Love and Ruin: A Novel

An Amazon Best Book of May 2018: Paula McLain said she was done writing about Ernest Hemingway after she finished her bestselling novel, The Paris Wife, but he crept back into her consciousness and six years later is Love and Ruin, an exceptional novel about Ernest Hemingway and his third wife, Martha Gellhorn. Love and Ruin is the story of their relationship, yes, but at its heart it’s the story of a driven and fearless young woman who became a force to be reckoned with in her own right. McLain takes readers from the front lines of the Spanish Civil War to the lush refuge of Hemingway’s Cuba as Gellhorn blossoms into a venerable war correspondent, while the already famous Hemingway pens his master work, For Whom the Bell Tolls. We watch over Gellhorn’s shoulder as she grapples with the horrors of war, falls in love with a celebrated yet flawed man, and agonizes with self-doubt about her strength as a writer; yet somehow she manages to stay true to herself through it all. Love and Ruin is a love story, the making of a trail-blazing woman, and most of all a spellbinding work of historical fiction. --Seira Wilson, Amazon Book Review