The Riviera Set

'I loved every word' Sarra Manning, Red


'[A] blissful book - it's like basking in the warm Med' Rachel Johnson, Mail
on Sunday


The Riviera Set is the story of the group of people who lived, partied, bed-
hopped and politicked at the Château de l'Horizon near Cannes, over the course
of forty years from the time when Coco Chanel made southern French tans
fashionable in the twenties to the death of the playboy Prince Aly Khan in
1960. At the heart of this was the amazing Maxine Elliott, the daughter of a
fisherman from Connecticut, who built the beautiful art deco Château and
brought together the likes of Noel Coward, the Aga Khan, the Windsors and two
very saucy courtesans, Doris Castlerosse and Daisy Fellowes, who set out to be
dangerous distractions to Winston Churchill as he worked on his journalism and
biographies during his 'wilderness years' in the thirties.


After the War the story continued as the Château changed hands and Prince Aly
Khan used it to entertain the Hollywood set, as well as launch his seduction
of and eventual marriage to Rita Hayworth.


Mary Lovell tells her story of high society behaviour with tremendous brio and
relish, and this book has all the charm and fascination of her bestselling The
Mitford Girls and The Churchills.