Love and Ruin

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. They moved without sound, slinking up hidden ropes, never looking at one another or thinking of anything but the next moment s action. On cat s feet, they fell from the wall to the ground, passing invisibly through the shadows and creeping softly toward their target.
 
It was like a symphony unfolding. Their plan was to take the guards one by one by slitting their throats. Then they would force the door beyond the veranda and climb the marble steps to the little girl s room. María del Carmen, she was called, ten years old and sweetly sleeping until a rope would gag her quickly and pillows would crush over her small face. Then to the master bedroom, where they would dispatch the last few guards. Everything would be done without firing a single shot. The general and his beautiful wife wouldn t need to stir even a little in their bed beyond the door, their bodies still as a painting by Velázquez, until death came.
 
All of this had been set in motion, but then one of the guards turned suddenly and machine-gun fire cut the night. The assassins scattered, barely escaping with their lives. The general woke at the sound of gunfire, but after hearing from his men what had happened, he only stumbled back to bed. Attempts on his life were not rare and particularly not just then, when he was on the cusp of the thing he d waited for, as a tiger waits, just out of sight.
 
Five days later, the planned uprising in Morocco began. The general broadcast a message urging all military officers to join the insurgence and overthrow the Spanish government. Then he sent his wife and daughter into hiding in France, and was taken through the streets of Tenerife, where already the shooting had begun, to a waiting de

Paula McLain is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels Love and Ruin, Circling the Sun, The Paris Wife, and A Ticket to Ride, the memoir Like Family: Growing Up in Other People s Houses, and two collections of poetry. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Good Housekeeping, O: The Oprah Magazine, Town & Country, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, and elsewhere. She lives in Ohio with her family.

Wonderfully evocative. . . . [Paula] McLain s fans will not be disappointed; this is historical fiction at its best, and today s female readers will be encouraged by Martha, who refuses to be silenced or limited in a time that was harshly repressive for women. Library Journal (starred review)
 
McLain has perfected her dramatic and lyrical approach to biographical fiction, lacing Marty s ardent inner life into electrifying descriptions of place and action. . . . McLain brings forth the deepest, most ringing elements of both love and ruin,  the two poles of Marty and Ernest s tempestuous relationship, a ferocious contest between two brilliant, willful, and intrepid writers. McLain s fast-moving, richly insightful, heart-wrenching, and sumptuously written tale pays exhilarating homage to its truly exceptional and significant inspiration. Booklist (starred review)
 
If you loved McLain s 2011 blockbuster The Paris Wife, you re sure to adore her new novel, which is just as good, if not better. AARP
 
McLain strikingly depicts Martha Gellhorn s burgeoning career as a writer and war correspondent during the years of her affair with and marriage to Ernest Hemingway. . . . Gellhorn emerges as a fierce trailblazer every bit Hemingway s equal in this thrilling book. Publishers Weekly