Love and Ruin is a sumptuous feast for historical fiction lovers. This novel is well-written. The characters are very detailed. This novel has easily become my favorite of 2018. I do wonder why Mrs. McLaine has skipped over the second wife’s story and moved onto the third. I hope that she will one day write about all of Hemingway’s wives. I highly recommend this for fans of biographical fiction!

Having read THE PARIS WIFE and CIRCLING THE SUN by Paula McLain I was anxious to read LOVE AND RUIN; it was good, actually very good but her other two books were great reads.

This novel chronicles the journalistic rise of Martha Gellhorn and her relationship with Ernest Hemingway.

Ms. Gellhorn was struggling to find her way in life when she and her family meet Hemingway in Key West, Florida. He convinces Martha to join him in Spain to report on the civil war going on there. Martha acuqires a press pass, becomes a correspondent and enjoys her new career path. Ernest seduces Martha though married to Pauline Pfeiffer, the mother of his two sons. An affair ensues.

It reads like the usual Ernest Hemingway novel, in this book Ms. Gelhorn was actually the interesting one but perhaps not interesting enough to let me love this novel as I did previous novels by Ms. McLain.

I will be anxiously awaiting the next novel by Paula McLain.

Love and Ruin by Paula McLain. If you like historical fiction you will like Love and Ruin. Living with a best selling author Ernest Hemingway can be both challenging and mind boggling

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I didn't ever know too much about Ernest Hemingway except that I loved "A Farewell to Arms" and that he committed suicide. I didn't know too much about his marital history. This book was about one of his wives, Martha Gellhorn, who was a writer and war corespondent

This book was okay to me, but definitely not a favorite. I felt at some points there was just too much. I started to really dislike Ernest and Martha both by the end. I think this was supposed to make you grow to respect her, but she came across as whiny and weak to me. People that like historical fiction may enjoy it, but if you don't want to hate Ernest Hemingway, this isn't the book for you!.

Once again, Paula Mclain does not disappoint. I read The Paris Wife and thoroughly enjoyed it and now she is back with Love and Ruin.

Love and Ruin is the story of Ernest Hemingway and his third wife, Martha Gelhorn. I knew nothing of their relationship before reading this historical fiction. This is the story of what happens when two very strong people, in basically the same field, try to love and live their lives together.

Martha was an upcoming young journalist and writer when she met Ernest Hemingway. She wanted to cover what was happening in Spain during the Spanish civil war. Her stories focused on the people and their personal stories. While being thrown into life or death situations, she began to fall in love with Ernest, even though he had a wife and children at home.

Martha craved the excitement of being in the action as much as Hemingway did. They were both such strong people, committed to causes, committed to their writing and committed to each other. There was jealousy on both sides and it was a relationship that was almost doomed from the very beginning. Too intense, too much in common, too much alike.

I really enjoyed this book. Martha Gelhorn was fearless in her pursuit of a story. I’ve read that Martha Gelhorn is portrayed as someone who latched on to Hemingway to further her career. Paula Mclain presents her more as an equal, at least in terms of drive and ambition. She became one of the greatest war correspondents in history.

I received an ARC of this book.

I received an advance copy of Love ad Ruin from Net Galley. I am a huge fan of Paula McLain. I have loved The Paris Wife and Circling the Sun. This book cemented that I will read all of Paula's books.
The story is about Marty Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway as they progress through being journalists, authors and finally a married couple. It is fiction with historical events mixed in to tell their love story. I won't go into the plot line chapter by chapter but I will ask to to read this one. You won't be able to put it down.

I typically love Paula's books but this one just didn't do it for me. I found the story really slow to start which made it really hard for me to get into. And it felt like Martha was this meek thing with none of the gumption that I had learned of.

This is a good historical fiction read about Hemingway and his third wife. I was not as enamored with this book as I was with The Paris Wife. I received a copy from NetGalley and this is my honest review.

Love and Ruin is my first read by Paula McLain. I really wanted to like this book. I just could not get into this book at all. I do like historical fiction and I know nothing about Hemingway, but I found this book very dull. I only read 20% of the book before just giving up. I just didn't care about Gellhorn or Hemingway's story-line or the Spanish Civil War. Special thanks to Netgalley and Ballantine Books for the advanced copy to read in exchange for my honest opinion.

#LoveAndRuin #NetGalley

The author of THE PARIS WIFE takes on the story of Martha Gellhorn, a war correspondent and Hemingway's third wife. Being married to a man larger than life while reporting in war-torn countries proves to be an impossible situation. My sympathies lay with Gellhorn, a woman who wanted to have her career while sharing her life with Hemingway, but he wouldn't or couldn't deal with the arrangement. I enjoyed reading the book but not as much as I loved THE PARIS WIFE.

(posted on Goodreads and Amazon)

This was another wonderfully researched and written story. This author seems to get better and better. I couldn't put it down

What a book!, what a story!! The stormy relationship between Hemingway and Gellhorn is relentless. I admire her so much. She was such a strong woman, traveling the world, alone, as a war correspondent, She certainly put up with plenty in that relationship, and the fact that he said to her in the Epilogue, I’m going to marry her...meaning another woman, was just too too much! Paula McLain did remarkable research into this novel. I wonder at it! A well worth it read, completely fascinating, at times very difficult to read about WWII. Thank you to Netgalley and Ballantine books for the perusal for an honest review.

Historical fiction about an intriguing character like Ernest Hemmingway...you have my interest piqued. What a character he was and what a good job McLain did in showing us more possible sides to him and his life. HIs words added to the historical situations made this an interesting read, a read that made me want to know more! That is a sign of a good historical fiction novel! Highly recommend.

Oh my, Paula McLain had just depicted an even better, more gripping angle in Ernest Hemingway's irresistible and destructive magnetic force of a life! This novel is about a courageous, passionate and talented Martha Gellhorn, which was a beautiful and significant war journalist and writer. Her talents and energy was a great source of attraction for Hemingway. This is a well told story of their love and complexities. I highly recommend it. Thank you NetGalley, publisher and author for the reader's copy. All opinions are my own.

Love and Ruin was a good read by Paula McLain. In 1937 Martha went to Madrid to find out about the Spanish Civil War. Martha finds herself falling in love with Ernest Hemingway. I loved reading about how they fell in love and the result of said love.

2.5 Stars

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for supplying me this ARC in exchange for a honest review.

This book has high reviews, and I am in the minority on this one. I so wanted to enjoy this book. After a month of on again off again reading, I barely finished. For me, this book was extremely slow, picked up with high hopes, and let me down again. I truly wanted to like Martha, who ended up being Ernest Hemingway’s third wife. I have read other books by this author and loved them – just not this one.

This is a favorite author as she writes with such masterful talent that her stories captivate the reader. This is a fascinating story of Ernest Hemingway's third wife.. She was a women who exceeded him in career accomplishments and was a woman before her time.. I loved reading of her successes and her independent spirit. I am glad this is a author who writes of strong women and does not underscore their accomplishments in the least.
Martha Gellhorn was a respected person for her time. She was a war correspondent for 60 years, and an author in her own right, but in the times they lived women were not considered little more then property and her work was not valued over her husbands.

The reader is swept along as Martha travels as a correspondent to the Spanish Civil War, and the events leading up to WWII. She was very driven, independent, and adventurous, but also deeply compassionate and very drawn to the untold stories of the suffering of people. Her first-person narration is what makes this book so riveting, She was the only woman to land at Normandy on D-Day, and was among the first journalists to report from the Dachau concentration camp. She is a fascinating subject of history and I thank the author for this historical account of her fascinating life. This is a book i highly recommend.
Thank you for the ARC which does not influence my personal opinion.

Love and Ruin by Paula McLain tells us the story of Ernest Hemingway and his marriages to, war journalist Martha Gellhorn, his third wife. This book was beautifully written and captivating. I enjoyed the storyline and how Martha wouldn't let her marriage deny her the life she desired. This book is sad and also inspiring. It tells the story of Ernest Hemingway and his marriage that I hadn't known about before. I liked that it is tells how Martha wouldn't let her career take a backseat to that of her husbands.

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a review copy of the book. All opinions expressed are my own.

This author is such a good writer, Immersing you into the story from the beginning.
This story is a about the tumultuous life and love between Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn, who became his third wife and it was a romance that challenged them both.
When Martha and her family went down to Key West they met Hemingway in a bar and they became fast friends, he showed them around the keys and introduced them to his family, she was fascinated by him and they had a common bond of writing, he became something of a mentor.
He went to Spain to be a correspondent during the Spanish Civil war and Martha who wanting to be a reporter as well, found a way to go with credentials from Collier Magazine. Here they finally let their passion start, although Hemingway was still married.
They ended up with their main residence in Cuba, where Ernest had already been living part time to write. They bought a little farm and made it theirs, and here the two writers were able to be creative in their own spaces. Both became restless from time to time and would go off on their own to follow a story. Gellhorn loved being a war correspondent and had a gift of finding the human interest story in all of the horror around her.
It was a story that had me hooked from the start, the ups and downs of there relationship was fascinating to follow, each strong headed and at times not willing to compromise. I loved the family aspect of it, when Hemingway's sons would visit them, and the close relationship they all had.
There are a lot of wonderful characters in this book to read about.
I look forward to her next book.
I would like to thank NetGalley and Random House Publishing group – Ballantine for the ARC of this book.

Love and Ruin by Paula McLain is a historical fiction book that focuses on on Ernest Hemingway’s third wife, Martha Gellhorn. Martha was a respected and celebrated person with many accomplishments. She was a war correspondent for 60 years, and an author in her own right, but the times were such that Ernest Hemingway often overshadowed her.

The best parts of the book are Martha's travels as a correspondent, along with the descriptions of the Spanish Civil War, and the events leading up to WWII. She was very driven, independent, and adventurous, but was also empathetic and drawn to the untold stories of the suffering of ordinary people. She was at her best and most alive when she was at the front lines in the midst of the action, and her first-person narration was riveting. Among many other accomplishments she was the only woman to land at Normandy on D-Day, and was among the first journalists to report from the Dachau concentration camp.

Love and Ruin was the perfect title for this book. My one complaint is it got a little angsty at times when talking about their relationship and it began to wear thin. But it still gets all the stars for highlighting Martha's career and accomplishments.

I give this book 4/5 stars

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine and Ballantine Books via NetGalley for the opportunity to review this wonderful book.