There isn't a woman on earth who doesn't have her beauty secrets. But for Dina Kane, beauty is more than just business. It's power. And it is the secret. She's dragged herself up from poverty to Park Avenue. She's rolled with the punches. And she's learned how to win.
Now someone is out to destroy her, and all she's built. They've underestimated Dina Kane. She's staying at the top - and she's happy to wait for the perfect moment to exact her revenge...
It's been quite a few years since we've had any new books from this author, this is the first under her married name Louise Mensch the others were published as Louise Bagshawe, so I was very happy when a proof copy of Beauty appeared out of the blue from Headline.
The story revolves around Dina Kane who has a very strained relationship with her mother from the moment she was born which only got worse when her father died when she was ten. She has beauty and brains, which are both a blessing and a curse, which seem to make a lot of people jealous of her except for her beloved brother. Her mother barely tolerates her and refuses to pay out for her schooling, first she has to go to public school whilst her brother Johnny goes to a private school, so when her mother refuses to pay for her to go to college she sets out to make it on her own.
She's determined to earn enough money to put herself through college, initially working as a waitress where her creative ideas turn around the fortunes of the cafe, then she's head hunted as a manager of a coffee shop but it's when she starts working in an old-style pharmacy that her business ideas really kick in and pretty soon college is out of the window as she starts to make a name for herself in the beauty world. But as with most successful people in life she's made a few enemies along the way who are determined to bring her down...
Dina was an interesting and ballsy character, very wise beyond her ways, and although I can't say I completely agreed with the way that she took her revenge on the Johnson family I do understand why she did what she did. No matter what hurdle appeared in her path she seemed to handle it and made it through the other side stronger and more resilient than ever.
This was very much a story of ambition but also had it's fair share of scandal and revenge along the way too, and was an addictive read as initially I thought I'd read just a couple of chapters to see what I thought of it but before I knew it I was half-way through the book. I can only hope that we don't have as long to wait for a new book from Louise in the future.
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