Corrado and the Beauty Queen

A HISTORICAL FAMILY SAGA

A marriage of enduring love tested by ambition and the weight of family and cultural expectations.

AVAILABLE SEPTEMBER 22, 2026

A‍MAZON AND BARNES &NOBLE

Corrado and the Beauty Queen is a fictional historical family saga about a marriage tested by ambition and the weight of family and cultural expectations.

Queenie, once a radiant beauty queen, has spent twenty years holding together five children, a business, and a husband who’s always chasing his next dream. When anonymous letters arrive, cruel and specific, insisting Corrado has been unfaithful... suddenly every “late dinner” and old rumor feels like evidence.

As Queenie looks back to their first spark in high school and the glow of their early years, she must decide what’s real: the charming sports hero everyone adores, or the restless man who keeps making choices that leave her bearing the cost.

In a world of Sunday family dinners, loyalty, and small-town judgment, the hardest question isn’t whether Corrado betrayed her. It’s whether love can survive the truths they’ve both avoided but need to face.

Will Queenie keep playing her role... or rewrite the story of their marriage, family, and herself?

ABOUT THE BOOK

Margo Pensavalle grew up near Boston, Massachusetts. After sixteen years of public school teaching, she earned a doctorate in Curriculum, Teaching, and Technology from the University of Southern California, where she taught and is now a professor emerita.

She has spoken at national and international events and has been interviewed by various media outlets on urban education in underserved communities. She lives in Southern California with her family.

Corrado and the Beauty Queen is her debut novel.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JACOB M. APPEL

Author of Einstein’s Beach House

“Margo Pensavalle’s wry, tender and panoramic Corrado and the Beauty Queen tackles the iconic myth of the golden-boy athlete and the all-American beauty queen with wisdom, humanity and a sharp eye for truth. What on the surface appears to be a love story between Corrado and Queenie soon becomes a broader meditation on marriage, a clear-eyed and piercing commentary on the loyalties, compromises and fierce hopes that underlie and sustain human connection. Pensavalle brings humor, insight and a refreshingly new voice to a story at once unique and timeless. A must read for any serious student of the human condition—and a darn fine book.”