The Queen of Paris
A Novel of Coco Chanel
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- £9.99
Publisher Description
Legendary fashion designer Coco Chanel is revered for her sophisticated style—the iconic little black dress—and famed for her intoxicating perfume Chanel No. 5. Yet behind the public persona is a complicated woman of intrigue, shadowed by mysterious rumors. The Queen of Paris, the new novel from award-winning author Pamela Binnings Ewen, vividly imagines the hidden life of Chanel during the four years of Nazi occupation in Paris in the midst of WWII—as discovered in recently unearthed wartime files.
Coco Chanel could be cheerful, lighthearted, and generous; she also could be ruthless, manipulative, even cruel. Against the winds of war, with the Wehrmacht marching down the Champs-Élysées, Chanel finds herself residing alongside the Reich’s High Command in the Hotel Ritz. Surrounded by the enemy, Chanel wages a private war of her own to wrestle full control of her perfume company from the hands of her Jewish business partner, Pierre Wertheimer. With anti-Semitism on the rise, he has escaped to the United States with the confidential formula for Chanel No. 5. Distrustful of his intentions to set up production on the outskirts of New York City, Chanel fights to seize ownership. The House of Chanel shall not fall.
While Chanel struggles to keep her livelihood intact, Paris sinks under the iron fist of German rule. Chanel—a woman made of sparkling granite—will do anything to survive. She will even agree to collaborate with the Nazis in order to protect her darkest secrets. When she is covertly recruited by Germany to spy for the Reich, she becomes Agent F-7124, code name: Westminster. But why? And to what lengths will she go to keep her stormy past from haunting her future?
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
This riveting and glamorous historical novel was inspired by the life of fashion icon Coco Chanel. In Pamela Binnings Ewen’s reimagination, Coco is struggling to stay afloat amid the Nazi invasion after her Jewish business partner escapes to the U.S. with the formula for the landmark Chanel No. 5 perfume. Despite the war raging around her, Coco does everything in her power to nurture her empire and maintain her opulent lifestyle. Ewen mesmerizes us with her descriptions of Coco’s luxe Parisian world, with its illicit affairs, sudden betrayals, and questionable political alliances. She shows us how her problematic heroine’s passions and thirst for survival lead her to make unsavory decisions. The Queen of Paris is a thrilling historical tale about how everything—and everyone—has a price.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ewen (The Moon in the Mango Tree) dazzles in this outstanding historical thriller that chronicles the life of Coco Chanel in occupied France. While staying at Paris's Hotel Ritz in the spring of 1940, Chanel is approached by the Reich's High Command to become a spy and sees an opportunity to take control of the company she's built with her business partner, Pierre Wertheimer. As the war escalates, Pierre takes the secret formula of Chanel No. 5 to New York City, threatening Chanel's control of her iconic fragrance. After becoming a German asset, Chanel attempts to use growing anti-Semitism and new Jewish laws under the Vichy government to her advantage to reclaim full control of her company. Her efforts bring her to the attention of powerful members of the German military, who push the limits of her national and personal loyalties as she goes undercover for the Nazis. Ewen's Chanel is arrogant and fragile in equal measure, and the author does a marvelous job of digging into the motivations of a woman born into poverty as she defends the fortune she built for herself, making this a refreshingly nuanced character portrait and also a real page-turner. This is top-notch historical fiction.
