Upon publication, Love and Ruin will hit all of the bestseller lists.

So, despite my bluster about loathing romance this historical romance worked for me. It isn’t easy and most of the time it is painful. Gellhorn has the chutzpah to retain and fight for her sense of self and pursue her work independently of the great man. Unlike Hemingway’s previous two wives, she doesn’t fawn over him. Louis roots to Spain, Finland, Czechoslovakia, Paris etc.against the backdrop of war.

The love and ruin of their relationship is told from Gellhorn’s point of view. Hemingway is portrayed as the great American writer at the height of his career and as, by the accounts I’ve read, jerk that he was.

I’ve always been fascinated by her bravery and commitment as she became a renowned war correspondent and paved the way for other female reports who followed. Historical fiction, this novel chronicles the relationship between Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn whom he met while still married to his second wife, Pauline Pfeiffer. I confess that I wasn’t a fan of the Paris Wife and I liked Circling the Sun even less but Love and Ruin was a success for me. It is a dilemma that will force her to break his heart, and her own. 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. In the shadow of the impending Second World War, and set against the tumultuous backdrops of Madrid, Finland, China, Key West, and especially Cuba, where Martha and Ernest make their home, their relationship and professional careers ignite.

She also finds herself unexpectedly-and uncontrollably-falling in love with Hemingway, a man already on his way to becoming a legend. In 1937, twenty-eight-year-old Martha 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 devastating conflict. The bestselling author of The Paris Wife returns to the subject of Ernest Hemingway in a novel about his passionate, stormy marriage to Martha Gellhorn-a fiercely independent, ambitious young woman who would become one of the greatest war correspondents of the twentieth century

Love and ruin a novel