Rouge

From the critically acclaimed author of Bunny comes a horror-tinted,gothic fairy tale about a lonely dress shop clerk whose mother’s unexpected death sends her down a treacherous path in pursuit of youth and beauty. Can she escape her mother’s fate—and find a connection that is more than skin deep? For as long as she can rememberBelle has been insidiously obsessed with her skin and skincare videos. When her estranged mother Noelle mysteriously diesBelle finds herself back in Southern Californiadealing with her mother’s considerable debts and grappling with lingering questions about her death. The stakes escalate when a strange woman in red appears at the funeraloffering a tantalizing clue about her mother’s demisefollowed by a cryptic video about a transformative spa experience. With the help of a pair of red shoesBelle is lured into the barbed embrace of La Maison de Médusethe same lavishculty spa to which her mother was devoted. ThereBelle discovers the frightening secret behind her (and her mother’s) 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 beautyenvygriefand the complicated love between mothers and daughters. With black humor and seductive horrorRouge 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 petalsRouge holds up a warped mirror to our relationship with mortalityour collective fixation with the surfaceand the wondrousdeep longing that might lie beneath.