LOVE & RUIN

Prologue: 'Near dawn on July 13, 1936, as three assassins scaled a high garden wall in Tenerife hoping to catch the band of armed guards unaware, I was asleep in a tiny room in Stuttgart, waiting for my life to begin. The killers were professionals?' In 1937, courageous and independent Martha Gellhorn travels to Madrid to report on the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War. She finds herself drawn to the stories of ordinary people caught in devastating conflict and finds herself unexpectedly and uncontrollably falling in love with Ernest Hemingway, a man already on his way to becoming a legend. In the shadow of the impending Second World War and set against the tumultuous backdrops of Madrid, Finland, China and especially Cuba where Ernest and Martha made their home, their relationship and professional careers ignite. But when Hemingway publishes the biggest literary success of his career, they are no longer equals, and Martha must make a choice - surrender to the suffocating demands of her husband, or risk losing him by forging her way as her own woman and writer. It is a dilemma that will force her to break his and her hearts. By an author renowned for pitch-perfect renderings of famous voices in her novels. 389pp.