Beauty — Faith Baldwin

Overview: Letty Lawson secures a loan from Mortimer Fisher and her new venture is soon wildly successful, but their strictly business relationship breaks down into a more personal one until the arrival of Mrs. Mortimer Fisher.

Synopsis: Small town girl Letty Lawson moves to New York City and lives in a boarding house run by Mrs. Merrick. Eventually she asks her friend and Mrs. Merrick's daughter, Carol, to get her a job at her workplace, an exclusive beauty salon owned by Madame Sonia Barton. Though both Carol and her brother Bill, who is in love with her, warn her that it is not a fit place for a young woman of good character, Letty insists she knows what she is getting into.

After proving herself, Letty is sent on a house call to attend to spoiled, scatterbrained, chatty Mrs. Smallwood. When she leaves, she discovers her hat has been chewed up by Mrs. Smallwood's Pekingese. Lawyer Mr. Smallwood buys her an expensive replacement. By chance, she meets him again when they both seek shelter from a rainstorm in the same place. Smallwood is delighted when a fear of lightning makes Letty reflexively seek the comfort of his arms several times. They start seeing each other, though nothing very improper occurs.

Meanwhile, Carol has a rich, older, indulgent boyfriend, Freddy Gordon, while Jane, another salon employee, is secretly seeing Burt, Madame Sonia's mining engineer son.

Many plot elements and characters in this 1933 romance novel by one of America's most prolific and popular authors of the time.