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 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 mother's 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 mother's 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 Méduse, the same lavish, culty
spa to which her mother was devoted. There, Belle 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 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.
