Love and Ruin is a perfect title for a book about Ernest Hemingway and his lover and wife Martha Gellhorn. Theirs was an incredible love story until Gellhorn, a well recognized writer and war correspondent hit her stride and became a recognized success. No writercould compete with the demigod, Ernest Hemingway, and only a few writers were ever compared to him. To be a writer, an author, a correspondent in the heyday of Hemingway was to be delegated to perpetual second place, an eternal also ran. Every man wanted to be him and every woman wanted to have him, yet he ruined those writers whose lives touched his, like F. Scott Fitzgerald and to an even larger degree, Martha Gellhorn. Gellhorn and Hemingway met in a Key West and again as war correspondents in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. They had a four year affair and were married for another 5 years. Although Gellhorn was a well respected writer and correspondent, Hemingway wanted her to curb her career and give precedence to be his wife. Gellhorn, however, had no intention of being a ‘footnote in another person’s life’. The only one of Hemingway’s wives to leave him, she chose independence and her career over serving as a wife trying desperately to shore up the life, ego, and insecurities that comprised Ernest Hemingway. Neither choice - loving or leaving - was easy, but I don’t think that her choice brought her much happiness. Paula McLain did an astounding job of capturing Gellhorn in Love and Ruin. Gellhorn’s voice rang loud, clear, and so authentic that it would have been easy to believe it to be autobiographical. #loveandruin #netgalley

I enjoyed reading this book. It was interested to see author's take on the affair between Ernest and Martha. I like the way the author captures both the strong independent side of Martha while also exposing her vulnerability with Ernest. I also appreciated the historical context presented with very illustrative descriptions of living in a war torn country during WWII.

Thank you to Random House and Netgalley for the eARC of this heartbreaking book. After finishing Love & Ruin I had a hard time sorting out my feelings - the love story of Gellhorn and Hemingway is initially beautiful, but watching it fall apart was heartbreaking. Paula McLain tells the story of Marty Gellhorn, an amazing, gutsy, war correspondent and her relationship with Ernest Hemingway. Gellhorn was a woman who’s life reads like a novel- she reported from the Spanish Civil War, Burma Road, and Omaha Beach (to name a few!). While in Spain, she and Hemingway begin an affair which leads to their eventual marriage. It was hard to read about their relationship, because it is so fraught with problems, but Gellhorn is a heroine worth knowing. If you like historical fiction, and especially if you don’t know Gellhorn’s story, you should definitely read this book! Just know that the title is apt!

This was a fascinating look at Hemingway's third wife, Martha and their relationship even as Hemingway was married to his second wife. Although he was portrayed as a selfish man, their history is engaging--especially if you are a fan of his books--which I am! I don't always love historical fiction as it can seem like "reporting" to me but this was a pleasant surprise and I enjoyed it immensely!

Love and Ruin is a beautifully written historical novel about the life of Martha Gellhorn, wife of Ernest Hemingway. Recommended for fans of historical fiction!

4 stars
Thanks to Ballantine Books and NetGalley for sending me this e ARC.
This book is a fictionalized story of the relationship/marriage/divorce between Martha Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway. Martha was Hemingway's 3rd wife. They started an affair while Hemingway was still married to his 2nd wife. Until I read this book, I was not aware that she wrote several books, in addition to being one of the first woman war journalists. She covered wars from the Spanish civil war to Vietnam and Panama.
The book describes Hemingway as a very selfish man. He may have been a brilliant writer, but he was also an alcoholic and an insecure womanizer. Gellhorn was mesmerized by his brilliance but rebelled against his domineering need for her. When she went off on a war reporting assignment without him after several years of marriage, Hemingway found another woman and divorced Gellhorn. Gellhorn was the only 1 of his wives to leave him and he never forgave her.
Some quotes: Spanish civil war siege of Madrid "Since the previous November, when Franco had locked his sights on destroying the capital, nearly every day had brought fire and death. But most Madrilenos had still refused to leave."
Martha on Ernest and Martha's first sexual encounter: "The trees bent in and the whole night did, too, and whatever part of me could usually hold to reason was washed away."
Martha on ending her marriage: "In moments, I'd been kicked out of love and was alone again."

This novel tells a very powerful story. The heroine, Martha Gellhorn had an amazing journey as an author and war correspondent all over the world in the late 30’s and beyond. Her friendship and later marriage with Ernest Hemingway was good and bad. He liked to be in control and the center of attention and when that didn’t work he drank and could be abusive. Martha was torn between loving Ernest and his children from his previous marriages and her need to persue her writing..The book also takes you into the trenches of the second world war and her descriptions of the men and conditions of life there..Martha Gellhorn never gave up!

By the author of The Paris Wife, this is the fictional account of the relationship between Martha Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway. It took a while for me to get into this book, but once I did, I enjoyed it. I thought the chapters focusing on Gellhorn’s experiences as a war correspondent were more engrossing than the relationship between these two writers. But, perhaps that is because that is when Gellhorn, at least as portrayed by McLain, was the most self actualized.

As a lover of historical fiction, this book did not disappoint. I did not know much about Ernest Hemingway's personal life previously, and obviously, some of the story is fictional, however, it provided wonderful insights into his life with his wife Martha. Both were incredibly strong people with ambitions and great talent. I was amazed at Martha's drive to be at the forefront of wartime battles, no matter the danger or struggles she faced. She persisted and became one of the most important voices in journalism. Apparently, that was too much for Ernest to handle and it led to their struggles. I loved reading about their life in Cuba and the history the author provides about the war in Spain and Europe was a perfect backdrop for this wonderful love story.

Riveting account of the life of Martha Gellhorn, one of the 20th century's most significant war correspondents--concentrating primarily on her work during World War II and her tumultuous relationship and marriage to Earnest Hemingway. McLain brought Hemingway and especially Gellhorn to life. Gellhorn was a fearless, talented, passionate woman and it was a pleasure and inspiration to read about her life and accomplishments.

Love and Ruin was a gorgeous read, even though I'm not drawn to historical fiction or to stories of Great Romances. This was both, and Paula McLain did justice to the two towering historical figures of Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn. Even her writing style reflected theirs.

The story McLain captured reminds us that many independent, fearless women lived dramatic lives long before the Women's Movement of the 1960s, and that it's always been possible for strong, capable women to be felled by romantic obsession.

It also brings up the timely #MeToo question: Do we have to like and admire an artist to appreciate his/her work? Hemingway was a nasty scoundrel, but Martha -- admirable as she was -- had her own measure of self-absorption.

Still, McLain's well-written story is packed tight with the danger and thrill of the 1940s on three continents. Whether for the adventure, the romance, the history -- Love and Ruin is well worth your time.

Paula McLain‘s latest novel, Love and Ruin, is simultaneously devastatingly tragic and eloquently beautiful. It shares the story of the passionate love affair and stormy marriage of Martha (“Marty”) Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway.

This is the story of how the married Hemingway seduced a much younger reporter, married her, then dumped her when she continued pursuing her career, while he sat home drinking. As he saw it, her accepting an overseas assignment meant she had left him.

Marty Gellhorn was truly a woman ahead of her time, working as a novelist and war correspondent. She became one of the first female war correspondents of the 20thcentury. On vacation with her family in Key West, in a chance encounter, she met Hemingway. He became a family friend and mentor, frequently calling her “Daughter”.

Prior to the publication of Hemingway’s blockbuster novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls, they were equals – both were struggling journalists and authors. After the publication of Bells, he was a legend. There was no longer equality in the marriage. Love and Ruindelves into Hemingway’s moody, depressive, narcissistic, and bullying personality. He is revealed as an insecure man-child who required an entourage of admirers, and demanded that Marty give up her career to be the wife of a famous man. As Marty’s byline became more well-known and sought-after, he saw her as a professional rival. Refusing to sacrifice her growing fame as a reporter, Marty traveled throughout war-torn Europe for Collier’smagazine.

Not only is Love and Ruina compelling work of historical fiction, it is a commentary on the competing demands of home, family, and work placed on career women not encountered by men. Additionally, the book gives the reader an up-close and personal view of the experiences not only of the soldiers, but also of people living in the midst of war, as well as alluding to the tragedies caused by untreated and personality disorders and depression.

I adored the Paris Wife, so I was incredibly excited to receive this book. It started a little slow for my taste, and I honestly almost put it down. Mclain does such a wonderful job of really unfolding not just the characters but the times that she is writing about. Martha was overall an enjoyable character, though at times frustrating.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC ecopy for my Kindle.
I enjoyed "The Paris Wife" and generally most books about and written by Ernest Hemmingway, but this one was just o.k. for me.
Martha Gellhorn was a wonderful writer and correspondent. Being the third wife of Hemmingway, she thought she was "the one." Sadly, Hemmingway was an alcoholic, had mental issues, and was completely self-absorbed. Gellhorn had her on "issues," too.
This book dragged on a little too much for me, but I did like the Martha Gellhorn more toward the end of the book.

I received and ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for my review. I was a huge fan of The Paris Wife by Paula McLain so I was very excited to be given a copy of Love and Ruin to preview, and it did not disappoint!

Love and Ruin covers the relationship of Martha Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway from the beginning of their relationship while they were in Madrid covering the Spanish Civil War through their married life in Cuba and onto their eventual divorce. I felt like I knew quite a bit about Hemingway already but I thought it was really fascinating to look into the life of Martha Gellhorn, one of the first female war correspondents.

As all of Paula McLain's stories do, this one had me researching stories and photos of both Hemingway and Gellhorn. Their story reads like a great novel, but it is so much more interesting because it is based on a true story. The only thing that prevented a five star rating was at times it dragged a bit, but overall, I highly recommend it!

I really really really wanted to love this book but had some trepidation because of my aversion to Hemingway. (As an English major in college, I nearly delayed graduation because of the requirement to have a course focused on a major author and the only two choices that quarter were Hemingway and Henry James – EEEK!) Anyway, I did appreciate McLain’s Circling the Sun, and I was curious about Martha Gellhorn so, hoping that this would focus on her life and adventures as a war correspondent (and not be just her as Hemingway’s appendage, I happily received a copy of Love and Ruin from Random House/Ballantine and NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Martha was one of Hemingway’s wives, and their relationship and marriage happened during the time of the Spanish Civil War and into World War II. As a young woman in 1937, Martha/Marty, who has always bravely sought adventure, travels alone to Madrid to write about the Spanish Civil Way. Her special focus in talking to people the telling their stories of being caught in a horrific war. She was incredibly strong as she worked to make her name as a war correspondent, a field dominated by men, and she seized the opportunity (“Here I have the chance to write something meaningful, but back home I’ll just be offered the ‘woman’s angle” again”). She has this deeply held THING about her relationship with her father, seriously wanting/wishing to make him proud of her (sadly, he died too soon, shortly after expressing his disappointment in her, and IMHO she never really got over that).

Possibly due to this hole in her life, she is unexpectedly attracted to the older, married Hemingway when she meets in his bar in Key West. It was a bit creepy how he called her “daughter,” but she fell madly in love with him during their time in Spain, and they lived together in Cuba, where she set out working herself to a frazzle to make things perfect so he will choose her over his wife. Here’s where I started having trouble. He story was so interesting, except for the part where he kept telling her he was working on finding a way to be free to marry her and kept stringing her along, and she went along. This part was such a cliché, I really nearly put the book down…

They were both working writers with some success until For Whom the Bell Tolls was published, when he became hugely rich and famous, eclipsing her success. He’s a pig, confirming my prejudiced view of him, and she gets to where she has to make a choice: she can just give in to being only his wife, or she can forge her own path, which won’t end well (“…he would break my heart. I already knew that if nothing else.”) As it turned out, she also broke his, but he bounced back soon enough with the next one.

I kept reading because I really wasn’t sure how things turned out for Martha and I cared about her, even while she was taking forever to get to the place where being her own person, however that was, would be better than living with a man like him. Three stars, and not just because I don’t like Hemingway…there were just too many times where the “romance” was just one icky cliché after another.

This was a little slow going at first, the frustration that a woman journalist would not be considered as talented or capable as a male, then to prove that nothing would keep her from telling the history of the wars she reported about. This book showed her spunk and determination to be the best Martha Gellhorn she could be while also being the wife of Ernest Hemingway. She never gave up her ideal of being a writer even when judged by others and fighting to win the accolades on overblown merit.

They say “behind every great man there is a woman” and Paula McLain has taken up the standard of bringing those women to the forefront, no longer standing behind anyone. In her book Paris Wife we are introduced to Hadley Richardson, Ernest Hemingway’s first wife. In this book we are given the story of Martha Gellhorn, his third.
Marty stood behind no man and therein lies the problem. Marty was a strong woman in her own right, alone in Spain covering the Spanish Civil War. She found her reporting niche in the stories of the civilian victims of the war and her personal stories were heralded as some of the best. She and Ernest were in Spain at the same time and drawn together like moths to each other’s light. He was struggling and winning as he wrote the best book of his career, For Whom the Bell Tolls. She was travelling and writing and establishing her own career in a man’s world as a renowned war correspondent.
Sometimes two strong personalities just clash. No one is the best, no one is dominant and sometimes strong personalities just need to be at the top alone. As World War II approaches, Ernest’s literary success puts Marty in his shadow always. She still has more to give the world and he needs to be the star that is shining. Someone’s heart is going to be followed and someone else’s broken. But it’s Marty’s career that spanned sixty years.
I appreciate Paula McLain’s books for introducing me to people I knew little about.

This is a tricky one to review. Why? Because while love McLain's writing (LOVE IT), I was not a fan of the actual story. However, this is not necessarily a fault of McLain's as it is historical fiction. Allow me to explain.

Love and Ruin is the story of Martha Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway's whirlwind romance and subsequent divorce. Here's the thing - I am never a fan of love stories that begin as affairs. Again, this is not McLain's doing - it is what happened in real life. However, with a writer as strong as McLain, I actually did find myself rooting for them (or at least for Gellhorn) in the beginning. I was able to see things through her eyes. That's a first for me, so I applaud McLain for it.

But, then again, McLain clearly strives to not only bring Gellhorn to life but also to focus. Gellhorn, a remarkable journalist, feared she would live her life in the shadow of Hemingway. Therefore, the novel covers the time periods surrounding Hemingway by telling what Gellhorn was doing. And, she was doing a lot. Unfortunately, she was doing so much, that the book seemed longer and longer. And, if I'm being honest, I just wasn't as invested in every little career pursuit during this time as I was the story of her and Hemingway - shame on me!

Based on the title (and general knowledge about Hemingway's four wives), I knew that the "Ruin" was coming. And, it was not fun. It is terribly sad. So, there is a lot of build-up, and then a lot of stagnant career stuff, and then a sad ending.

Again, this is not the writer's fault - it is the fault of the story itself. It is hard to read about two extraordinary, ambitious people who both want to burn the brightest and because of this couldn't get things right. To give you a better idea of the writing, here are some of my favorite quotes:

"This is the light of childhood. I was all the ages I had ever been."

"Confident about some things and not at all about others. Like all the men I knew. Like all the people I knew. Like me."

"Anything and anyone could disappear on you, and you could disappear, too, if you didn't have people around who really knew you. Who were there solidly, meeting you exactly where you stood when life grew stormy and terrifying. Who could find you when you were lost and couldn't find yourself, not even in the mirror."

"This is personal, this life, and every time we graze against one another even for a moment, we aren't the same afterward."

"Paradise was always fragile. That was its very nature."

Fans of McLain's The Paris Wife will also enjoy this one, as well fans of history.

***Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with this copy to review!

Paula McLain’s novel, Circling the Sun, was one of my favorites of 2015, largely because she portrayed Beryl Markham so well as a woman who wasn’t content to follow the norms of her times—get married, have children—but who understood that the only way to follow her own path meant the norms would never be an option. McLain is back with Love and Ruin, giving the same gift of layers and nuance to the tumultuous life of Martha Gellhorn. Gellhorn was a writer of fiction, but more importantly, was one of the most intrepid war correspondents of her time. She was also Ernest Hemingway’s third wife and their relationship is the through line of the novel.

As a young woman Gellhorn’s life was a bit aimless. By age 27 she had traveled extensively and was trying to write a novel, but found that

I ordered cocktails that were far too strong for me, and laughed at things that were desperate, and threw myself hard at experience, by which I mean married men.

When she and her mother go on vacation to Key West in 1937 she meets Hemingway, a hero of hers for his novel A Farewell to Arms. She learns of his interest in going to Spain and reporting on the fight between Franco’s Nationalists and the Spanish Republicans and decides that this is what she has been waiting for—a cause, a reason to write. She gets credentials from Collier’s magazine that allow her to go to the front as a reporter and from there she never looks back. In her personal life, Hemingway pursues her and they begin an affair that culminates in marriage after a protracted divorce from his second wife. She creates a writer’s haven for them in Cuba, where they go when they are not covering war, but as her success increases so does his dissatisfaction with their life.

Love and Ruin spans the seven years of Gellhorn’s life from 1937 to 1944—a time of almost constant global conflict and she covered all of it. She went to places that not only had no woman ever gone, but where no other reporter got in. She was the first correspondent on Omaha Beach. Her strength lay in the fact that, unlike her male counterparts, she was less interested in the machines and strategy of war and more in the people, whether it was the combatants or the civilians caught in its path. She was also a master at using diplomacy and relationships to get the truth in front of people who could make a difference. McLain illustrates this in her dealings with the Roosevelts, especially Eleanor, whom she admired tremendously.

My only problem with Love and Ruin are the Hemingway aspects of the novel. One, there is the cover, about which authors often have no say, but, honestly, putting a man in the forefront of a cover about a strong woman, is a bit infuriating. Two, McLain includes chapters from Hemingway’s point of view. Yes, he was an integral part of Gellhorn’s life, but I didn’t care what he had to say about their relationship. I was reading the novel for her POV, not his. Also, reams of paper have already been spent on him and, as far I can tell, he was a miserable shit of a man who hated women. I never cared for his writing and like him even less off the page.

I had hoped Love and Ruin would showcase Gellhorn to the same degree that Circling the Sun did with Markham, but that didn’t quite happen. The novel is engrossing, with McLain once again vividly encapsulating the events of the times. She deftly captures Gellhorn at a very specific point in her life and illustrates the difficulties of any woman ‘having it all’, but I would have gladly kept reading to learn more about the later exploits and achievements of this fascinating woman. A sequel, maybe?