Slashed Beauties by A. Rushby (Hardback)

Alys, an antiques dealer in modern Seoul, is close to finishing a task that has consumed her life. She has tracked down Elizabeth, the final Anatomical Venus—an eighteenth-century wax figure created with uncomfortable realism. These models were shaped from the bodies of sex workers and displayed for male medical students, admired and objectified in equal measure. Stories have followed them for centuries. Stories of movement at night. Stories of men found dead. Stories Alys can no longer ignore. With the third Venus secured, she travels to England, determined to break the curse that links her to these slashed beauties before it destroys her mind, her safety, and her future.

London, 1763. Eleanor, abandoned in Covent Garden, grasps at survival with another young woman, Emily. Both fall under the care of Elizabeth, a courtesan adored by men with wealth and influence. Eleanor believes she has been saved, but the life she enters is built on power, desire, and control. As the comforts increase, so do the dangers. Elizabeth’s charm hides something colder, something that shapes the girls in ways they cannot see until it is too late.

The two timelines edge toward each other, revealing secrets, violence, and legacy. Alys learns that the Venuses can only be silenced by destroying all three together. Yet gathering them might wake what sleeps inside. These creations have lived through centuries of harm, and they are not ready to die quietly.