In Pursuit of Beauty

From the mind of acclaimed reporter Gary Baum comes In Pursuit of Beauty, a striking debut novel that examines the nature of truth and allure in our modern world.

What would you endure to fulfill your dreams?

What would you do to have the perfect body?

For Dr. Roya Delshad, the answers are anything and everything. A sought-after Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, Roya is also the highest example of her craft. She's had every inch of her own body sculpted, one procedure at a time. All to escape a painful and lonely past.

But when Roya gives the gift of beauty to those who can't afford the cost, the media labels her "the Robin Hood of Roxbury Drive," and she soon finds herself pleading her case from inside a prison cell.

Hoping to resurrect her reputation and obscure a trail of unhappy clients, Roya tells her story with the help of the blithely handsome Wes Easton, a journalist and failed screenwriter who agrees to ghostwrite her memoir. In a twistingly tense pas de deux, Wes struggles to tell fact from fiction, and Roya seeks to explode his notions about aspiration and desire, sending their collaboration off the rails.

A bold, stylish, and provocative thriller about surfaces and their hidden depths, In Pursuit of Beauty explores what it means to become exactly who you once yearned to be.

"It's about time someone wrote a literary study of hotness (and its discontents)! Baum wields the insights wrested from his years reporting in the Hollywood trenches with devastating accuracy in this revelatory romp."

-- "Jade Chang, bestselling author of The Wangs vs. the World and What a Time to Be Alive"

"More than a deliciously juicy read--which it absolutely is--In Pursuit of Beauty is a crash course in the techniques, thrills, deceptions, and cat-and-mouse games of investigative reporting from a master of the craft. At stake in this novel, as in journalism itself, is nothing less than the knowability of truth."

-- "Julian Sancton, New York Times bestselling author of Madhouse at the End of the Earth"

"What a debut! So complete and clear is Baum's understanding of the journalistic mind, its strategies, paranoias, and empathies, In Pursuit of Beauty could just as accurately be called In Pursuit of the Story--and that's one hell of a pursuit, for as Baum puts it (perfectly), 'Journalism's a rude business, even in its finest hours, when it's slaying dragons.'"

-- "Sam Wasson, bestselling author of The Big Goodbye and The Path to Paradise"

"In Pursuit of Beauty is a razor-sharp, emotionally rich story about identity, belonging, and the price to be paid for reinvention. With surgical precision, Baum dissects our modern culture and serves up a darkly funny and provocative meditation on ambition, appearance, and what it means to remake yourself from the outside in. I loved it."

-- "Scott C. Johnson, author of The Con Queen of Hollywood and The Wolf and the Watchman"

"In Pursuit of Beauty is part medical noir, part sociological confection, all giddy pleasure. The book just zips along. Its writer, Gary Baum, a journalist for The Hollywood Reporter, understands LA--and the neuroses of the people who live there--in a bone-deep way. This is one queasy and kinky delight."

-- "Lili Anolik, bestselling author of Didion & Babitz and Hollywood's Eve"

Gary Baum is an award-winning investigative journalist at The Hollywood Reporter. He has twice been named Journalist of the Year by the Los Angeles Press Club. His work was the basis for Peacock's Emmy-nominated series Angelyne, which featured a fictionalized Baum portrayed by Alex Karpovsky. In Pursuit of Beauty is his first novel.

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