My rating: 4 of 5 stars
From New York Times bestselling author Meg Waite Clayton comes a riveting novel based on one of the most volatile and intoxicating real-life love affairs of the twentieth century.
Key West, 1936. Headstrong, accomplished journalist Martha Gellhorn is confident with words but less so with men when she meets disheveled literary titan Ernest Hemingway in a dive bar. Their friendship—forged over writing, talk, and family dinners—flourishes into something undeniable in Madrid while they’re covering the Spanish Civil War.
Martha reveres him. The very married Hemingway is taken with Martha—her beauty, her ambition, and her fearless spirit. And as Hemingway tells her, the most powerful love stories are always set against the fury of war. The risks are so much greater. They’re made for each other.
With their romance unfolding as they travel the globe, Martha establishes herself as one of the world’s foremost war correspondents, and Hemingway begins the novel that will win him the Nobel Prize for Literature. Beautiful Exiles is a stirring story of lovers and rivals, of the breathless attraction to power and fame, and of one woman—ahead of her time—claiming her own identity from the wreckage of love.
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I read LOVE AND RUIN by Paula McLain a couple of month's ago. That didn't stop me from wanting to read this book. I'm a big fan of biographical fiction and enjoy reading different versions of famous love stories. So, I was all game for another take on the Ernest Hemingway & Martha Gellhorn romance. And, I'm pleased to say that I enjoyed this book immensely.
This time did I have much more knowledge about Hemingway & Gellhorn thanks to McLain's book. However, I loved to once again read about this talented couple that and their doomed relationship. Loved the writing and the dialogue. Gellhorn was such a strong woman that she just couldn't submit herself to a relationship where she was the staying home wife. She wanted to be a war correspondent and in the end, did she choose the path right for her. I find her to be such a strong and inspiring woman. To dare to want the star and not letting anyone stop her. Hemingway may have been a brilliant writer, but he didn't score high on the husband part. At least not in his marriage to Martha Gellhorn. And, honestly, a man that has already left one wife for another woman, well the odds that he would do that again are high...
BEAUTIFUL EXILES is a perfect book for historical/biographical history fans. I'm eager to read more by Meg Waite Clayton.
I want to thank Lake Union Publishing for providing me with a free copy through NetGalley for an honest review!
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