Sheer

A Novel

De: Vanessa Lawrence

An electrifying, propulsive novel about the rise and fall of a controversial beauty mogul and the moral gray areas at the intersections of beauty, power, and ambition

It’s 2015 and Maxine Thomas, the founder and creative director of the cult makeup company Reveal, has just been suspended by her own Board for a scandalous transgression. Housebound in her New York City apartment, where she awaits the verdict on her future, Max recounts her version of the events that have brought her to this moment.

From her start as a precocious suburban child in the eighties to her decades as a workaholic visionary, Max proselytizes a sheer, dewy look—cosmetics through a female gaze—all while battling sexist investors, the whiplash of cultural change, and the mounting pressure to keep her sexuality a secret. But when Max’s story catches up to her present, she must contend with the cost of true transparency.

Told over nine intense days yet spanning a lifetime, Sheer is a gripping, incisive, and provocative tale of a complicated female vanguard’s insatiable drive and the slippery ground between empowerment and abuse of power.

©2026 Vanessa Lawrence (P)2026 Penguin Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Vanessa Lawrence is a marvel. Biting, shocking, illuminating, and whip-smart, her sophomore novel, Sheer, exposes the brutality behind the beauty industry, as it gives us the confession of canceled makeup mogul Maxine Thomas. Maxine bares all, revealing the layered pressures of gender, sexuality, race, and class at play on a made-up face, all the while telling us a gorgeous and unforgettable story. Lawrence pulls it off perfectly: she shows the awful system behind the beautiful woman, then the woman at the heart of the system itself."
—Julia Phillips, bestselling author of Bear and Disappearing Earth