Love and Ruin by Paula McLain

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.

Back Cover:

In 1937, twenty-eight-year-old Martha Gellhorn 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 the devastating conflict. It’s the adventure she’s been looking for and her chance to prove herself a worthy journalist in a field dominated by men. But she also finds herself unexpectedly—and uncontrollably—falling in love with Hemingway, a man on his way to becoming a legend.

In the shadow of the impending Second World War, and set against the turbulent backdrops of Madrid and Cuba, Martha and Ernest’s relationship and their 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 could force her to break his heart, and hers.