Margins
Slashed Beauties book cover
Slashed Beauties
2025
First Published
4.21
Average Rating
384
Number of Pages

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 third and final Anatomical Venus. Crafted in eighteenth-century London and modeled after real-life sex workers to entice male medical students, 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 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 among the rich and powerful. 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 the timelines 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. However, these haunted, murderous dolls might not be ready to burn.

Avg Rating
4.21
Number of Ratings
19
5 STARS
47%
4 STARS
32%
3 STARS
16%
2 STARS
5%
1 STARS
0%
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Author

A. Rushby
A. Rushby
Author · 1 books
A. Rushby (also writing as Allison Rushby), was gifted the middle name of Jane, for Jane Austen. Wordsmithing was duly destined and, under several pseudonyms, she has published more than thirty books. She has long been a fan of cities steeped in history, wild, overgrown cemeteries, red brick Victorian museums, the curious and the uncanny. She prefers to write with a cup of French Earl Grey tea by her side and a cat curled up in her lap.
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