The Queen of Paris

A Novel of Coco Chanel

by Pamela Binnings Ewen

This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.

Buy on Amazon Buy on BN.com Buy on Bookshop.org

*This page contains affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site at no additional cost to you.

Pub Date Apr 07 2020 | Archive Date Apr 08 2020

Blackstone Publishing

General Fiction (Adult) | Historical Fiction

Talking about this book? Use #TheQueenOfParis #NetGalley. More hashtag tips!

Description

An electrifying novel based on the real life of Coco Chanel, The Queen of Paris reveals an unseen side to the celebrated icon as she trades fashion for espionage during World War II to protect her name, her business, and her legend.

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?

Read More Read More

A Note From the Publisher

Pamela Binnings Ewen is the author of one nonfiction book, Faith on Trial, and five novels, including The Moon in the Mango Tree, awarded the 2012 Eudora Welty Memorial Award. After practicing law for many years, she retired to write. She is a founder of the Northshore Literary Society in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, in the greater New Orleans area. She's also served on the boards of the Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society and Tennessee Williams Festival. Visit Pamela at PamelaEwen.com.

Pamela Binnings Ewen is the author of one nonfiction book, Faith on Trial, and five novels, including The Moon in the Mango Tree, awarded the 2012 Eudora Welty Memorial Award. After practicing law...

Read More Read More

Advance Praise

“Ewen dazzles in this outstanding historical thriller that chronicles the life of Coco Chanel in occupied France…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.”

-Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Ewen’s Coco is a proud and image-conscious character, sprung from a painful, lonely childhood to become a self-made triumph…More morality play than fashion fable; a reminder that fame does not always guarantee goodness or likability.”

-Kirkus Reviews

“Empathetic yet unsparing, The Queen of Paris is an engrossing historical novel that reveals another room in the House of Chanel: beyond the timeless elegance, simplicity, and jasmine-scented perfume was a desperate woman, trapped by a maze of circumstances and her own troubled mind.”

-Foreword Reviews

“Through meticulous research, Ewen vividly brings the enigmatic Coco Chanel back to life. The Queen of Paris is multilayered and compelling, the characters lingering, like the delicate scent of Chanel No. 5, long after the final page.”

-Sonia Velton, author of Blackberry and Wild Rose

“The Queen of Paris brings Paris alive during World War II with exacting and fascinating details as Ewen explores the constantly evolving complexity of Chanel’s enigmatic character…The most engrossing novel I’ve read all year. I loved this book. I wish I had written it.”

-Bev Marshall, author of Right as Rain, Hot Fudge Sundae Blues, Walking through Shadows, and Back Home

“Ewen spins fact and rumor into compelling fiction with a novel about brilliantly talented, supremely self-absorbed fashion designer Coco Chanel…A well-imagined, highly entertaining tale.”

-Toby Devens, bestselling author of Happy Any Day Now

“Ewen dazzles in this outstanding historical thriller that chronicles the life of Coco Chanel in occupied France…Ewen’s Chanel is arrogant and fragile in equal measure, and the author does a...

Read More Read More