A new genre is emerging, the historical novel about women, written from a  woman’s perspective. Many fail as both history and fiction, but Melanie Benjamin soars above the others, first with THE AVIATOR’S WIFE, and now with THE SWANS OF FIFTH AVENUE.

Informed by Truman Capote’s scandalous ANSWERED PRAYERS and the Esquire articles that preceded it, it takes us into the world of the original trophy wives of Harriman, Churchill, Vanderbilt, Guinness, and Paley. These women were so prized that they were almost always reported in New York’s society and gossip columns as Mrs. Someone, as if they were royalty.

In the 1970s, Paris fashion exploded like a champagne bottle left out in the sun. Amid sequins and longing, celebrities and aspirants flocked to the heart of chic, and Paris became a hothouse of revelry, intrigue, and searing ambition.