All of a sudden, Blanca Arias has it all. The nineteen-year-old daughter of a middling Nicaraguan diplomat posted to Madrid, she marries the equally young and passionate Marquess of Loria, heir to one of the largest fortunes in Spain. He then, as if on cue, dies of diphtheria, leaving Blanca single, free, and inconceivably rich.

A parodic paean to the literary erotica of 1920s Madrid, this luxurious and disturbing work details the sexual awakening of the Marquise of Loria as her white-gloved chauffeur shuttles her from tryst to tryst. But it’s not all champagne and roses: Blanca’s mother-in-law, Casilda, is scheming with her gang of disinherited sycophants to take back “their” fortune. And once the mysterious Luna, a Weimaraner pup, infiltrates Blanca’s chambers, the story shapeshifts from an elegy to a glittering bygone era into something more savage: a psychological thriller and a profound investigation—what exactly hides beneath those surfaces that the rich are so busy gilding and polishing?

Elegantly translated into English for the first time by Megan McDowell and with an exciting introduction by the incomparable Gabriela Wiener, The Mysterious Disappearance of the Marquise of Loria is as exuberant as it is explicit. Irresistible!