Mistress of the Ritz by Melanie Benjamin

Mistress of the Ritz by Melanie Benjamin
Published by Delacorte Press
Publication date: May 21, 2019

I began this week with a novel that took place partly during World War II so will keep it clean and end that way. Except, Mistress of the Ritz takes place in the thick of it—Nazi headquarters in Paris, the Hotel Ritz. Author Melanie Benjamin is back with a historical fiction based on the life of Blanche Auzello, the wife of the Ritz’s director during the war.

The Girls in the Picture by Melanie Benjamin

 

 

Hollywood Women: The Girls in the Picture

February 7, 2018

The Girls in the Picture by Melanie Benjamin
Published by Delacorte Press
Publication date: January 16th 

Mary Pickford was one of the first Hollywood stars, having acted from the time she was a child to not only maintaining her film career when silent moves became ‘talkies’, but going on to create her own studio, giving her and her partners the creative control actors didn’t have at the time. Frances Marion was a screenwriter, one of the first women in the business, who went on to write some of Pickford’s best films and win several Academy Awards. They were powerhouse women for their times. Melanie Benjamin explores both women’s lives and their professional and personal relationship in her new novel, The Girls in the Picture.

The Swans of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin

 

 

The Swans of Fifth Avenue

January 25, 2016

The Swans of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin
Published by Delacorte Press
Publication date: January 26th 2016

Once upon a time there was a group of very special women who lived in New York City. They were icons of fashion and social arbiters of everything that was right about high society. It was the 1950s and they were Babe Paley, Slim Keith, Gloria Guinness, Pamela Churchill, and Marella Agnelli and they were The Swans of Fifth Avenue. So named by the small, witty, flamboyantly gay author who entered their midst and proceeded to enchant and amuse them. He was Truman Capote and they were his flock. In this deliciously dishy novel author Melanie Benjamin follows the outrageous Capote from the time he makes the acquaintance of this privileged group of socialites until he pulls back the curtain on the fantasy of their lives with the publication of a short story that detailed their not-so-pristine secrets.