The Flirt (Paperback) by Kathleen Tessaro

... leticia vane was in many ways her own finest creation. She'd taken what little rough material nature had allotted her and moulded, shaped, hacked away at it as a sculptor chips away at a hunk of marble.

Nothing remained from her previous life as Emily Ann Fink of Hampstead garden suburb. The uni-brow that god had seen fit to adorn her with was gone, plucked into two slim, expressive arches; the overbite long replaced; the dull, brown hair dyed a gleaming black that brought out the colour of her eyes. Her face was pleasing but, understanding that she was no beauty, she'd taken a great deal of time over her figure. she ate once a day and smoked the rest of the time. Dying young was far preferable than dying fat. It had taken alot of hard work to make Leticia Vane, the kind of work not alot of people appreciated.