A Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by Bustle The Millions LitHub TOR Good Housekeeping Our Culture Mag and more! From the critically acclaimed author of Bunny comes a horror-tinted gothic fairy tale about a lonely dress shop clerk whose mothers unexpected death sends her down a treacherous path in pursuit of youth and beauty. Can she escape her mothers fate--and find a connection that is more than skin deep? For as long as she can remember Belle has been insidiously obsessed with her skin and skincare videos. When her estranged mother Noelle mysteriously dies Belle finds herself back in Southern California dealing with her mothers considerable debts and grappling with lingering questions about her death. The stakes escalate when a strange woman in red appears at the funeral offering a tantalizing clue about her mothers demise followed by a cryptic video about a transformative spa experience. With the help of a pair of red shoes Belle is lured into the barbed embrace of La Maison de Meduse the same lavish culty spa to which her mother was devoted. There Belle discovers the frightening secret behind her (and her mothers) obsession with the mirror--and the great shimmering depths (and demons) that lurk on the other side of the glass. Snow White meets Eyes Wide Shut in this surreal descent into the dark side of beauty envy grief and the complicated love between mothers and daughters. With black humor and seductive horror Rouge explores the cult-like nature of the beauty industry--as well as the danger of internalizing its pitiless gaze. Brimming with California sunshine and blood-red rose petals Rouge holds up a warped mirror to our relationship with mortality our collective fixation with the surface and the wondrous deep longing that might lie beneath.
