87 New Historical Fiction Books Hitting Shelves This Year

The real-life rivalry between beauty titans Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubenstein inspired Gill Paul's "A Beautiful Rival." Spanning decades from the early 1900s to the post-World War II era and beyond, the novel traces how these two women rose from obscurity, painting over their humble origins with glamorous backstories and pioneering the beauty industry as we now know it. Over the years, the two poach employees from each other, constantly try to one-up each other's products and methods, and even allow the rivalry to get painfully personal at times — all while refusing to acknowledge that they perhaps have more in common than they might think.

Release date: Sept. 5