In 2011, Paula McLain offered readers a glimpse into the personal life of Ernest Hemingway via The Paris Wife, a novel about his first marriage, to Hadley Richardson. In this fictional biography, McLain turns her writer's eye to Hemingway's third wife, Martha Gelhorn, an independent and ambitious journalist whose wartime adventures rivaled those of even the most daring male correspondent. When she meets and falls in love with Hemingway in 1936, the intrepid Gelhorn finds herself in a battle of wills, grappling for independence, equality, and love. Criss-crossing the Atlantic Ocean between Spain, the United States, and Cuba, Love and Ruin is an insightful portrait of an unconventional woman.