'I wish I had died before I loved anyone but her' – Ernest Hemingway

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain- the bittersweet tale of Ernest Hemingway's first love, seen through the eyes of his first wife Hadley Richardson. Glamorous, beautiful and tragic: If you haven't read The Paris Wife yet, here are a few reasons why you should -

‘Hemingway’s head is full of darkness and infidelity, and poor Hadley is soon struggling to hold on to him. McLain brings her to life in this deeply romantic study of a doomed relationship’

- The Times, Kate Saunders

‘Ernest Hemingway’s ‘Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises’ is a glorious ode to serendipity and youth, love and jealousy, the blood spill of death in the bull and ring and fractured, alcohol-fuelled desire – and a novel that everyone should read at once. But what was it like to be the cuckolded wife, who found herself not only written out of the novel but eventually out of Hemingway’s life? Paula McLain’s The Paris Wife examines precisely that experience in a fictionalised autobiography of Hadley Richardson’ – Time Out

‘In smooth prose that sometimes achieves Hemingwayesque precision, McLain keeps their Paris alive’ – Financial Times

‘Seductive’ – Daily Mail

‘McLain’s beautifully imagined novel is a worthy addition to the Hemingway canon. It is sharp, unsparing and delivered in a pared-down prose that the great man himself would have applauded’ - Sunday Telegraph

‘Hadley’s voice is perfectly pitched. This is both a tragic story of love and betrayal, and an accomplished biography of the woman destined to remain ‘just the early wife, the Paris wife’

- The Sunday Times

‘By returning to the heady Paris interlude that began his career, Paula McLain retrieves a more appealing figure: a suitable romantic hero, in fact, for what turns out to be a pleasantly affecting love story. Hadley is a deeply touching character, dignified even as she loses almost everything she’s loved, and making goodness both convincing and interesting is an impressive feat’

– The Observer

‘Prepare to be charmed by this fictional account of Ernest Hemingway’s relationship with his first wife. A wonderfully evocative tale of love and ambition. … a brilliantly vivid depiction of a unique era of social change, creative genius and a remarkable relationship’ – Stylist magazine

Mesmerising tale’ – Marie Claire

‘The Paris Wife is romantic and tragic by turns – we love!’ - Grazia

‘the book captures her nostalgia for the prelapsarian days before her husband became famous, and the glamour of jazz-age Paris’ - Vogue