Pretty Things
A Novel
(Sprache: Englisch)
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Who s really following you on social media? The scam of a lifetime brings together two wildly different women in this page-turning thriller about greed, legacy, and betrayal from the New York Times...
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Who s really following you on social media? The scam of a lifetime brings together two wildly different women in this page-turning thriller about greed, legacy, and betrayal from the New York Times bestselling author of Watch Me Disappear.An ID Book Club Selection It s Dynasty meets Patricia Highsmith. The Washington Post
Nina once bought into the idea that her fancy liberal arts degree would lead to a fulfilling career. When that dream crashed, she turned to stealing from rich kids in L.A. alongside her wily Irish boyfriend, Lachlan. Nina learned from the best: Her mother was the original con artist, hustling to give her daughter a decent childhood despite their wayward life. But when her mom gets sick, Nina puts everything on the line to help her, even if it means running her most audacious, dangerous scam yet.
Vanessa is a privileged young heiress who wanted to make her mark in the world. Instead she becomes an Instagram influencer traveling the globe, receiving free clothes and products, and posing for pictures in exotic locales. But behind the covetable façade is a life marked by tragedy. After a broken engagement, Vanessa retreats to her family s sprawling mountain estate, Stonehaven: a mansion of dark secrets not just from Vanessa s past, but from that of a lost and troubled girl named Nina.
Nina s, Vanessa s, and Lachlan s paths collide here, on the cold shores of Lake Tahoe, where their intertwined lives give way to a winter of aspiration and desire, duplicity and revenge.
This dazzling, twisty, mesmerizing novel showcases acclaimed author Janelle Brown at her best, as two brilliant, damaged women try to survive the greatest game of deceit and destruction they will ever play.
Lese-Probe zu „Pretty Things “
1.The nightclub is a temple, devoted to the sacred worship of indulgence. Inside these walls there is no judgment: You ll find no populists, no protestors, no spoilsports who might ruin the fun. (The velvet ropes out front stand sentry against all that.) Instead, there are girls in fur and designer silk, swanning and preening like exotic birds, and men with diamonds in their teeth. There are fireworks erupting from bottles of thousand-dollar vodka. There is marble and leather and brass that is polished until it gleams like gold.
The DJ drops a bass beat. The dancers cheer. They lift their phones toward the sky and vamp and click, because if this is a church then social media is their scripture; and that tiny screen is how they deify themselves.
Here they are: the one percent. The young and ultra-rich. Billionaire babies, millionaire millennials, fabu-grammars. Influencers. They have it all and they want the whole world to know. Pretty things, so many pretty things in the world; and we get them all, says their every Instagram photo. Covet this life, for it is the best life, and we are #blessed.
Out there, in the middle of it all, is a woman. She s dancing with abandon in a spot where the light hits her just so and glimmers on her skin. A faint sheen of sweat dampens her face; her glossy dark hair whips around her face as she swivels her body to the grinding beat. The waitresses headed to the bottle-service tables have to maneuver around her, the fizzing sparklers on their trays in danger of setting the woman s hair alight. Just another L.A. party girl, looking for a good time.
Look close, though, and you can see that her half-closed eyes are sharp and alert, dark with watching. She is watching one person in particular, a man at a table a few feet away.
The man is drunk. He lounges in a booth with a group of male friends gelled hair, leather jackets, Gucci sunglasses at night; twentysomethings who shout over the music in broken English and
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baldly leer at the women who careen past. Occasionally, this man will plunge his face to the table to do a line of cocaine, narrowly missing the flotilla of empty glasses that litter its surface. When a Jay-Z song comes on, the man climbs up on the seat of his banquette and shakes up a giant bottle of champagne a rare large-format bottle of Cristal and then sprays it over the heads of the crowd. Girls shriek as $50,000 worth of bubbly ruins their dresses and drips to the floor, making them slip in their heels. The man laughs so hard he nearly falls down.
A waitress lugs over a replacement bottle of champagne, and as she sets it on the table the man slips his hand right up under her skirt as if he s purchased her along with the bottle. The waitress blanches, afraid to push him off lest she lose what promises to be a sizable tip: her rent for the month, at the very least. Her eyes rise helplessly to meet those of the dark-haired woman who is still dancing a few feet away. And this is when the woman makes her move.
She dances toward the man and then oops! she trips and falls right into him, dislodging his hand from the waitress s crotch. The waitress, grateful, flees. The man swears in Russian, until his eyes focus enough to register the windfall that has just landed in his lap. Because the woman is pretty as all the women here must be in order to get past the bouncers dark-featured and slight, maybe a hint of Spanish or Latina? Not the sexiest girl in the club, not the most ostentatious, but she s well dressed, her skirt suggestively short. Most important: She doesn t blink as the man swiftly shifts his attention to her; doesn t react at all to the possessive hand on her thigh, the sour breath in her ear.
Instead, she sits with him and his friends, letting
A waitress lugs over a replacement bottle of champagne, and as she sets it on the table the man slips his hand right up under her skirt as if he s purchased her along with the bottle. The waitress blanches, afraid to push him off lest she lose what promises to be a sizable tip: her rent for the month, at the very least. Her eyes rise helplessly to meet those of the dark-haired woman who is still dancing a few feet away. And this is when the woman makes her move.
She dances toward the man and then oops! she trips and falls right into him, dislodging his hand from the waitress s crotch. The waitress, grateful, flees. The man swears in Russian, until his eyes focus enough to register the windfall that has just landed in his lap. Because the woman is pretty as all the women here must be in order to get past the bouncers dark-featured and slight, maybe a hint of Spanish or Latina? Not the sexiest girl in the club, not the most ostentatious, but she s well dressed, her skirt suggestively short. Most important: She doesn t blink as the man swiftly shifts his attention to her; doesn t react at all to the possessive hand on her thigh, the sour breath in her ear.
Instead, she sits with him and his friends, letting
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Autoren-Porträt von Janelle Brown
Janelle Brown is the New York Times bestselling author of Pretty Things, Watch Me Disappear, All We Ever Wanted Was Everything, and This Is Where We Live. An essayist and journalist, she has written for Vogue, The New York Times, Elle, Wired, Self, Los Angeles Times, Salon, and more. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their two children.
Bibliographische Angaben
- Autor: Janelle Brown
- 2021, 496 Seiten, Maße: 13,1 x 20,3 cm, Kartoniert (TB), Englisch
- Verlag: Random House Trade Paperbacks
- ISBN-10: 0525479171
- ISBN-13: 9780525479178
- Erscheinungsdatum: 24.03.2021
Sprache:
Englisch
Pressezitat
A page-turner. Real SimpleImpossible to put down, Pretty Things is smart, seductive, and utterly captivating. PopSugar
Full of tantalizing twists and shocking deceptions, this is an intelligent social commentary that is also deliciously fun to read. The Week
It s Dynasty meets Patricia Highsmith. . . . Duplicity abounds when two messed-up clans collide, and Brown s final multiple twists are doozies. The Washington Post
Fiendishly clever. Kirkus Reviews
A can t-look-away story of and for our generation, Pretty Things combines a spellbinding setting with dark, slippery secrets to expose what we ve always known or maybe just hoped to be true about the gilded lives presented in our social media feeds. Janelle Brown is a literary powerhouse. Chandler Baker, New York Times bestselling author of Whisper Network
I devoured this book an incredible read. Jessica Knoll, New York Times bestselling author of Luckiest Girl Alive and The Favorite Sister
I love a good con story especially when I can t tell who s the actual mark and who s the real con artist. In Janelle Brown s compulsively readable Pretty Things, the good girls and the bad girls keep switching places in a story that will keep you turning pages till the end. Even more richly told than Watch Me Disappear, Brown s latest novel has the same sharp observations that are her trademark about shifting identities and the secrets we all keep. Attica Locke, author of Heaven, My Home
Hungry, sexy, and packed with twists, this latest novel from Janelle Brown exposes what s hidden behind the stone walls of the elite s mansions and the slick facades of con artists scams. Money, family, and Instagram collide to make a book you won t be able to put down. Julia Phillips, author of Disappearing Earth
Part psychological thriller and part morality tale, Janelle Brown s
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Pretty Things is literary suspense at its best. Gorgeous prose, complex characters inhabiting the fascinating worlds of elite Instagram influencers and high-stakes scam artists, a thought-provoking dual narrative, a twisty plot with a shocking, never-saw-that-coming ending this brilliant novel has it all! I read it in one day in one sitting, mesmerized, and I loved every moment. Angie Kim, bestselling author of Miracle Creek
I drank down Janelle Brown s Pretty Things in one greedy gulp, speeding through the pages even as the sharp, insightful writing made me feel compassion for each narrator. . . . Mesmerizing, provocative, surprising and thoughtful a must-read. Jean Kwok, New York Times bestselling author of Searching for Sylvie Lee
I drank down Janelle Brown s Pretty Things in one greedy gulp, speeding through the pages even as the sharp, insightful writing made me feel compassion for each narrator. . . . Mesmerizing, provocative, surprising and thoughtful a must-read. Jean Kwok, New York Times bestselling author of Searching for Sylvie Lee
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