House of Beauty

January 1, 2019
This twisty Colombian best-seller explores themes of loneliness, exploitation, and double lives through the converging stories of three Bogota women and a murdered schoolgirl. Karen, a massage therapist at a premier spa, House of Beauty, begins to fall apart after she is raped by her landlord, and the money she's saved to send for her young son is stolen. Claire Dalvard, a psychotherapist and Karen's client, recognizes Karen's increasing distress and becomes an eager confidant. Karen slowly reveals that she's turned to prostitution to rebuild her savings and that she's crumbling under the pressure of a deadly secret about the recently murdered schoolgirl, Sabrina Guzman. Lucia, a friend of Claire's, has divorced Colombia's favorite self-help author but continues to ghostwrite his best-sellers. She's convinced that his exploitation of her is benign, even mutually beneficial, until his erratic behavior in the days after Sabrina Guzman's murder ignites suspicion. When Karen finally reveals that she knows who Sabrina planned to meet the night she was murdered, Claire and Lucia are drawn into a conspiracy involving Bogota's most powerful men. Fascinating character studies mix with a penetrating look at gender politics.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)