‘Beautiful People’ by Amanda Jennings

Published by HQ,
14 August 2025.
ISBN: 978-0-00869688-7 (PB)

Secrets, lies and the way the past comes back to bite us lie at the heart of Amanda Jennings’s latest psychological thriller. Talented artist Victoria can’t wait to escape from her home in the north of England after her father’s imprisonment for embezzling funds from charities. Her mother is in a permanent state of breakdown; her brother is bipolar; her erstwhile friends all shun her. She goes to university in London, completely reinvents herself, and falls in with a clique of wealthy students from backgrounds very different from her own. But great wealth is sometimes accompanied by an inflated sense of self-worth, and Victoria takes away some bad memories from her student days. 

Fast-forward twenty-five years, and she has carved out a life for herself in the south of France, working in a cafe and exhibiting her artworks in a small gallery. Then she wins a major art award, and her work catches the eye of Ingrid, a Hollywood film star, who commissions a portrait. The star wants Victoria to come to her wedding; she is reluctant, but the star insists. And among the guests are those fellow students.

The novel is carefully structured, taking place mainly in the present, with flashbacks portraying significant episodes from twenty-five years ago. Threaded through the here-and-now story are scenes from the point of view of Coco, a young waitress at the wedding, whose mother has ambitions for her. It isn’t until everything builds to a dramatic climax that the teenager’s importance becomes apparent – but she’s as well drawn and vital a character as each of the others and certainly doesn’t share her mother’s aspirations to fame. Former students Fraser and Julian, Cami and Tilly, share some of the more unfortunate traits of the rich and entitled, unlike charming but refreshingly down-to-earth Nick. Minor characters in both time-frames also leave a strong impression: ebullient Anne-Marie the gallery owner; Mikey, Victoria’s self-absorbed brother; Mrs Drummond, the starchy but warm-hearted landlady.

The opulent wedding takes place in a Cornish coastal hotel and has all the trappings of conspicuous consumption: the lavish menu includes copious hundred-pounds-a-bottle champagne, the marquee is silk-lined, the music live. In sharp contrast is Victoria’s sparse apartment in France and the shabby student lodging house she lived in in London.   

But that’s only the background. The real strength of the novel lies in the characters, and the slow release of salient details until a picture is built of what happened twenty-five years ago and how the story will play out in 2020s Cornwall. What did happen in London after the rag dance? What part will Coco play? Is anyone quite what they seem to be?

No spoilers here; you’ll have to read it to find out. I promise it will be worth it. Amanda Jennings knows how to build suspense and tell a rattling good tale.
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Reviewer: Lynne Patrick

Amanda Jennings was born in London in 1973, and her family moved to a village in rural Berkshire when she was young. Unsure what career she wanted to pursue, she decided to follow in her architect mother’s footsteps and accepted a place to read architecture at Cambridge University, but it soon became clear it wasn’t for her and she changed course to History of Art – more writing, less physics! After university, she and a friend set up a company writing copy for small businesses, which paid just enough for rent and wine, but not quite enough for food. As fun as it was, a rethink was required when she fell pregnant. A few years later Amanda went to work at the BBC, but she missed looking after her daughter, and could no longer ignore her yearning to write. When she became pregnant with her second child, and encouraged by the success of a shortlisted sitcom script in a BBC writing competition, she took the opportunity to be at home with the children, grabbing every spare moment she could find to write. Sworn Secret, her first novel was published in the UK in August 2012. Her latest book is The Storm published in July 2020.  Amanda lives just outside Henley-on-Thames with her husband, three daughters

www.amandajennings.co.uk

Lynne Patrick has been a writer ever since she could pick up a pen, and has enjoyed success with short stories, reviews and feature journalism, but never, alas, with a novel. She crossed to the dark side to become a publisher for a few years and is proud to have launched several careers which are now burgeoning. She lives in Oxfordshire in a house groaning with books, about half of them crime