Parachute Women cover art

Parachute Women

Marianne Faithfull, Marsha Hunt, Bianca Jagger, Anita Pallenberg, and the Women Behind the Rolling Stones

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Parachute Women

By: Elizabeth Winder
Narrated by: Angelina Rocca
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

Discover the true story of the four women who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to help shape and curate the image of The Rolling Stones—perfect for fans of Girls Like Us.

The Rolling Stones have long been considered one of the greatest rock-and-roll bands of all time. At the forefront of the British Invasion and heading up the counterculture movement of the 1960s, the Stones' innovative music and iconic performances defined a generation, and fifty years later, they're still performing to sold-out stadiums around the globe. Yet, as the saying goes, behind every great man is a greater woman, and behind these larger-than-life rockstars were four incredible women whose stories have yet to be fully unpacked . . . until now.

In Parachute Women, Elizabeth Winder introduces us to the four women who inspired, styled, wrote for, remixed, and ultimately helped create the legend of the Rolling Stones. Marianne Faithfull, Marsha Hunt, Bianca Jagger, and Anita Pallenberg put the glimmer in the Glimmer Twins and taught a group of straight-laced boys to be bad. They opened the doors to subterranean art and alternative lifestyles, turned them on to Russian literature, occult practices, and LSD. They connected them to cutting edge directors and writers, won them roles in art house films that renewed their appeal. They often acted as unpaid stylists, providing provocative looks from their personal wardrobes. They remixed tracks for chart-topping albums, and sometimes even wrote the actual songs. More hip to the times than the rockers themselves, they consciously (and unconsciously) kept the band current—and confident—with that mythic lasting power they still have today.

Lush in detail and insight, and long overdue, Parachute Women is a group portrait of the four audacious women who transformed the Stones into international stars, but who were themselves marginalized by the male-dominated rock world of the late '60s and early '70s. Written in the tradition of Sheila Weller's Girls Like Us, it's a story of lust and rivalries, friendships and betrayals, hope and degradation, and the birth of rock and roll.
 Entertainment & Celebrities Music Women Celebrity

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Echoes cover art
Erotic Vagrancy cover art
Touched by the Sun cover art
Love and Fury cover art
Adventures in the Screen Trade cover art
Glamour Ghoul cover art
Hollywood's Eve cover art
Exit Stage Left cover art
In the Nick of Time cover art
Blues from Laurel Canyon cover art
Tim: The Official Biography of Avicii cover art
Backstage Passes cover art
The Rachel Incident cover art
Busy Being Free cover art
Past Imperfect cover art
Really Saying Something cover art

Critic reviews

“A fascinating portrait …. backed up by keenly described historical background and an expert understanding of 1960s and ’70s rock culture. The result is a wild ride worthy of rock’s heyday.”—Publishers Weekly
All stars
Most relevant
The narrator was a bad choice. The book was predominantly based in and around Europe and the narrator hadn’t learnt the pronunciation of places for example saying “Convent Garden” instead of ‘Covent Garden’ it became a theme and was sloppy in my opinion.

The book was interesting, it’s sad that it’s the age old tale of men being uplifted by women whilst trampling on them and draining their sparkle. It amazes me that whilst people held these men - more specifically Mick and Kieth - as ‘rock gods, they were actually actually just junkies, living in squalor, emotionally abusing women, abandoning their children, and bullying their friends to the point they commit suicide. I would recommend the book.

Wrong Narrator

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The information was interesting but I am not sure the premise of the writer was born out by the reality. Most of the characters, male and female were hardly “role models!” The narration could have been a lot better if more research had been undertaken as to pronunciation. Also although no fault of the narrator it is quite an “English” milieu and English narration might have worked better.

Interesting aspects of the world of rock.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
There is little in this book that a Stones fan wouldn't already know and there are numerous inaccuracies. Chris Jagger is referred to as Mick's older brother for one. This is a small point but a few of these careless mistakes add up to making the whole less credible. It passed a few hours quite satisfactorily but if you are a pedant like me, you will find parts of it annoying.

Nothing much new here for a Stones aficionado

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.