The Queen of Beauty

Petra Durst-Benning's captivating historical novel pays homage to the trailblazing women of the early twentieth century—like Elizabeth Arden and Estée Lauder—who shaped culture, shattered convention, and strived to make the world around them more beautiful.

Despite all that Clara Berg has achieved as a wife, mother, and chemist—especially for a woman in turn-of-the-century Berlin—ending her abusive marriage comes at great cost. The judge hands her inheritance—her parents' pharmacy—over to her ex-husband. Now, with her reputation in near ruins thanks to the scandal that rocked her marriage, no reputable chemist will hire her. Worst of all, she has lost all rights to her young son and daughter. Only her dearest friends, Josephine and Isabelle, themselves no strangers to hardship, remain steadfast.

With their encouragement, Clara decides to start over in the spa town of Lake Constance, where she creates a homemade cream and launches a cosmetics revolution. Against all convention, she teaches other women and herself how to face the challenges of each new day with confidence and beauty. Soon her renown brings prestige, professional accolades, even new romance. But through it all, her heart beats for her beloved children—will success finally bring the reunion she longs for?

Petra Durst-Benning is one of Germany’s most successful and prominent authors. For more than twenty years, her historical novels have been inviting readers to go adventuring with courageous female characters and experience their emotions for themselves. The Queen of Beauty is the third book in the Century Trilogy, following While the World Is Still Asleep and The Champagne Queen. Her books and their television adaptations have enjoyed great international success. Petra Durst-Benning lives with her husband in Stuttgart.

Australian-born and widely traveled, Edwin Miles has been working as a translator for fifteen years.

From the town of Perth in Western Australia, Edwin completed an MFA in fiction writing at the University of Oregon in 1995. While there, he spent a year working as a fiction editor on the literary magazine Northwest Review. In 1996, he was shortlisted for the prestigious Australian/Vogel Award for young writers for a collection of short stories.

After many years living and working in Australia, Japan, and the United States, he currently resides in his “second home” in Cologne, Germany, with his wife, Dagmar, and two very clever children.