Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
Beautiful Exiles  By  cover art

Beautiful Exiles

By: Meg Waite Clayton
Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $25.00

Buy for $25.00

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

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.

©2018 Meg Waite Clayton LLC (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved

What listeners say about Beautiful Exiles

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    68
  • 4 Stars
    46
  • 3 Stars
    30
  • 2 Stars
    11
  • 1 Stars
    8
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    78
  • 4 Stars
    38
  • 3 Stars
    19
  • 2 Stars
    7
  • 1 Stars
    4
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    59
  • 4 Stars
    40
  • 3 Stars
    32
  • 2 Stars
    9
  • 1 Stars
    5

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

An excellent story about an amazing woman.

Wow, what an amazing woman Martha Gelhorn was. It’s a shame her husband stole the light. Yes too often she gave into his demands, placating his temper, but she accomplished so much in her own right that it needs to be sung louder. This book was a beautifully written. The imagery and the sound of the words spoken stay with you.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Really tragic and beautiful rolled into one

I love reading about things “behind the scenes“ of what we are permitted to know through our basic teachings in education.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Absorbing and fulfilling!

Wonderful narration, fine and fitting presentation of the story. Clayton obviously researched Martha Gellhorn so thoroughly to be able to interpret intimate and deliciously detailed tidbits of her Hemingway “adventure”. Depictions of the ill-fated couples’ lives in Spain and Cuba were delightful and interesting, and seemed to accurately depict the two writers in their struggles to achieve worthy novels and conquer personal demons. This book makes me want to read more of Gellhorn’s works—and Clayton’s! I will also search for narrations by Kirsten Potter! She kept my interest be her inflections, and her interpretations of each character. Everything seemed to perfectly fit as she read! Excellent experience all around!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

interesting perception of Hemi gway

I enjoyed the book, nice first person about an interesting part of Ernest Hemingway's life.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Beautiful

A wonderful story written about love and war and other things. I had a very difficult time having to hit the pace button.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Terrible

Didn't finish, boring, and voice was monotonous. Just kept giving me a headache everytime I tried to listen to it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Not what I expected

I did not expect to be thrilled by this story. I was angry and sad with Marty. I couldn't believe the horrible things that she seemed to thrive on. I also couldn't believe the self deprecating truth that she let show.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Good story.

This is a great story, beautifully narrated by Kirsten Potter, about Martha Gellhorn’s torrid relationship with the great Ernest Hemingway, filled with interesting historical background. It is so well done it feels like Gellhorn herself narrating the story of her life.

Ernest Hemingway was an absolute genius in his art of writing, but also a very, very troubled man filled with much darkness and depression, and this condition only worsened as he got older and more entrenched in alcoholism. A very sad story with such a tragic ending it gave me the shivers. Depression can truly be a very serious and awful, awful thing.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Beautiful just beautiful

I had no idea if I would even be able to get into this story. As soon as it began, the narrator sucked me in with the captivating writing and her voice and inflection. I cannot imagine another voice telling this story. It was so well-written I had to look it up and see if it was actually nonfiction. I just could not see how it could be so well done and not be absolute truth. The dialogue between Ernest and Marty was riveting and absolutely beautiful. It was a poignant love story.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!