Review: Sleeping with the Enemy - Coco Chanel's Secret War by Hal Vaughan

I must admit I haven't read many Coco Chanel biographies, which is kind of weird, I guess, but I think it's because I've read her life story in so many magazines and also seen at least 2 movies about her life, so I never really thought a book about the same subject would interest me a lot. But Hal Vaughan's Sleeping with the Enemy - Coco Chanel's Secret War tells a different story than the one we are used to hearing about Chanel, namely that she was in fact a Nazi spy and had a very long and passionate affair with another Nazi spy, living in France for parts of the Second World War. So this sounded like something a bit different, and I decided to read Vaughan's book for that reason.

I must say the book changed the way I think of Chanel. I never thought her to be a saint, I did know she grew up in an orphanage and stuff, after all, and things like that are bound to affect you in one way or another, I think, but if even half of the stories in the book are true, she was a much, much worse person than I ever could have imagined!

This being the first Chanel biography I've ever read, I am not sure if this part of her life is covered in other similar books as well, but Vaughan does dig quite into the subject of Chanel's war time activities. He does write about other aspects of her life too, so the book is not all about the war by any means.

So I can definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for a good Chanel biography! I must warn hardcore Chanel fans that the book paints quite a negative picture of Chanel, though, so if those are things you'd prefer not to hear, this book might not be to your liking (especially if you've spent tons of money on Chanel items in the past, I was actually really happy that I haven't after I read this!).