Love and Destruction

In 1937, twenty-eight-year-old journalist Martha Gellhorn travels to Madrid to report on the horrors of the Spanish Civil War. She is deeply touched by the fate of ordinary people caught in the gears of a devastating conflict. In addition, she unexpectedly and madly falls in love with Hemingway, who by then is a living legend. Their relationship and careers take off and eventually, in the shadow of the approaching Second World War, they marry.

Martha is an independent, fearless and ambitious war correspondent and works hard to remain herself, fulfill her mission and never live in her husband's shadow. But by the time Ernest publishes one of his most successful novels, Who's Edge is Ringing, in 1940, they are no longer equal partners. Martha has a decision to make: she will give up her own goals and succumb to the restrictive demands of being the wife of a famous writer, or she will retain her independence and career but lose the man she loves. A dilemma that could break both their hearts.

Paula McLain takes the reader for the second time to the life of the famous writer and heartbreaker Ernest Hemingway. This time to the tumultuous backdrops of war-torn Madrid, Finland, China, Key West and Cuba.

From the bestselling author of The Parisian Wife and I Flew to the Sun