Pamela Binnings Ewen

I had given up on this book until my friend encouraged me to keep on reading, therefore I only gave it 4 stars. I found it less than inspiring prior to the German invasion. Have read other Coco books and just never could get into her.

FROM BARNES & NOBLE: 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?… (més)

Coco Chanel,the immensely talented fashion icon and the magician behind Chanel no. 5, is the subject of The Queen Of Paris. How much is known about her during WW II? Was she really a nazi collaborator and if so was it because she believed in their cause or did circumstances force her to it. In a series of flashbacks to her childhood and young adult years this novel presents a very plausible motivation and a possible answer. A question remains what would I or anyone else do in her situation?
To avoid giving too much away, I will not go into a summary of the book. Other reviews have done this and better then I could. Suffice it to say the book covers Coco during the years of WW II with the above mentioned flashbacks covering her earlier years.
Coco is a difficult protagonist to like. She was a driven self made woman at a time when this was exceedingly rare. She was egotistical and often very selfish. She chose men in her life that were socially unavailable to her. She was mistress material not wife material in the upper class European circles she found herself in. Her reliance on these men often led to disastrous personal choices. I believe the results of these choices and the abandonment she perceived from a young age. Informed her choices during the war years.
This book was well written. The characters are fully fleshed out. The plot moves forward at a fast pace building tension throughout. I feel the book would have been better if it included both an epilogue and an authors note. I would have liked to know what happened to some of the main characters and how much of what happened during the war years was true.… (més)