorce and writer's block.

The only strife in their idyllic life is the rowing and his heavy drinking. The storyline brings us into a period of turbulent times in the world. This book tells of the growing love the two shared and the success they achieved together; The Master and his pupil.

This is the second book about the loves of Ernest Hemmingway. The first, ‘The Paris Wife’, I have not read, but it didn’t matter as this book is a stand-alone. The complex characters of Martha and Ernest and their love story take place amongst some of the worst outbreaks of fighting recorded in the twentieth century.

Although fiction, the book is very near the true story of these two talented people. I had never heard of Martha Gelhorn before and knew very little about Ernest Hemmingway apart from his bestsellers, but the author brought these two people to life and sympathetically told of their literature and personal partnership, and the struggle that they faced in both.

An excellent book, well written and I enjoyed reading it. I will read the first book and hopefully any other she writes.

Chester.

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.