Slashed Beauties - Hardcover

Rushby, A.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593954645 ISBN 13: 9780593954645

Verlag: Berkley Books, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

A gothic feminist body horror in two timelines revolving around three Anatomical Venuses—ultrarealistic wax figures of women—that come to life at night to murder men who have wronged them.

Seoul, present day. Antiques dealer Alys’s task is nearly complete. She has at last secured Elizabeth, the final anatomical Venus in a dangerously intertwined trio. Crafted in eighteenth-century London and modeled after real-life sex workers to entice male medical students to study female anatomy, these eerie wax figures, known as slashed beauties, carry unsavory lore. Legend has it that the figures are bewitched, and come to life at night to murder men who have wronged them. Now Alys embarks for England, where she knows what she must do: sever her cursed connection to the Venuses once and for all.

London, 1763. Abandoned and penniless in Covent Garden, wide-eyed Eleanor and another young woman, Emily, are taken under the wing of beautiful and beguiling Elizabeth, one of the city’s most highly desired courtesans. But as Eleanor is seduced deeper into a web of money, materialism, and men, it seems that Elizabeth may not be the savior she appears to be.

As past and present begin to intersect, it becomes clear that the women’s stories are linked in deeper, darker ways than it initially seems. And that the only method for Alys to end the witchcraft that binds her legacy is to gather all three models in one place and destroy them.

The problem is, Elizabeth is not ready to burn. Far from it. Centuries on, she is determined to rise again, and she will obliterate anything standing in her path. Including Alys herself.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

A. Rushby adores cities with long, winding histories; wild, overgrown cemeteries; redbrick Victorian museums; foxes; tea; and ivy. She lives in Queensland, Australia.

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Alys

Seoul, present day

The text, when it finally comes, arrives at three twenty-three a.m. Wanting to be kept in the loop, I'd provided one of the hospital nurses with a burner phone and a large wad of cash a week ago. And then I'd waited.

X

This one simple letter tells me all I need to know. Mr. Yoon is dead.

Hours on from that text, as I sit on a hard subway seat on my way to visit a client, I wait again. My heart beats out the theme tune of anxiety in my chest, as it's done since the early hours of the morning. Now I wait for another message, this one from Mrs. Yoon's solicitor.

The first in a long line of dominoes is teetering.

Feeling nauseous, I pop a ginger chew into my mouth and check my phone for what must be the hundredth time today. Still nothing.

I'm about to tuck it back into my satchel when the hairs on my arms rise.

A man, somewhere in this carriage, is watching me. I'm sure of it.

With my silvery violet pixie cut, my tattoo-dotted arms and the tank top I'm wearing on this hot summer's day, I'd expected a few stares. I know I'm an outlier. An oddity. Other. What was I thinking, attracting attention to myself? But I knew the truth of it. It wasn't other people's attention I was attempting to attract. It was my own. My new look was a deal. A deal I had made with myself. The hair, the tattoos-I was readying myself to become someone new. Someone different. Someone who . . . could. Or at least was going to. Once I'd signed the paperwork Mrs. Yoon's solicitor would provide, there would be no turning back for me.

Still, I must admit, now that I'm on full display in the subway, I regret not taking up my client's offer of sending a car.

Why, just once, couldn't I have said yes?

I don't know Seoul. I've never been to Hannam-dong before. I'm carrying something precious.

But I was never going to agree to that car, was I? I didn't want to owe anyone any favors.

Ugh. I can still feel his eyes on me.

It's nothing, I tell myself. Nothing.

Unable to concentrate, I shove my phone into my satchel and my gaze falls upon my upturned wrist and my latest ink-a likeness of a brooch I'd sold months back and couldn't seem to get out of my mind. Victorian, 1864. I let my finger trace the circular frame of the outside-pearls and gold-and then the woven crisscross of flaxen hair encased in the center. I hadn't thought I'd grown attached-until it was gone.

This happened now and again. Sometimes I'd dream about pieces after I sold them. Sometimes I'd dream about them while they were still in my care. Sometimes they gave me nightmares. There had once been a necklace of bog oak that I couldn't rid myself of fast enough.

My finger starts to move up to the tattoo above this one, a twist of braided hair open at one end. This one is a permanent mark not only on my skin but in my heart. Just as I'm about to settle my attention upon it, I feel that gaze once more.

I look up.

There he is. Standing. Leaning. He's younger than I'd expected, though I'm not entirely sure what I'd expected. Something middle-aged and leering in an ill-fitting suit, perhaps. When our eyes meet, he startles, his attention darting to the phone in his hand. There is no challenge here. I have stepped on a twig in the forest, and he has bolted.

I'm about to glance away when a small flicker of a smile crosses his face.

He stretches. Shrugs. The sleeve of his T-shirt lifts.

And a tattoo peeks out from under the hem.

Oh.

I see then that I've read this whole thing wrong.

He doesn't think I'm an oddity. He was-is-sharing.

And this I don't know what to do with.

I am never comfortable around men. I am always wary. Fearful of what might happen. What I might do. Being looked at is never good. But being seen is worse.

I move my gaze to the floor and try to pull myself together. I think of my therapist. What would she say about this? I still can't believe I have one (a friend made me find one), but I have to admit that she's been . . . helpful. Which is surprising, considering the lies I've told her about myself. The half-truths. The fabrications.

As the train rocks along, I return to a talk the two of us had a while ago, about control. About feeling like I have control of my life, and things do not just happen to me. I am capable and have agency. I am the mistress of my own fate.

Her words resonated with me that day.

The mistress of my own fate.

I'd repeated the phrase for weeks. Could I ever be the mistress of my own fate? Whenever I thought back, I couldn't remember a time when any sort of control was my reality. A time when I called the shots.

Not that I think back often. I've learned the hard way that there is nothing to be gained by revisiting what can never be changed.

But once Mrs. Yoon signs that paperwork, it will all be up to me. The choices . . . mine.

That's what I need to focus on now.

The train stops. I don't look up, but I see his feet move. He departs.

See? There was no need to panic. He was simply a walk-on part. The smallest of characters in my story. There was never any threat.

The subway carriage moves forward with a lurch, and I look down at a different tattoo on my arm, a simple phrase in a fine, sloping hand.

I am the mistress of my own fate.

The domino continues to teeter, and I hold my breath, waiting for it to fall.


I follow the directions on my phone; they lead me up a long, steep hill. On my way, I stop at a café and order two matcha lattes before continuing.

When I get to the house with one window, I halt. Veronique had told me I'd know it when I saw it.

She was right.

A double garage at the bottom, the house looms above, an austere concrete tower with one small square window.

Veronique's partner is an architect.

I press the buzzer next to the glass front door.

There's a pause, and then I see movement inside. Veronique is coming down the glass-sided stairs. She wrenches the door open.

"You're here! Come in. It's so good to have you visit."

We usually meet when we're both in London.

I step inside, onto the polished concrete floor, and take my sandals off. "Well, I have to see this room of yours I've heard so much about. I brought you a matcha latte. I know it's your favorite."

"You're an angel. Let's go upstairs." Veronique's eyes move to my satchel.

I'm not offended by the absence of small talk. My clients usually eschew unnecessary conversation-a reflection of their gnawing hunger for whatever object of mine they're looking to acquire.

The door snaps closed behind us, and we head up some wide wooden stairs. We exit the concrete tower and enter the building proper, walking into a room that is vast and open-plan and . . . sparse.

"I know," Veronique says. "It looks like a morgue."

"Not a morgue," I reply. I look around, further taking in the polished concrete floor, the huge slab-of-marble bench in the kitchen. "A mortuary, maybe. A nice one. Expensive." Then I laugh. "Not really. The wood saves it."

Veronique rolls her eyes. "That's exactly what Richard says. It 'adds warmth.'"

"Perhaps that's the attraction between you two? He designs places that look like expensive mortuaries, and you fill them with your beloved collection of . . ." I don't how to put it. I probably should have just stopped at "beloved collection."

"Dead people's hair and eyes?" Veronique tries.

"I was searching for a slightly more eloquent turn of phrase."

"I'm not sure there is one."

I walk over to the marble bench and place my satchel gently on top. The bag with the matcha lattes, I set down beside it. I lift one out and pass it to Veronique.

"Thanks. I adore...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Berkley Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2025
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593954645
• ISBN 13: 9780593954645
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 400
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: BERKLEY; https://www.penguin.com/?s=BERKLEY; ; Unit 2 Limavady Business Park; Limavady; County Londonderry; BT49 0HR; Vereinigtes Königreich
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar