When Samantha, a young, impressionable American, meets Naomi, a Brit with a taste for danger, their relationship quickly takes on a special intensity. Amid the sun, sea and high society of island life, their imaginations are sparked when one day they find a young Arab man, Faoud, washed up on shore, a casualty of the crisis raging across the Aegean. But when their seemingly simple plan to help the stranger goes wrong, all must face the horrific consequences they have set in motion.

Such a great location setting on a Greek island for a murder mystery, However, it was a bit of a slow burn and had similarities to The Talented Mr Ripley, a classic, so I felt it fell a little bit short in my opinion of being a great thriller. Enjoyable though.

A slow paced novel beautifully written that really made you feel like you are in the Greek Isles enjoying your summer holiday. The plot was really interesting and relevant as it deals with refugee issues and class systems.

I found that this book moved slightly too slowly for me to become fully engrossed in the plot. Unfortunately this did not gel with me.

A beautifully written book and I loved that evoked the romance of summer in the Greek isles. Unfortunately I found the pace to be a little slow but I persevered and enjoyed it all the same.

When two young women meet on a Greek island when holidaying with their families, they come to help a refugee who has washed up on a deserted shore. The results are unexpected and chilling. This thriller is a real page-turner, and is interesting in relation to Europe's current migration crisis. It is well written and gripping.

With thanks to Net Galley for a preview.

Maureen Haltrecht

Very slow moving book which I couldn't get involved in. The characters weren't very appealing and page after page of nothing much happening. Very young book with all the mistakes of teenagers.

Compelling and beautifully realised. Excellent characters, narrative, and evocative in its plotting.

The book looks into wealth, privilege and charity towards refugees. The central character is Naomi, a young and lost English woman. She is certainly fascinating if not always likeable. She, together with a friend she met on holiday, stumbles upon a Syrian man who was washed ashore. They attempt to help him and it turns out disastrously. The Greek Island of Hydra is described so beautifully and vivid that it feels like you've been there yourself. This, together with the interesting storyline make it a thought-provoking, although not amazing, read.

In Lawrence Osborne’s Beautiful Animals, troubled twenty-something trainee lawyer Naomi Codrington arrives on the Greek island of Hydra to spend the summer with her wealthy art-dealer father and his Greek second wife. For Naomi, it isn’t simply a summer holiday, so much as an escape from her life back in London, where something terrible seems to have happened. Over-indulged by her father, nagged by her snobby step-mother and seemingly unaware of the great privileges she has been afforded, Naomi isn’t a very likeable protagonist, although she is certainly intriguing. Overcome with ennui, she befriends Sam, an American woman a few years younger than Naomi herself, who is on holiday with her family. Older and, having spent many summers on Hydra, Naomi takes the wide-eyed Sam under her wing and the two become fast friends. So far, so standard holiday read.

But things become more interesting when the two women come across a wounded Syrian migrant, Faoud, sleeping on the rocks. Naomi decides it’s her duty to help him — whether or not he wants her help or her charity — and eventually comes up with a plan to help Faoud escape to the mainland. It should be simple, but before long, things go terribly wrong, pushing Naomi and Sam’s newfound friendship to the limits.

Osborne’s novel is a slow-burner: it takes a while for the long, languorous Greek summer days to shift into frenzied nights with plenty of secrets, lies and home truths. The story draws you in, however, and the characters are richly drawn, their dialogue convincing. Moreover, despite the fact that this particular summer on Hydra turns out to be far from idyllic, Osbourne’s evocative descriptions of the island and its people are extremely attractive. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself planning a Greek holiday of your own after Osborne gives you a taste for island life.

Naomi and Sam are two rich privileged girls who are spending the summer on the Greek Island of Hydra. They seem to be mostly bored and spend most of their time sunbathing or idling around in the sun, which is how they come across a young Syrian migrant who has been washed up on a remote beach on the island. The two girls come up with a plan to help the young refugee in his quest to reach mainland Europe and find a new life, and they hatch a plan to help him on his quest. However, things do not go to plan and the rest of the novel deals with the fallout from the plan. I can’t say that I enjoyed this book very much, as I found the characters to be quite unsympathetic. The whole tone and atmosphere of the novel was very reminiscent of ‘The Great Gatsby’ or ‘The Talented Mr Ripley’ and although it had a modern day setting I feel that it could easily have been set in or written in that era.

I adored the cover for this book and have always loved the books that Vintage publish so had high expectations for this novel. I wasn't disappointed! A riveting thriller focusing on a female friendship (always my favourite kind) with the added interest of engaging with timely themes. A Must-Read!

Taking as a base the contemporary issues of refugees fleeing from the Middle East, this book is set on an idyllic Aegean island. When two friends find a young Arab man washed up on the shore they decide to rescue him. however the decision to do so causes fractures in their lives and the lives of those around them.

This is a book which manages to put a contemporary twist on the plot device of friendships falling apart. It is twisty and cleverly written but ultimately I am not sure that I really enjoyed it.

Lawrence Osborne writes like the greats – he has been compared to Graham Greene and his place in the literary canon definitely deserves to be there along with the likes of Fitzgerald, Rhys, Lawrence, Hemingway, Bowles, Simenon and Highsmith. His prose and dependence of setting and place to create and inform his story are reminiscent of a particular sheen and quality of story. (Reading this novel made me aware that this sort of writing is not readily available today, which is a shame! Although Deborah Levy’s ‘Hot Milk’ came to mind when reading this, as did Helen Walsh’s ‘The Lemon Grove’) This attribute would often confuse me too; initially I found myself unable to fix the events in a contemporary period (his writing style seems almost old fashioned), in spite of Osborne dealing with such relevant pressing issues of our time (such as our refuge crisis). Osborne’s prose is succulent and exquisite; he writes deliberately, carefully and engrossingly.

It is close to impossible to establish what specific genre this novel belongs to; the story twists, flips and turns and the chapters alternate from the young American Sam, British Naomi and the Syrian Faoud and then in the latter part of the book there are inserts from the more mature Rockhold. Osborne’s novel appears to be averse to being fixed down or defined: this novel could be a psychological thriller, a ghost story, a travelogue, a story about female friendship – it certainly has elements of these and yet it is none of these too.

Osborne’s writing is languid and luxurious and yet the action unfolds like a musical score with different rhythms chiming in (piano, forte, crescendo, decrescendo). The characters are difficult and prism-like, sharp angles charged with and motivated by complex and intense emotion. I was almost relieved to shed myself of the characters when I finished the book and yet simultaneously I was devastated to have ended the novel too.

The book deserves to be read just for the beautiful rendering of the Greek island of Hydra or the surreal Etruscan villages of Sorano and Sovana.

I will be reading everything Lawrence Osborne has ever written now.

The long hot summer days on a Greek island are interrupted by the arrival of a refugee. A spoilt millionaire's daughter takes the man on as a project and suggests that he robs her father's house in order to get money to enable his passage onto Europe.

The concept was fine although I wanted more, she did not like her family but how far ahead had she been planning this? I thought there was going to be a big reveal at the end - but no, just a fade into not much. The descriptions of the heat and the island were enjoyable, but the action was a bit thin and seemed to plod. Even the chase across Europe seemed lacklustre.

I do enjoy his self centered characters who get themselves into muddles because they are too rich/stupid to think it through - as in his previous book 'The Forgiven'. I needed just a little more plot in this book.

This is the third banal book I have read in as many days – a disappointing week all round. I certainly hoped for better things from Lawrence Osbourne – his reputation had preceded him. However I could hardly finish this one – I simply didn’t care what happened to any of the rather lifeless characters and the plot, such as it is, failed to engage me. It’s set on the Greek island of Hydra, the playground of rich Westerners (interesting fact – Leonard Cohen once had a house there) and over a long hot summer two young privileged girls find themselves caught up in a situation they are unable to cope with when they discover a Syrian migrant washed up on a beach. I assume the point of the novel is to explore the gap between rich and poor, the haves and have-nots, the privileged and the downtrodden, but this is not an original subject and it is not dealt with here in any original way. Well-meaning actions and motives lead to bad events. End of story.

Naomi is bored and draws Sam, a young American woman, into a dangerous world of self-justification and greed on a remote Greek island.

Slow paced and quite chilling.

I didn't read this book and have no interest in reading it after finding out it's about something I have no desire to read about. Thank you to the publisher for sending me the book but I won't be reading or reviewing it.

This was a disturbing read for me. Set in exquisite countryside of Hydra and its surroundings it throws up a story of real bitterness amongst a family, then indifference and this was more galling than the bitterness. On top of it all how one young woman can influence another through sheer peer pressure, dragging her into a crime and its subsequent cover up was strange, disturbing and brought to me the fact that I do not quite get human nature as yet, despite being old!

This was a dark read which left me unsettled. It is all too real of course and not a fantasy. Telling more would be spoilers.
Goodreads and Amazon review up on 20/8/2017. Review on my blog mid December 2017. Also linked to my FB page.

Summertime, best to spend on the Greek island of Hydra where the Codringtons possess a villa up on the hill. Yet, while the art collector Jimmy and his second wife Phaine are relaxed, Jimmy’s daughter Naomi seems to have fled London where she just lost her job under mysterious circumstances. First timers on the island are the American family Haldane who enjoy themselves among other compatriots. Their daughter Samantha, slightly younger than Naomi, is soon impressed by the English young woman who not only knows every corner of the island, but who is also self-confident and slightly intimidating. One day, they meet a young man, obviously one of the refugees from the Middle East. Sam would prefer to retreat and not to make contact whereas Naomi’s interest is aroused. For days, they meet him repeatedly until Naomi, out of ennui, draws up a plan of how to support the poor refugee: her family is super-rich, so getting rid of a couple of things in their house does not harm anybody. With the help of the housekeeper, the Arab is to break in and rob the Codringtons. Yet, the scheme does not work out as planned and the girls suddenly have to think of what to do with two bodies.

Lawrence Osborne’s novel starts like the perfect summer read. He depicts the atmosphere of the island in a colourful and authentic way. How the people move around, how relaxed everybody seems to be, but also the way in which the local people slightly stay away from the holidaymakers. The girls spend their days in the water, enjoying the sun – it’s almost too perfect. With the appearance of the refugee, the tone changes and we get to see another side of Naomi. This is where the novel starts to become really interesting.

It is especially this character that is fascinating to observe. She can be the loving daughter – she plays this role perfectly for her father who is aware of it, but on vacation he can ignore negative thoughts and he can still see his wife in the girl. Her stepmother Phaine is less easy to impress, but here, Naomi chooses the open confrontation. Towards the islanders, she is rather cold-shouldered and arrogant. She makes use of the people just as her needs demand it, she openly exploits the housekeeper and forces her to become an accomplice. In contrast, Sam has an innocent air, she is a bit naive and quickly impressed. Thus, she easily becomes Naomi’s victim and is blackmailed by her. Only when it is too late, Sam learns that people on the island consider Naomi possessed, even demonized. Naomi herself knows exactly what she is doing and why she treats people in the way she does:

“It was just an attraction. It was a matter of gravity. It was her influence over them that was attractive too, their reluctant malleability. She couldn’t understand why people were like that.“

She makes use of them simply because she can. When the situation gets out of hand, she keeps calm and manages everything. There is no regret, not even a tear – considering the fact that she has lost her father, she seems to be really cold-blooded here. As a gifted liar, she does not mean to much effort for her to set up a story. Just like the mythological Hydra, Naomi is some kind of poisonous serpent and no loss is a real defeat. Sam, on the contrary, will be haunted her whole life.

The story around Naomi is really enthralling and her behaviour and manipulation repellent at the same time. When the focus shifted away from her to the refugee fleeing from Hydra, it therefore became a bit uninteresting for me. Even though this part is important and definitely full of suspense, it was more centred around the action and less around the character.

It is often said that the initial sentence of a novel is most decisive. Here, however, in my opinion, it’s the opposite. Lawrence Osborne find a remarkable closing of the novel which concentrates much of the story in just three sentences:

“Life was full of such people. One didn’t know anything about them, even though they occupied a position of utmost importance in one’s life for a time. They were like shooting starts, flaring up for a brilliant moment, lighting up the sky even for a few lingering seconds, then disappearing forever.“

'What beautiful animals we are, Sam thought, beautiful as panthers'

A short book, but definitely not sweet, this seems to be channeling The Talented Mr. Ripley (I've only seen the film) only here the amoral plotters are two young women. It's easy to bandy around labels like 'sociopath' but Sam and Naomi are perhaps not quite so easily pigeon-holed, and the shifting and enigmatic relationship between them is perhaps the best thing about the book.

Bourne certainly captures a kind of noir atmosphere despite most of the plot playing out in the heat of a Greek island, but there's an unevenness in his writing which sometimes got in the way of my enjoyment. There are odd instances, for example, of suddenly falling into indirect reported speech rather than dramatising conversations ('Sam said, without lying, that it was the best marmalade she had ever tasted. Naomi said they could smoke a little too'); but there are also moments of sharpness: 'There is the spinning top and there is the girl who whips it into motion but the two are merged in the same motion' (again, that repetition of motion feels clumsy).

Overall, this is the kind of book that has most impact when read in one sitting (it's only a few hours) and, preferably, in the sun - good if you like summer reading with some edge.