This book was written with incredible heart. I’ve read many WWII historical books, put this one gave me a view point I haven’t had. The story, based on real people managing and living at the famous Ritz Hotel in Paris during the National occupation. The hotel was home to many famous characters including Chanel and Hemingway. Then in an instant the Manager and his beautiful American wife are playing hot to Natzi command. For four year! To live under so much pressure; loving France, seeing it destroyed, working with the resistance and never knowing if what you are risking will make a difference an that at any momment you could be caught and shot. The relationship between the Manager and his wife is fraught with almost continual conflict. Under this is a deep love they almost fail to reconize in time. I highly recommend this book and thank the publishers; Penguin Random House and Netgallery for the opportunity to read an advance copy. I look forward to reading more by this terrific author.

Nothing bad can happen at the Ritz; inside its gilded walls every woman looks beautiful, every man appears witty. Favored guests like Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Coco Chanel, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor walk through its famous doors to be welcomed and pampered by Blanche Auzello and her husband, Claude, the hotel’s director. The Auzellos are the mistress and master of the Ritz, allowing the glamour and glitz to take their minds off their troubled marriage, and off the secrets that they keep from their guests—and each other.

Until June 1940, when the German army sweeps into Paris, setting up headquarters at the Ritz. Suddenly, with the likes of Hermann Goëring moving into suites once occupied by royalty, Blanche and Claude must navigate a terrifying new reality. One that entails even more secrets. One that may destroy the tempestuous marriage between this beautiful, reckless American and her very proper Frenchman. For the falsehoods they tell to survive, and to strike a blow against their Nazi “guests,” spin a web of deceit that ensnares everything and everyone they cherish.

But one secret is shared between Blanche and Claude alone—the secret that, in the end, threatens to imperil both of their lives, and to bring down the legendary Ritz itself.

Based on true events, Mistress of the Ritz is a taut tale of suspense wrapped up in a love story for the ages, the inspiring story of a woman and a man who discover the best in each other amid the turbulence of war.

Blanche is an inspiring historical figure. She risked everything to maintain who she truly was and was unapologetic for it. Going into this book, I knew nothing about Blanche and Claude Auzello, but I am glad I know their story and sacrifices now. I give Mistress of the Ritz 4 stars. It was slow to start, but when it got going, I couldn't put it down.

Mistress of the Ritz is an interesting story. A married couple, Blanche and Claude, run The Ritz in Paris. During the
WWII occupation of Paris, Nazis billeted the Ritz. Imagine catering to people you despise. The story is told from different perspectives which is intriguing. It's always nice to understand how different characters view the same situation. It's a well written thoughtful story about a couple doing their best with the hotel and their marriage during a terrible time. It's a good piece of historical fiction. Thanks to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

Melanie Benjamin has taken an account from history and given it a realistic bent to what could have happened to these real people. Set in Paris during the Nazi occupation, the story of American Blanche Auzello and her Ritz Director French born husband Claude is told from the glamorous perspective that is the Ritz. However, Blanche and Claude have secrets. Secrets they keep from their "guests" and each other. With both working for the French Resistance, this historical fiction account of the lives of people in Occupied France are told through their eyes. Benjamin even brings up the real-life scandal of the Auzellos that leaves the reader wondering if all this really is what happened.

I really enjoyed this story! You are involved in their marriage,they give you the thoughts on both man and woman in this marriage,if they had only talked to each other a lot of hurt would have been avoided. During the Germans taking over Paris what it was like during this time period,how no one trusted anyone scared to death in anything you said of did or who you knew! Working behind the scenes of the Germans waiting on the Americans to come rescued them,snuggling Allies out of Germany. I really enjoyed this story of the hotel the different guest that would stay and how it is to run a hotel as such a wonderful hotel as the Ritz.

A new book from the wonderful Melanie Benjamin is always a highly anticipated and eagerly awaited treat. This new one, though not quite up to her usual standard of excellence, is nonetheless still a page-turner, with the second half much superior to the first in a variety of ways. That said, the book has stayed with me and now (as ever) I can't wait for her next one.

Melanie Benjamin does it again with this wonderfully imagined tale of real life husband and wife Claude and Blanche Auzello. Claude was the director of the famed Ritz in Paris during WWII and had to grit his teeth while the Germany Army took occupation of the better half of the hotel. Blanche and Claude had had a whirlwind courtship, neither one really understanding the other and their relationship is passionate, yet contentious. How they endure the war and find their way back to each other makes for a delicious read peppered with legendary people such as Coco Chanel and Ernest Hemingway. This is definitely one for book clubs.

This was my first book by this author, but it won't be my last! The story was engaging, the characters multi-dimensional and the historical detail fascinating!

I am 35% into this book and it has basically just been a story about their trivial marriage. I feel like maybe it is building up but I can't bring myself to keep reading it. WAY too much focus on their marriage problems. I understand both Claude and Blanche as characters now and have started skipping over all the unnecessary story-telling yet it keeps going and going!! I thought this book would be more like The Nightngale or Alice Network but instead...it is turing out to be a book soley about their marriage.

Engaging story of Claude, the manager of the Ritz and his wife Blanche set during the German occupation of Paris in WWII.
It was told in a realistic and easy to follow story line and the characters were more complicated than I initially thought.
As the hotel is taken over by more and more Germans, they both find individual ways to support the Resistance unbeknownst to each other. Their marriage is a rocky one. She thinks he panders to the Germans and he thinks she is a ditz who spends her time drinking in the hotel bar, especially when her friend Lily is in town.
Many times when reading historical fiction novels, there are split time lines. I enjoyed that this wasn’.
I would like to thank the author, publisher and Net Galley for an ARC of this book.

A love story...a war story...a story of passion and courage and misunderstanding. Mistress of the Ritz by Melanie Benjamin is all of those and more. Blanche Rubenstein, a young American Jew, meets Claude Auzello, a Catholic Frenchman, and so begins an amazing story. After a whirlwind courtship Blanche and Claude marry and take up residence that the Ritz in Paris, where Claude is the manager. Life was good for the Auzellos, and then the Nazi's invaded Paris, and moved into the Ritz. It was a time fraught with danger and tension, as the wrong word could end up with death, and Blanche has the secret of her jewishness to hide. Both Auzellos walk the political tightrope with skill and daring, each not knowing just what the other was doing to help win the war, both in terrible danger.

Mistress of the Ritz has a cast of indelible characters in addition to Blanche and Claude: Lily, Blanche's bohemian friend who Claude fears leads Lily into dangerous and foolish action. Frank the bartender, who is not who he seems. Some are real, others are not. But the time and the place are all real, and Melanie Benjamin has created a story that is irresistible. Mistress of the Ritz is one of those books that will leaving you reading long after you should have gone to bed!

In Melanie Benjamin's new historical novel, she offers us the story of Claude Auzello, the director of the glamorous Ritz Hotel in Paris, and his former flapper/actress wife, Blanche, the "Mistress of the Ritz", during the turbulence of World War II and the Nazi occupation of Paris. Blanche is a colorful character who enjoys drinking, foul language, and drama, while her husband is a more traditional Frenchman with the requisite mistress on the side. The two clash early in their marriage once she learns about his infidelities. As a "modern" American woman, she doesn't understand the French's long-standing tradition of husbands having lovers on the side.

Claude and Blanche surround themselves with celebrities whom the reader will recognize: Truman Capote (the subject of Benjamin's previous novel), Ernest Hemingway, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, et al. But the most important friendship that Blanche develops is with a mysterious young woman named Lily. Soon Blanche becomes involved in Lily's secret mission against the Nazis.

The love/hate relationship between Claude and Blanche is fascinating. While their true life stories have not been well-documented, Benjamin does a great job of filling in the gaps and providing insight to explain their actions. I don't want to give anything away, but Blanche's involvement with Lily eventually gets in over her head. Spoiler Alert: The Nazis are not nice people.

The last chapter of the book was a home run for me. I immediately went to Google to find out more about these fascinating figures.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine for providing me with an advanced reader's copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

American Blanche falls for Frenchman Claude. After a brief, dizzying, whirlwind romance, they marry. The bliss quickly turns to petty fights, in part because of their different cultural upbringings. However, they both enjoy the glitz of the Ritz in Paris, where Claude is the hotel’s director. They enjoy hobnobbing with the likes of Hemingway and Coco Chanel and F. Scott Fitzgerald. But when Nazi’s take over the hotel during World War II, Claude has keep his disdain and anger toward them to himself, while Blanche acts out, but subtly.

It shouldn’t surprise me that German’s would take over the fancy hotels wherever they wanted, but this was not a story that I’d heard before—the true story of this married couple I’d never heard of.

For fans of historical fiction, Melanie Benjamin doesn’t disappoint.

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this novel, which RELEASES MAY 21, 2019.

This was beautifully, powerfully written but it wasn’t what I was expecting.

This is a story about The Ritz, a place where everything should be beautiful and perfect, and it is a story of Blanche and Claude.

Let me start by saying, Blanche is an incredible character. She is feisty, she is entertaining and she is strong.

Claude sometimes puts his commitments to the Ritz before Blanche and he’s not always a good husband.

They start to lose respect for each other when the Ritz is taken over by Nazi soldiers. Blanche sees Claude catering to them and she doesn’t know how he can do it.
Meanwhile he doesn’t like the time she spends drinking with her friend Lily.
Claude appears to be cheating again but Blanche feels she’s trapped in the country and her marriage.

It’s a time of war and it’s pulling them apart instead of bringing them together. They’re keeping secrets from each other and from everyone else.

I expected more time to be spent in the early days, before the war, when the Ritz still felt perfect and magical. Most of this book takes place during the war. There isn’t much levity here. But there are some interesting twists and turns, great characters and a well written story.

I got to read an early ebook edition from NetGalley. Thanks!

Thank you for the opportunity to read this book. Unfortunately, it wasn't for me. The constant changing back and forth between present and past tense was confusing. The characters were unlikable. Claude is controlling and disrespectful. Blanche is selfish and motivated by her desire for her husband's approval. The German invaders who supposedly are the entire reason for the book are stuffed into the background. I never felt like they were much of a threat but a mere inconvenience if that. I was hoping for a triumph over evil, and instead I got an immature couple hating each other. I expected a strong female character in Blanche, and she is, instead, simply after the approval of a man.

I. Really enjoyed this book about a real life couple and the secrets and intrigue going on in WW II Paris. I hadn’t heard of these people before this book.
Melanie Benjamin is at the top of his game.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me review this book

The Grateful Reader Review by Dorothy Schwab

The Mistress of the Ritz will lure you in, just as Blanche and Claude lured the elite, wealthy, and well known, into the posh Ritz Hotel; with “her” tapestries, works of art, chandeliers, sumptuous dining, and decadent decor. The Ritz holds her own place in the cast of characters in this revealing tale of love and war. Because where else would the duchesses and princesses find bathrooms in each suite, and telephones and electricity throughout ?

“No one knows anything, while seeing, hearing everything. This is how it is in Paris these days. ”

The lives of the French people became divided into two distinct sections: how they lived and saw people and situations before the German invasion, and how this all changed after the invasion in 1940. This same distinction was evident in the life of the Ritz, her guests and the debonair French manager, Claude, and his wife, Blanche, the American actress & flapper.

As history unfolds with the 1942 tragedy of Vel d’Hiv, the lives of the Parisians and especially, the Jews, change forever. Blanche and Claude are living out their marriage in the Ritz, surrounded by Germans. Relegated to the far side of the hotel, they must live under the constant surveillance and scrutiny of the German officers and the hotel staff, as they continue to host guests and serve the Germans; never sure who’s who.

With the daily disappearances of staff, familiar faces of guests and friends; Blanche and Claude must each find a sense of purpose in this new life. Claude and Blanche love each other,madly, but can they trust each other, implicitly? With the help of friends like Blanche’s Lily and Claude’s contact, Martin, and the dependable barkeep, Frank, the bonds of marriage are stretching quite thin as the Parisians wait and watch for the coming of the Americans and always, always, counting on the Resistance.

The love and life of Blanche and Claude on full display at the Ritz; along with the daily developments of the war will keep you aching to know who merely survives the war, who lives and dies, but mostly how do they “go on with life?” What purpose can war serve?

So many believed, “Nothing bad can happen at the Ritz. The Ritz will provide. The Ritz will protect…. But will it now? Now that its famous front door is manned not by a top-hatted doorman in a black overcoat, but a Nazi soldier? “

The Mistress of the Ritz is highly recommended; a 5 Star hotel and a 5 Star read.

Thank you to Net Galley and Random House Publishing Group-Ballentine for the chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review. The story is based on a real life couple-Blanche and Claude Auzello. Even though they were married, they had a very tumultuous relationship. They were forced to play host and hostess to the Germans at the iconic Ritz Hotel in Paris during WWII. They were both harboring a secret that eventually led to their downfall. I like stories based on real life characters and events so this book was a perfect choice for me. Highly recommend if you like stories about WWII. Melanie Benjamin is one of the best historical fiction writers around!

5 remarkable stars!!

This is the story of Claude and Blanche Auzello during the occupation of Paris by the Nazis during WWII and just prior to that. Claude is the Director of the Ritz while his wife Blanche is called the “mistress of the Ritz.” Claude is very good at what he does. Blanche is a “reformed” flapper who loves it at the Ritz, but all is not well in her and Claude's marriage.

When Blanche meets Lily, she is entranced and appreciative of having a true woman friend with whom she can share her problems and dreams. She meets some of Lily's friends and then gets herself into some must be kept secret actions.

This book outlines what it was like for the Parisians during the war. The people who “disappeared,” the deterioration of conditions in Paris, the sacrifices the citizens had to make to get by are all detailed.

Claude and Blanche think that they understand one another, but they really don't. Blanche thinks that Claude is pandering to the Nazis who have more or less taken over the Ritz. Claude thinks that Blanche is a ditz who drinks too much with her friend Lily.

But Blanche has a potentially devastating secret that could bring an end to herself, Claude and the Ritz. The truth of Claude and Blanche's relationship finally is revealed in heartwarming prose.

This is a remarkably well written and plotted novel. It reads linearly; that is to say one event follows another in a logical fashion. The transitions are smooth and flawless. I don't know how Ms. Benjamin does it. She writes with such authority. She obviously does her research well. I truly enjoyed this book as I have the other Melanie Benjamin novels I have read.

I want to thank Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine/Ballantine and NetGalley for forwarding to me a copy of this truly wonderful book for me to read, enjoy and review.

This was an incredible story that needed to be told. In “The Mistress of the Ritz,” we learn about Blanche and Claude Auzello from the skilled storytelling of Melanie Benjamin who has done an excellent job in all her books with real people as her characters. Unlike her previous novels, this remarkable story was virtually unknown and in the words of Ms. Benjamin is indeed a “great big fat juicy story.” The setting is the Ritz between the 1920s and 1940s during the German occupation of Paris, where the Nazis make the glitzy hotel their headquarters. The life of the proper Frenchman and his free-thinking American wife is turned upside down as they each deal with the dangers surrounding them. The glamorous and colorful guests they serve add to this compelling story.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House for providing me with an ARC of this excellent book, which will be out May 21, 2019.