READING NATION MAGAZINE APRIL 2022

Page 129

NATION MAGAZINE The Queen of Paris: A Novel READING of Coco Chanel by Pamela Binnings Ewen

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, is fiction based on facts, some uncovered only within the past few years, and vividly imagines the hidden life of Chanel during the four years of Nazi occupation in Paris in the midst of WWII. 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 NO 13 past from haunting herISSUE future? 129


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook

Articles inside

Abbe Rolnick

5min
pages 96-99

Stories Make Us More of Who We Can Be by Judy Christie

4min
pages 14-17

If Our Pets Could Talk

2min
pages 106-107

Spin Me Right Round by David Valdes

1min
page 13

The Passing Storm by Christine Nolfi

1min
page 12

The Moon Always Rising by Alice C. Early

1min
page 11

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

1min
page 10

THE PULPWOOD QUEENS' TIARA WEARING, BOOK SHARING, GUIDE TO LIFE

4min
pages 102-105

READING WITH QUEEN MAMA KAT!

2min
pages 100-101

Speed Round with Zoe Disigny

3min
pages 86-90

The Passing Storm by Christine Nolfi

1min
page 65

The Queen of Paris: A Novel of Coco Chanel by Pamela Binnings Ewen

1min
page 34

Sugar Baby and Other Stories by River Jordan

2min
page 64

God, Destiny and a Glass of Wine by Linda Mason Crawford

2min
page 41

The Mermaids of Lake Michigan by Suzanne Kamata

1min
page 40

Crazy to Leave You by Marilyn Rothstein

2min
pages 10, 35

Rita Quillen

3min
pages 82-85

Ruthie Landis

4min
pages 76-79

Janet Oakley’s Favorite Independent Bookstore - Village Books

9min
pages 18-27

John Shay

5min
pages 91-95

With a little help from my friends...

6min
pages 68-73

Antonina Duridanova

5min
pages 60-63

Laura Whitfield

3min
pages 58-59

Abigail Keam

3min
pages 54-55

R.J. LEE

2min
pages 38-39

Michele Kwasniewski

5min
pages 50-53

Claudia Hagadus Long

2min
pages 46-47

Annette G. Anders

2min
pages 44-45

Alice C. Early

2min
pages 32-33

Pamela Binnings Ewen

2min
pages 129-130

Timber Rose by J.L. Oakley

2min
pages 4-5, 26

Allison Hong Merrill

3min
pages 1-3
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.