Beautiful People by Amanda Jennings #BeautifulPeople @MandaJJennings @HQstories #BookReview

 

When Victoria escapes her broken home for university in London, she is determined to reinvent herself and make a fresh start. She falls in love with Nick, who welcomes her into his privileged circle of friends, opening her eyes to a world she only ever dreamt of.

Then life takes a darker turn.

Twenty-five years later, the circle is reunited alongside a host of glittering guests to celebrate the wedding of Hollywood darling Ingrid Olsson to ruthlessly well-connected Julian Draper. Victoria has spent years trying to forget Nick and put the horror of what happened behind her. Now she has to face the past she tried so hard to bury.

As the champagne flows and painful memories resurface, Victoria can’t shake the feeling that some people seem to get away with everything.

But maybe not this time.

Maybe this time, someone will pay the ultimate price.

Beautiful People by Amanda Jennings is published in hardback by HQ on 7 November 2024. My thanks to the publisher who sent my copy for review. 

I have been a fan of Amanda Jennings for well over ten years. She writes dark, emotionally challenging novels filled with beautiful prose and expertly created characters. 

I think Beautiful People is my favourite of her books so far, her best novel to date. It totally captured me, thrusting me into a world of glamour and wealth, but at the same time, exposing the dirt and the grubbiness that the beautiful people so often hide from people outside of their circle. 

The reader knows from the prologue that someone dies. We do not know how, or who it is, or who the person standing close to the body is, but this short scene sets the pace for the rest of the novel. 

One of my favourite narrative structures is a dual time line, and in Beautiful People, Amanda Jennings does this to absolute perfection. As we meet Victoria in June 2024, and then go back and acquaint ourselves with her when she was known as Vix, at University in 1999, the stories are wonderfully woven together. 

Present day Victoria lives in France, alone. She's an artist and has been commissioned to create a portrait for the wedding of a very famous, wealthy couple. However, Victoria really doesn't want to attend the wedding, but the bride insists that she attend for the unveiling. It becomes clear to the reader that Victoria and the groom, and many of the invited guests have history, a painful history and one that Victoria doesn't want to re-visit. 

We learn about young Vix. Fleeing a dysfunctional family to find refuge at University. Making friends with the grand and the elite. Slightly changing her accent to fit, examining the clothes that the other girls wear, making sure that she can fit in, and also falling in love. This is not an ordinary, romantic love though, it becomes something of an obsession for Vix and leads to her making many many decisions that are not the best for her. 

Let's talk about the 'beautiful people' themselves. A bunch of wealthy, entitled, gorgeous people who want for nothing. Who go through life expecting to receive everything that they wish for, who rarely consider the feelings of others, yet who attract so many hangers-on. People want to be seen with them, they think their beauty will rub off on them. 

This is a complex, captivating and extremely dark story, one that lures the reader in and doesn't let go until the crescendo of a finish. The toxicity of this group of friends is palpable, and the vulnerability of Vix and her desperation to be accepted is both heart breaking, and recognisable. There are characters who do go some way to redeem themselves, there are others who just become worse and more evil as the story progresses. It is a finely tuned tale of privilege and power and the absolute destruction that this can cause. 

Powerful, emotive and utterly brilliant. Highly recommended by me. 

Amanda Jennings has written seven novels, and numerous short stories for anthologies
and magazines, and is published both in the UK and abroad. 

She is a contributor to BBC Radio Berkshire and a long-standing judge for the Henley Youth Festival literary competition, has taught writing workshops, and enjoys appearing at literary festivals. 

Before becoming an author, Amanda worked at the BBC as a researcher, and studied History of Art at Cambridge University. 

She lives in a cottage in the middle of the woods in Oxfordshire with her family and a varied assortment of animals.

www.amandajennings.co.uk

X @MandaJJennings

IG @amanda_jennings1