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The Many Faces of Coco

By Lauren Lipton

• Dec. 2, 2011

LET the Coco catfight begin.

“I have to be careful not to trash another writer,” said Lisa Chaney, the author of “Coco Chanel: An Intimate Life,” a new biography of the French fashion icon. Then she proceeded to throw down the gauntlet. (One imagines a tweed-embellished lambskin glove from Chanel’s fall/winter collection.) Over the phone from her home in York, England — and in a press release from her publisher — she ticked off a litany of beefs with another recent Chanel book, Hal Vaughan’s “Sleeping With the Enemy: Coco Chanel’s Secret War.”

Mr. Vaughan’s biography, which posits that Chanel was a Nazi agent during World War II, “is written in a highly inflammatory style,” Ms. Chaney declared. “From the first few pages, it’s insinuation and leaping to conclusions. It’s pretty underhanded, what I think he’s done.”

 Mr. Vaughan said he thought that it was Ms. Chaney who was leaping to conclusions.

“I’m surprised that Chaney would say such a thing,” he said. “I find it quite shocking.” Down came another gauntlet: “Say, ‘Produce the damn document,’ ” Mr. Vaughan challenged, “and I will produce it.”

Mr. Vaughan, an American who lives in Paris, said he had not yet read Ms. Chaney’s book; he was waiting for Amazon to deliver it. But he had questions about a third new biography, “Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life,” by Justine Picardie, which reads to him, he said, as if it were written to please the late designer’s namesake company. “I don’t know whether it was subsidized, but it’s clearly a Chanel book,” he said.

Ms. Picardie, a British writer, had her own potshots for the other biographers.

“I presume it was Lisa Chaney who said to you that my book is authorized by Chanel,” she said. As for Mr. Vaughan’s book? “The title is an instant sound bite.”

At least seven Chanel books have been published in the past 18 months. It was almost inevitable that the books would end up pitted against one another in reviews, but now some of the authors are going after each other in real life. At stake are not just sales or bragging rights. The true battle is over what Mr. Vaughan contended is an almost institutionalized refusal to delve into Chanel’s dark side.

“The thing that really bothers me is that no one will address the facts,” he said.

What the writers do not dispute is that Gabrielle Chanel (1883-1971), known as Coco, was a fascinating, prickly character, equal parts diva, social climber, femme fatale and genius. She was born into poverty and abandoned to an orphanage. Through hard work, talent and a series of affairs with rich, well-placed men, she rose to become arguably the most important fashion designer of the 20th century.

All three writers also agree on something uglier: in Nazi-occupied France during World War II, Chanel was a collaborator — a loaded wartime term for a citizen who cooperated with the enemy. It’s the degree of Chanel’s collaboration that is at issue.

Mr. Vaughan’s book details Chanel’s long love affair with Baron Hans Günther von Dincklage, a Nazi spy, and her dealings with Nazi higher-ups. Chanel, Mr. Vaughan writes, was a willing agent for the enemy, introducing Germans to her well-placed friends. In 1944, Chanel embarked on a mission to deliver a message to her friend Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister, that said some high-ranking German officers wanted to end hostilities with Britain.

In return, he writes, she expected — and got — favors. Those included the release of her nephew from a German prisoner-of-war camp, and an apartment in the luxurious Ritz hotel in Paris during the German occupation of France. She also appealed to the Nazis to help her wrest control of her perfume business from the brothers to whom she had sold a majority stake years before.

 “Chanel was the consummate opportunist who was going to get what she wanted,” said Mr. Vaughan, who also paints his subject as a lifelong anti-Semite. “She knew exactly what she was doing. She didn’t see any harm in it.”

Ms. Chaney and Ms. Picardie write about the affair with Dincklage, as well, but they interpret Chanel’s behavior differently.

“There’s no question she was a collaborator of sorts, in that she had a lover who was a German, and he had an association with Nazis,” Ms. Chaney said. The question to her is how much Chanel knew, or chose to know, about Dincklage’s doings. Ms. Chaney suggested that her subject may have been blinded by love. At the start of their relationship, in 1940, Dincklage was 44 and Chanel was 57. “She was very conscious that this was a late affair,” the author said.

For her part, Ms. Picardie said Chanel “was involved in a German plot — but the German plot was to try and bring an early conclusion to the Second World War.”

Which account is accurate? Valerie Steele, director of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, said she had read the Vaughan and Chaney books (and “glanced” at Ms. Picardie’s) and supported Mr. Vaughan’s theory.

“Chaney implies that Chanel was just guilty of horizontal collaboration; I think it was definitely more,” she said.

Ms. Steele and all three sparring authors agreed that it was unwise to judge Chanel’s wartime behavior without putting it in context.

Ms. Chaney said: “Chanel’s position in general was pretty reprehensible. But think about what it was actually like living in an occupied country. There are levels of collaboration. You could say everyone who stayed in France was a collaborator.”

The Chanel company is unsurprisingly vague about its founder’s wartime activities. A spokeswoman, Iana dos Reis Nunes, referred to Dincklage not as a Nazi but as “a German aristocrat.”

“The timing of this romance with a German was unfortunate even if Baron von Dincklage’s mother was English and she met him before the war,” Ms. dos Reis Nunes said via e-mail. The conflicting accounts, she added, “go to show the difficulties in differentiating fact from fiction.”

Both Ms. Picardie and Ms. dos Reis Nunes said that Chanel Inc. had neither authorized nor subsidized Ms. Picardie’s book. But Karl Lagerfeld, the current designer for Chanel, contributed an original drawing to the book.

In the end, determining whose version is the definitive one may not matter, said Rhonda Garelick, a professor of English at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln and a Chanel scholar. She said she believed that Americans’ interest in this chapter of Chanel’s history had more to do with the current climate of political, social and economic upheaval.

“We have Occupy Wall Street — the 99 percent versus the 1 percent of super-elite multimillionaires — and we’re finally taking stock of what it means to have such discrepancy of wealth,” Ms. Garelick said. “We’re looking at an episode of Chanel’s life when people were picking through garbage looking for food, while she was living in the Ritz hotel as one of the richest women in the world. If during that period she was also betraying her country, that’s what piques our interest.”

It’s a good thing readers are so interested. Make room on the bookshelf for another biography of Chanel: “Antigone in Vogue,” by Ms. Garelick. She is working on her manuscript now.

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Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life Paperback – 29 Jun. 2017

Purchase options and add-ons.

Justine Picardie spent years puzzling over the truth about Coco Chanel, peeling away the accretions of romance and lies. Since its publication in 2010, hers has become the definitive Chanel biography. With a new foreword and previously unseen images, this new edition delves even deeper into the life and legacy of this eternally alluring woman.

Coco Chanel was an extraordinary inventor - she conjured up the little black dress, bobbed hair, trousers for women, contemporary chic, best-selling perfumes, and the most successful fashion brand of all time - but she also invented herself, fashioning the myth of her own life with the same dexterity as her couture.

While Chanel was supreme innovator and vendor of all things elegant and beautiful, what lies beneath her own glossy myth is far darker. Throwing new light on her passionate and turbulent relationships, this beautifully constructed portrait gives a fresh and penetrating look at how Coco Chanel made herself into her own most powerful creation.

Justine Picardie brings the mysterious Gabrielle Chanel out of hiding, to celebrate her great achievements. She examines Chanel's enduring afterlife, as well as her remarkable life, uncovering the consequences of what she covered up, unpicking the seams between truth and legend, yet keeping intact the real fabric of her past.

• Print length 368 pages
• Language English
• Publisher HarperCollins
• Publication date 29 Jun. 2017
• Reading age 13 years and up
• Dimensions 16.3 x 3.1 x 22.8 cm
• ISBN-10 0007318995
• ISBN-13 978-0007318995
• See all details

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Product description

‘Gripping… In the deftest prose, Picardie plots one of the most extraordinary lives of the 20th Century. The book is lavishly illustrated, too, with images of iconic outfits and intimate photos from Chanel's private albums.’ Mail on Sunday

‘Fascinating. Chanel was a tragic figure of almost Shakespearean aspect – hugely successful, fiercely strong-willed, yet fatally flawed and eventually filled with regret.’ Sunday Times

‘The French fashion icon finds a shrewd and sympathetic interpreter in Justine Picardie… this handsome volume cleverly blends the life and afterlife of the enigma who became a brand.’ The Independent

‘Justine Picardie’s vividly told account of Coco Chanel’s life has all the elements of a novel: the mystery, the sense of loss, the quest for fame and fortune, the distinguished lovers… in the style of Chanel herself.’ Daily Mail

‘[An] elegant book…The Chanel uncovered by Picardie is a storyteller [who] spun her own myth… Coco has, in these pages, come out of hiding.’ The Telegraph

‘A detailed and captivating read’ Red Magazine

‘A brilliant biography’ Grazia

‘Picardie sheds new light on the intensely private designer… Impressive’ Stylist Magazine

‘The darker facets [of Chanel] are subtly and carefully revealed by Justine Picardie.’ Wall Street Journal

‘Justine Picardie sheds new light on the darker truths behind the glossy myth… Guaranteed to be the most well-read accessory at London Fashion Week.’ Daily Express

‘Justine Picardie’s thoughtful and beautifully illustrated Life … illuminates the iconoclast who might justifiably be said to have invented the twentieth-century woman.’ Times Literary Supplement

About the Author

JUSTINE PICARDIE is the author of four books, including her critically acclaimed memoir, If The Spirit Moves You. The former features director of British Vogue, and contributor to the Sunday Telegraph and Red magazine, she is now Editor in Chief for Harper’s Bazaar.

She lives in London with her two sons.

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ HarperCollins; New edition (29 Jun. 2017)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0007318995
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0007318995
• Reading age ‏ : ‎ 13 years and up
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 16.3 x 3.1 x 22.8 cm
• 10 in History of Women & Art
• 21 in Fashion Photography (Books)
• 37 in Fashion History

About the author

Justine picardie.

Justine Picardie is the author of four books, including her critically acclaimed memoir If the Spirit Moves You and her most recent novel, Daphne. The former features director of British Vogue and editor of the Observer magazine, she is currently a fashion columnist for the Sunday Telegraph, and also writes for several other newspapers and magazines, including Harper's Bazaar and the Times of London. She lives in London with her two sons.

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Coco Chanel: An Intimate Life

Lisa chaney.

464 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2011

About the author

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Coco Chanel: The Biography (A Complete Life from Beginning to the End‪)‬

Publisher description.

History Hub presents a short and captivating look into Coco Chanel’s complete life from beginning to end, one of history’s great notable figures worthy to discover. Like any great legend, the history of fashion designer Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel, also known as "Coco Chanel," is marked by poverty, abandonment, love, genius, and fame, unveiling what lies beneath the glossy surface of a mythic fashion icon. Chanel's life story begins with an abandoned child, as lost as a girl in a dark fairy tale. Unveiling remarkable new details about Chanel's early years in a convent orphanage and her flight into unconventional adulthood, all these struggles didn't stop her from creating the essential fashion house in history. Chanel was a visionary. She is famous for her timeless and classic designs, trademark suits, and little black dresses. She managed to interpret the oppression that women felt in time, and she was there when the crazy 1920s exploded. She created the most crucial fashion house in history. The House of Chanel stands at 31 Rue Cambon, a shrine to its dead creator, yet also a living, thriving temple of twenty-first-century fashion, the destination for pilgrims who travel here from all around the world. Coco Chanel may be dead, but her legacy lives on.

Which Coco Chanel Biography Is Best?

June 2, 2023

thedutchladydesigns

Are you a fashion enthusiast who wants to learn more about Coco Chanel, one of the most iconic designers in history? If so, you might be wondering which Coco Chanel biography is the best to read.

With so many options available, it can be overwhelming to decide which one to choose. In this article, we’ll explore some of the best biographies about Coco Chanel and help you find the perfect book for your needs.

The Queen of Fashion

One of the most popular biographies on Coco Chanel is “The Queen of Fashion” by Caroline Weber. This book offers a comprehensive look at Chanel’s life and career, from her humble beginnings in a French orphanage to her rise as one of the most influential designers in history. Weber’s writing is engaging and informative, making this book an excellent choice for both casual readers and serious fashion scholars.

Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life

Another well-regarded biography is “Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life” by Justine Picardie. This book takes a more personal approach than “The Queen of Fashion,” delving into Chanel’s relationships with various men throughout her life. Picardie also includes rare photographs and illustrations that help bring Chanel’s story to life.

Chanel: An Intimate Life

For readers interested in a more scandalous take on Coco Chanel’s life, “Chanel: An Intimate Life” by Lisa Chaney might be the perfect choice. This biography delves into some of the darker aspects of Chanel’s past, including her rumored affairs with Nazi officers during World War II. While some readers might find this approach distasteful, others will appreciate Chaney’s willingness to tackle difficult subjects.

Coco Chanel: The Illustrated World of a Fashion Icon

If you’re looking for a visually stunning biography that showcases Chanel’s designs, “Coco Chanel: The Illustrated World of a Fashion Icon” by Megan Hess is an excellent choice. This book features gorgeous illustrations of Chanel’s iconic designs, as well as information about the designer’s life and career. While it might not offer as much depth as some of the other biographies on this list, it’s a perfect coffee table book for fashion lovers.

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, which Coco Chanel biography you choose will depend on your personal preferences. If you want a comprehensive look at her life and career, “The Queen of Fashion” is an excellent choice.

For a more intimate portrait, try “Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life.” “Chanel: An Intimate Life” is best for readers interested in scandalous details about Chanel’s past. And if you’re looking for something with stunning visuals, “Coco Chanel: The Illustrated World of a Fashion Icon” won’t disappoint.

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More than a decade after her first edition, Justine Picardie is back with a new look at the life of Gabrielle Chanel.

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It’s been more than a decade since Justine Picardie released her book “Coco Chanel ,” during which time interest in the late designer’s life and work has only seemed to expand.

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“You can’t really understand Chanel without understanding Dior, and you can’t really understand Dior without understanding Chanel, in terms of French history,” Picardie says. “I’ve never stopped being interested in the life and work of Gabrielle Chanel. She’s endlessly fascinating, but because there were so many mysteries surrounding her that I’d never stopped looking into.”

Her original research, which she began in the late ’90s, included full access to the Chanel archives, as well as the Winston Churchill archives (he and Chanel were friends), but for her new edition she was granted access to the Royal Archives for the first time. 

“They had some really interesting material about royals wearing Chanel and her time in London in the 1920s and ’30s, when she started dressing British royalty as well as the British aristocracy,” she says. She also is close friends with the V&A exhibit’s curator Oriole Cullen, and they have long had a relationship of comparing notes. 

“There just seemed to be so much new material. I could have almost written an entirely new book,” Picardie says. “Well, I effectively did.”

The Royal Archives led her to learn more about Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother’s history of wearing Chanel as a young woman, before becoming Queen.

“What really surprised me was that she was this fashionable young woman in the 1920s, and even before her marriage to Prince Albert, who would become George VI, she was wearing Chanel, and then there were other members of the royal family that were wearing Chanel. Even Queen Mary,” Picardie says. “We think of Chanel as being so associated wholly with Paris and that idea of Parisian chic. But [Chanel] was so famous by the 1920s, and obviously she had become famous in America too. But the fact that she was dressing members of the British royal family and the British aristocracy is very interesting and is completely new.”

Between Picardie’s books, Karl Lagerfeld, who Picardie first interviewed in the late ’90s, died.

With several decades of work devoted to Chanel’s life, Picardie is clearly personally interested in her —but she remains constantly surprised by how much broad intrigue there is into Chanel’s life.

“Every generation continues to be fascinated by Gabrielle Chanel. If I do a talk about her, there’ll be 18 year olds in the audience. And I’ve always been struck by that,” she said. “Chanel means different things to different people, but she herself kind of embodied the spirit of independence, of choosing her own destiny, the taking away corsets, cutting her hair, all those things,” Picardie says. “But there was something more profound than that too, where one of her sayings, which always resonates for me, is ‘elegance is refusal.’ And she refused to conform to anybody’s idea of what a woman should be, apart from her own. So she was always so entirely herself. And that is something that I think continues to resonate, which is why we are seeing this return of so much interest in the story of Gabrielle Chanel.”

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Coco Chanel

With her trademark suits and little black dresses, fashion designer Coco Chanel created timeless designs that are still popular today.

(1883-1971)

Who Was Coco Chanel?

Fashion designer Coco Chanel is famous for her timeless designs, trademark suits and little black dresses. In the 1920s, she launched her first perfume and eventually introduced the Chanel suit and the little black dress, with an emphasis on making clothes that were more comfortable for women. She herself became a much revered style icon known for her simple yet sophisticated outfits paired with great accessories, such as several strands of pearls.

Chanel was born Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel on August 19, 1883, in Saumur, France. Her early years were anything but glamorous. At age 12, after her mother’s death, Chanel was put in an orphanage by her father, who worked as a peddler.

Chanel was raised by nuns who taught her how to sew — a skill that would lead to her life’s work. Her nickname came from another occupation entirely. During her brief career as a singer, Chanel performed in clubs in Vichy and Moulins where she was called “Coco.”

Some say that the name comes from one of the songs she used to sing, and Chanel herself said that it was a “shortened version of cocotte, the French word for 'kept woman,'” according to an article in The Atlantic .

Beginnings of a Fashion Empire

Around the age of 20, Chanel became involved with Etienne Balsan, who offered to help her start a millinery business in Paris. She soon left him for one of his wealthier friends, Arthur “Boy” Capel. Both men were instrumental in Chanel’s first fashion venture.

Opening her first shop on Paris’s Rue Cambon in 1910, Chanel started out selling hats. She later added stores in Deauville and Biarritz and began making clothes.

Her first taste of clothing success came from a dress she fashioned out of an old jersey on a chilly day. In response to the many people who asked about where she got the dress, she offered to make one for them. “My fortune is built on that old jersey that I’d put on because it was cold in Deauville,” she once told author Paul Morand.

First Perfume

In the 1920s, Chanel took her thriving business to new heights. She launched her first perfume, Chanel No. 5, which was the first to feature a designer’s name. Perfume “is the unseen, unforgettable, ultimate accessory of fashion. . . . that heralds your arrival and prolongs your departure,” Chanel once explained.

The fragrance was in fact also backed by department store owner Théophile Bader and businessmen Pierre and Paul Wertheimer, with Chanel developing a close friendship with Pierre.

A deal was ultimately negotiated where the Wertheimer business would take in 70 percent of Chanel No. 5 profits for producing the perfume at their factories, with Bader receiving 20 percent and Chanel herself only receiving 10 percent. Over the years, with No. 5 being a massive source of revenue, she repeatedly sued to have the terms of the deal renegotiated.

Iconic Designs: Chanel Suit & Little Black Dress

In 1925, Chanel introduced the now legendary Chanel suit with collarless jacket and well-fitted skirt. Her designs were revolutionary for the time—borrowing elements of men’s wear and emphasizing comfort over the constraints of then-popular fashions. She helped women say goodbye to the days of corsets and other confining garments.

Another 1920s revolutionary design was Chanel’s little black dress. She took a color once associated with mourning and showed just how chic it could be for evening wear.

Closing Down Shop

The international economic depression of the 1930s had a negative impact on Chanel's company, but it was the outbreak of World War II that led her to close her business. She fired her workers and shut down her shops.

After the war, Chanel left Paris, spending some years in Switzerland in a sort of exile. She also lived at her country house in Roquebrune for a time.

Return to Fashion

At the age of 70, in the early 1950s, Chanel made a triumphant return to the fashion world. She first received scathing reviews from critics, but her feminine and easy-fitting designs soon won over shoppers around the world.

DOWNLOAD BIOGRAPHY'S COCO CHANEL FACT CARD

Relationships and a Marriage Proposal

Beginning in 1920, Chanel had a short-lived relationship with composer Igor Stravinsky . Chanel had attended the notorious world premiere of Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” in 1913.

Around 1923, she met the wealthy Hugh Grosvenor, Duke of Westminster, aboard his yacht. The two started a decades-long relationship. In response to his marriage proposal, which she turned down, she reportedly said, “There have been several Duchesses of Westminster—but there is only one Chanel!”

Life as Nazi Agent

During the German occupation of France, Chanel got involved with a Nazi military officer, Hans Gunther von Dincklage. She got special permission to stay in her apartment at the Hotel Ritz in Paris, which also operated as German military headquarters.

After the war ended, Chanel was interrogated about her relationship with von Dincklage, but she was not charged as a collaborator. Some have wondered whether friend Winston Churchill worked behind the scenes on Chanel’s behalf.

While not officially charged, Chanel suffered in the court of public opinion. Some still viewed her relationship with a Nazi officer as a betrayal of her country.

READ MORE: Coco Chanel's Secret Life as a Nazi Agent

Chanel died on January 10, 1971, at her apartment in the Hotel Ritz. She never married, having once said “I never wanted to weigh more heavily on a man than a bird.” Hundreds crowded together at the Church of the Madeleine to bid farewell to the fashion icon. In tribute, many of the mourners wore Chanel suits.

A little more than a decade after her death, designer Karl Lagerfeld took the reins at her company to continue the Chanel legacy. Today her namesake company is held privately by the Wertheimer family and continues to thrive, believed to generate hundreds of millions in sales each year.

Movies, Books and Plays on Chanel

In 1969, Chanel’s fascinating life story became the basis for the Broadway musical Coco , starring Katharine Hepburn as the legendary designer. Alan Jay Lerner wrote the book and lyrics for the show’s song while Andre Prévin composed the music. Cecil Beaton handled the set and costume design for the production. The show received seven Tony Award nominations, and Beaton won for Best Costume Design and René Auberjonois for Best Featured Actor.

Several biographies of the fashion revolutionary have also been written, including Chanel and Her World (2005), written by Chanel's friend Edmonde Charles-Roux.

In the 2008 television movie Coco Chanel , Shirley MacLaine starred as the famous designer around the time of her 1954 career resurrection. The actress told WWD that she had long been interested in playing Chanel. “What’s wonderful about her is she’s not a straightforward, easy woman to understand.”

In the 2008 film Coco Before Chanel, French actress Audrey Tautou played Chanel in her early years, from childhood to the founding of her fashion house. In 2009, Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky detailed Chanel's relationship with the composer.

QUICK FACTS

• Birth Year: 1883
• Birth date: August 19, 1883
• Birth City: Saumur
• Birth Country: France
• Gender: Female
• Best Known For: With her trademark suits and little black dresses, fashion designer Coco Chanel created timeless designs that are still popular today.
• Astrological Sign: Leo
• Nacionalities
• Death Year: 1971
• Death date: January 10, 1971
• Death City: Paris
• Death Country: France

We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us !

CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Coco Chanel Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/history-culture/coco-chanel
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: December 10, 2021
• Original Published Date: April 2, 2014
• A woman has the age she deserves.
• Nature gives you the face you have at 20; it is up to you to merit the face you have at 50.
• [L]uxury must be comfortable, otherwise it is not luxury.
• My fortune is built on that old jersey that I’d put on because it was cold in Deauville.
• I never wanted to weigh more heavily on a man than a bird.
• What’s wonderful about her is she’s not a straightforward, easy woman to understand.
• Look at how ridiculous these women are, wearing clothes by a man who doesn’t know women, never had one, and dreams of being one!” (about Christian Dior's clothing)
• How could a brain function normally under all that?” (about ornate, heavy hats)
• Fashion is made to become unfashionable.
• Fashion is like a revolution—it only enters our lives after it has gone down in the streets.
• I love luxury. And luxury lies not in richness and ornateness but in the absence of vulgarity. Vulgarity is the ugliest word in our language. I stay in the game to fight it.
• I've always fled from boredom.
• Youth is something very new: Twenty years ago no one mentioned it.

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Books | book reviews: historic figures like marilyn monroe, coco chanel make pivotal appearances in new mysteries.

Echoes of Carson McCullers and a soupcon of Flannery O’Connor filter through Lori Roy’s superb “Lake County,” her sixth novel. The coming-of-age novel looks at fame, celebrity worship and unbridled ambition wrapped in a solid story about Florida during 1955.

Addie Anne Buckley is anxious to escape Hockta, a fictional small town in Lake County that Roy sets somewhere in Central Florida, “about 45 minutes” from Tampa. Addie loves her parents, Inez and Harden, but wants more. She sees her mother’s choices to be a wife and mother as a “trap.” Addie longs “to be somebody and not the nobody” she feels she is.

Addie’s dream may hinge on her 18th birthday present — a six-week trip she’s planned with her visiting Aunt Jean. The plan is to travel to California and then to New York where she and Jean will walk the red carpet for the opening of the movie “Seven Year Itch.” Addie doesn’t plan to return to Hockta.

Jean is not Addie’s aunt by blood or marriage but grew up with Inez in foster care in California and they consider each other family. The rest of the world knows Jean as Marilyn Monroe, who revisits Hockta where she “clawed her way back to normal” when Hollywood became overwhelming. But Jean’s idyllic rest is marred by foul-tempered photographer Siebert Rix, who owes his career to those first pictures he took of Marilyn. Siebert’s obsession with Marilyn grows increasingly violent as this hanger-on knows he is “nothing” without her.

“Lake County” also centers on Addie’s boyfriend, Truitt Holt, who has a low-level “measly” bolita gambling game and who accidently runs afoul of the Tampa mob.

Roy skillfully pulls the two plot threads together while finding the humanity in each of her complex characters who are full of contradictions. Marilyn/Jean embraces fame but is repulsed by it, fearful of being “ordinary;” kind and caring about the Buckleys and Hockta but also thoughtless and cruel. She easily flips from different personalities as the situation requires. But is she being an actress or herself?

An incident once turned Addie’s loving, gentle father into “someone none of us had ever seen” before he returned to normal. Addie wants a glamorous life but also worries she may not have the “gumption” to follow her dream. Truitt cares deeply for his mother, using his gambling proceeds only for daily expenses while saving the rest. He reveres his father, who was murdered by the mob when he was 6-years-old, but also remembers how he was brutal toward his mother. A grocery store clerk avidly reads movie magazines, escaping her “wafer-thin life.”

“Lake County” eloquently captures Florida’s sights, sounds and smells such as the orange groves. Though Addie longs to escape “the sugary scent of orange blossoms that dripped in the air.”

Roy, a two-time Edgar winner, again delivers an outstanding novel in “Lake County.”

Behind the plot: Characters in “Lake County” are fictional with two exceptions — Marilyn Monroe, of course, but also Charlie Wall, who has a small but pivotal role. Wall is considered to be the “godfather” of Tampa’s organized crime; his 1955 murder remains unsolved. Ace Atkins, who Roy credits in her acknowledgements, wrote about Wall in his novel “The White Shadow.”

Series finale

‘The Last Hope’ by Susan Elia MacNeal. Bantam, 304 pages, $29

In the best long-running mystery fiction series, the lead characters change, their personalities, careers and outlooks on life evolve. This is certainly true of Susan Elia MacNeal’s Maggie Hope novels, set during WWII.

As the title suggests, “The Last Hope” is the finale to this 11-novel series that began with “Mr. Churchill’s Secretary,” set in 1940. In that debut, Maggie Hope was a typist for Winston Churchill, but her mathematical skills allowed her to break a vital code that led her to a career in intelligence and missions around the globe.

The intelligent, perceptive Maggie has proven herself to be an expert spy, willing to take on dangerous assignments. Two final missions occupy Maggie in “The Last Hope,” which is set in 1944.

Kim Philby, the head of the Iberian Section of MI6, wants Maggie to travel to Spain to assassinate German physicist Werner Heisenberg, winner of the 1932 Nobel Prize. The Allies believe that Heisenberg is developing an atomic bomb for the Nazis.

Maggie is well versed in the nuances of espionage, but she has severe moral qualms about assassinating the scientist. But Heisenberg’s research could change the outcome of the war in favor of the Nazis. She finally agrees, but only if she can learn that Heisenberg is definitely working on the bomb and it is not a rumor.

Maggie also has been asked by Coco Chanel to deliver an important message to Winston Churchill. The famed designer saved Maggie’s life back in 1941, but Chanel has become so closely affiliated with the Nazis that she’s believed to be a spy.

A stalwart of MacNeal’s series is how she meticulously weaves real figures and facts into solid stories that respect the history while making her plots authentic and thrilling. Kim Philby did indeed oversee an aspect of British espionage. Werner Heisenberg was a pioneer in the theory of quantum mechanics (and, yes, Heisenberg’s surname was the alias for Walter White in the drama “Breaking Bad.”) It’s been well documented that Coco Chanel was a spy for the Nazis, complete with a designated agent number and a code name; she also had ties to the British Royal Family. The current Apple TV+ series “The New Look” focuses on Chanel’s time during WWII though some plot aspects have been disputed. MacNeal also documents her research at the end of “The Last Hope.”

MacNeal’s series also has persuasively explored how WWII affected soldiers and civilians, making the novels relevant no matter the war.

“The Last Hope” ends this much-admired series on a high note with panache and a memorable plot.

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The Little Guide to Coco Chanel: Style to Live By (The Little Books of Fashion, 1) Hardcover – July 20, 2021

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A collection of over 170 quotes and fascinating facts about the creative genius who gave us the Little Black Dress and Chanel No. 5

Almost 50 years after her death, Coco Chanel remains one of the world's most influential fashion designers. Her story is one of creative brilliance and innovation – she was a driving force in freeing women from the restrictive clothing they had been obliged to wear for generations. 'In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different,' Chanel would say, and throughout her life she demonstrated extraordinary passion and determination to change the world around her. 

This little book is packed with memorable facts about Coco Chanel’s life and influence, and full of quotes from the icon herself and some of the many people inspired by her. There is much wisdom to glean from Chanel's self-reflections, while her sharp wit and joie de vivre will amuse, surprise and inspire in equal measure. 

'Fashion changes, but style endures.' 

As seen on vogue.co.uk, 18 August 2017, by Julia Neel. 

'Nobody has ever told Coco Chanel what to think.' 

As seen on dailymail.co.uk, 10 September 2019, by Caroline Howe. 

'A girl should be two things: who and what she wants.' 

As seen on marieclaire.co.uk, 4 October 2016, by Mariel Reed. 

'The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.' 

As seen on harpersbazaar.com, 12 August 2017.

• Book 13 of 14 The Little Books of Lifestyle
• Print length 192 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Orange Hippo!
• Publication date July 20, 2021
• Dimensions 4.5 x 0.8 x 5.5 inches
• ISBN-10 1911610538
• ISBN-13 978-1911610533
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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Orange Hippo! (July 20, 2021)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 192 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1911610538
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1911610533
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.5 x 0.8 x 5.5 inches
• #12 in Quotation Reference Books
• #23 in Fashion History
• #32 in Fashion Design

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Smaller than expected but so cute!!

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Customer Review: .Very small either way very cute and can be used as a cup holder

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