Slashed Beauties
Genre: General fiction
Rating: 4/5

Thank for to Berkeley pub for an ARC of Slashed Beauties courtesy of NetGalley! What a story!! I can’t remember the last story I read that made me truly despair for just about every character involved.

CW: sex work, sexual violence (not graphic), body horror

Slashed Beauties follows a dual timeline through two women connected to the Venuses, famous anatomical wax models that may or may not be coming to life and murdering people: Alys, an antiques dealer connected to one of the Venuses; and Eleanor, an 18th century sex worker on whom one of the Venuses was modeled.

Alys is a bit of a mystery throughout the book — why is she so dedicated to the Venuses? how is she truly connected to them? why is now the time to destroy them? The reveals felt a bit heavy handed in places but the mysteries kept me turning those pages!

Eleanor finds herself abandoned by a lover in a new city and finds refuge with an up and coming madame, and everything goes downhill from there. Her naivety wore a bit on me at the beginning, but her innocence felt right in the end and gave her timeline much needed heart.

Pros:
- I literally couldn’t stop reading — I had to know how everything went down and how everyone ended up where they were.
- Female companionship and friendship — I won’t get into specifics for spoilers, but I really enjoyed reading stories about women’s relationships and not the men that have interjected themselves into their lives.

Cons:
- A bit too much telling vs showing than I really prefer. I do so hate having to take an author’s word for something.
- The magic is pretty hand-wavey there at the end. Not a con for everyone but a bummer for me as someone who typically reads harder magic systems.
- I really wanted to know more about the coven!!

Alright this one was SO COOL! I don’t normally go for horror/body horror genres but this one sounded so interesting and it was incredible! Such a unique idea, executed perfectly. I loved every minute.

This story is giving "Harlots" vibes (TV series), but with a dark, magical twist! I was hooked from the beginning and couldn't put it down!

This was one of the most interesting ideas for a book that I have ever read! Along with that, it was one of the most well-executed interesting idea books I have read in a long time. What I have found recently is that when books have interesting ideas, the author cannot tend to pull through on the fun idea that they've built. However Rushby does an AMAZING job with this title. I would absolutely love to read anything more that this author puts out in the future.