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Elle Grenier @elleoftheball.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

✨🪞 She’s here 🪞✨ I’m *beyond* excited to team up with @LGBTQReads to reveal the cover for THIS WRETCHED BEAUTY, out February 17th, 2026. Shoutout to cover artist @vetyyr and designer L. Whitt for bringing to life the dramatic cover of my dreams. Check out the full reveal over on LGBTQReads!

A young woman stands hunched over a dark desk in the bottom half of the picture. Her face is hidden behind shoulder-length golden-blonde hair with strawberry undertones. Her dress is long with pink and blue accents, but leaves her shoulders and upper back exposed. A white, smoke-like fog rises off her and into the painted portrait behind her, which holds a young figure in white with a malicious glint in their eye and a wicked smile. The frame is curved and wooden, and the backdrop of the portrait is an ominous purple smoke. At the bottom of the image is the title "This Wretched Beauty" in a large, elegant font, as well as the words "A Dorian Gray Remix" framed beneath it in a smaller, sleeker font. At the top of the page is the name "Elle Grenier" in the same font as "A Dorian Gray Remix."

The cover sits in front of a dark magenta background with a smoky texture, and is surrounded by a dot-line silver frame with elaborate detailing across the four corners.

The background is the same smoky magenta as for the cover reveal. This time, in the middle of the same silver frame is a text box holding the following words:

London, 1867. Dorian Gray is the heir to a title and their family’s estate, but they’ve never been given the chance to decide whether that’s actually what they want out of life. Forcibly estranged from their father by their manipulative grandfather, Dorian feels trapped in the life that has been decided for them.

Then one night they sneak out of their grandfather’s house, they meet a sweet and talented young painter named Basil, who immediately recognizes Dorian as his new muse. They agree to sit for Basil for a portrait, and Dorian is struck by the beauty and depth that Basil paints into their likeness—and they dare to begin hoping there might be more to life than being their grandfather’s perfect, empty-headed heir.

Dorian is further elated when Basil introduces them to the world of molly houses and drag performers—they’ve never seen such joyful variety of humanity and gender expression. But, as the barrier between the London she knows and the one she's discovering begins to crumble, Dorian must face the fact that freedom and safety do not always come hand in hand.

The aftermath of this realization pulls Dorian into a terrible downward spiral, torn between guilt over their own actions and hatred for the suffocating expectations of society, prompting them to push away those closest to them, surrounding themself instead with vapid courtiers and decadent socialites. And as Dorian’s spiral of self-loathing deepens, something strange happens—Basil’s portrait of them begins to change. Their smile becomes a little sharper, the glint in their eyes a little colder.

Dorian will have to choose—embrace the wickedness within and allow themself to become what they were always meant to be, or dare to try for something far more fragile and dangerous: a life of their own making.

ayida shonibar @ayidashonibar.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

What a gorgeous cover! 💖 Dorian's duality is portrayed so evocatively.

Renée Reynolds @rreynoldswrites.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

OBSESSED

Isabel @ Tween 2 Teen Book Reviews @tween2teenbooks.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

This cover is so beautiful!!! Just found it on Goodreads and I am obsessed! I can’t wait to read!

Elle Grenier @elleoftheball.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

THIS WRETCHED BEAUTY is now available for pre-order, and you can find all the information in the link in my bio!

Laura Rueckert @laurarueckert.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

Oh, wow, it's gorgeous!

Bryn Ambrose @byambrose.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

BEAUTIFUL COVER I'm so excited for this!!