Mistral's Daughter: A Novel

By Judith Krantz

They were three generations of magnificent red-haired beauties born to scandal, bred to success, bound to a single extraordinary man—Julien Mistral, the painter, the genius, the lover whose passions had seared them all.

Maggy: Flamboyant mistress of  Mistral’s youth, the toast of Paris in the‘20s.  Her luminous flesh was immortalized in the  paintings that made Mistral legendary.
Teddy: Maggy’s daughter, the incomparable cover girl who lived fast and left as her legacy Mistral’s dazzling love child.
Fauve: Mistral's daughter, the headstrong, fearless glory girl whose one dark secret drove her to rule the world of high fashion and to risk everything in a feverish search for love.

From the ‘20s Paris of Chanel, Colette, Picasso and Matisse to New York’s sizzling new modeling agencies of the  ‘50s, to the model ward of the‘70s,  Mistral's Daughter captures the explosive glamour of life at the top of the worlds of art and high fashion. Judith Krantz has given us a glittering international tale as spellbinding as her other celebrated bestsellers, Scruples, Princess Daisy, I'll Take  Manhattan, Till We Meet Again,  Scruples Two,  Dazzle, and Lovers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Sep 7, 2011
• ISBN: 9780307803498

Judith Krantz

Judith Krantz is the author of Scruples, Princess Daisy, Mistral's Daughter, I'll Take Manhattan, Till We Meet Again, Dazzle, Scruples Two, Lovers, Spring Collection, and The Jewels of Tessa Kent

Reviews for Mistral's Daughter

[coffeepott · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Read this book for the first time in 7th grade. Thank you Judith for teaching about the things that were "inappropriate" and not talked about in my family! HA! Cheesy, but fabulous!

[emscape · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Judith Krantz is a Francophile. Many parts of this book read like an extended love letter to the country, the language and the lifestyle. Fortunately, Krantz has also populated her book with interesting, dynamic characters whose lives allow Krantz to depict at length Paris and the Provençal countryside. Beginning in Paris in the 1920’s and continuing until 1975 with stops in 1950s New York, World War II era Félice, and Rome in 1975, Krantz’ generational saga is lush with descriptiveness, quirky secondary characters, almost sympathetic villains, and more information about art and modeling (both for painters and for fashion magazines) than anyone would care to know. The story is so beguiling, however, that one barely notices it goes on for more than 500 pages. There’s nothing that could be cut to make a more concise novel without losing some of its charm. Though at the time this book was written, 1975 was almost the present day, because of the overt reference to the year instead of setting the book in the ambiguous “present”, the story does not feel outdated.