Salome — Leslie Baird

A seductively gothic reimagining of the original femme fatale, about an adrift American journalist who accepts an alluring stranger's invitation to stay at her home in a small French town, only to uncover a dangerous family history that could alter the course of humanity.Don’t open your eyes...Courtney notices Salomé the moment she steps onto the plane. She's not usually influenced by others' charms, but there's something undeniable about Salomé. She's magnetic, quicksilver, and, best of all for incurable Francophile Courtney, French. When Salomé invites Courtney to her mother’s town in northwestern France, derailing Courtney’s trip to Paris, Courtney doesn’t even have to think about it.But things are, almost immediately, a little odd. Despite feeling right at home with Salomé, a house outfitted with cameras and the dark, watchful presence of Salomé’s mother haunts Courtney’s visit. Courtney senses she should leave, but in Salomé’s presence she feels as if she's rediscovered the “French Courtney,” an alternate version of herself who made a life in France.That is, until she starts to experience paralyzing nightmares, in which strange voices intone Don’t open your eyes . . . and encounters Salomé’s charismatic stepfather Marco, whose pyramid-scheme vitamin company offers a tempting segue into an even more insidious group obsessed with eternal life. Or is it an actual cult? And how much does Salomé really know? As a conspiracy unfurls, Courtney is torn between her loyalty to Salomé and what might be the story of a lifetime, the kind that could make a journalist’s career—if it doesn’t kill her first.A modern reclamation of one of the Bible’s most dangerous women whose story, until now, has been almost exclusively told by men, Salomé is a tantalizing, feminist tale exploring power, loyalty, connection, and the measures we'll take to harness our deepest desires.