In 2025, there is no shortage of capital-B beauty brands: the kind with products that are practically collector’s items and pop up stores that garner kilometre-long lines. These companies don’t just sell lip gloss and fragrance, but wield influence both in real life and online. But what could happen if one such brand went to far?

That’s the provocative premise behind Rytual, the debut novel by Australian writer Chloe Elisabeth Wilson.

Set in modern Melbourne, the story follows Marnie Sellick, an adrift twenty-something-year-old who lands coveted a job at Rytual Cosmetica after meeting Rose, one of its high-ranking staffer, at a fitness studio. Rytual is the beauty brand of Wilson’s fictional world, and the place to work. The employees are polished to perfection, the office is always well-fragranced (with Rytual Cosmetica’s soon-to-be-released fragrance, of course), and its founder, Luna Peters, is a cult girl-boss figure in every sense of the phrase.

While many girls would kill to be in her position, as Marnie is drawn deeper into Rytual’s orbit, she begins to suspect the company’s gloss is masking something more sinister. 

The story is sexy, sharp and at times confronting, but whenever its darkness threatens to close in, Wilson offers flashes of humour and relatable anecdotes: stingy dates, chaotic flatmates, and moments spent listening to friends vent about work in club bathrooms. 

Like any good thriller, Rytual keeps you on edge. Its twists are sharp enough to make your gut turn and draw real-life reactions (a waitress spotted me reading it at a café and didn’t hesitate to ask how far in I was. When I told her I’d barely scratched the surface, she said, wide-eyed, “You wait.” Having since turned the final page,  I’d say the same). 

But what makes Rytual all the more gripping is how Wilson uses the framework of a thriller to dissect the contemporary beauty industry, and prompt some serious introspection. The author examines the fragility of identity and pull of aspiration in a way that forces us readers to confront a rather uncomfortable truth: that Luna is the kind of woman many of us might admire. And Marnie? She could so easily be one of us.