Ali, shaped by a difficult childhood and time in the foster system, flees her life as a teenager and eventually partners with Sean, a small-time grifter. Together, they con unsuspecting people in the sweltering south of France until one scheme goes tragically wrong, leaving Ali on the run. The novel delves into how past trauma impacts identity, as Ali, now posing as "Lulu," takes on new personas to survive. Secrets, fear, and deception fill the plot, though some aspects—like Lulu’s improbable chef role—stretch believability. Despite a somewhat underwhelming ending, Sabine Durrant's writing remains gripping and atmospheric.

Set during a sultry summer in the south of France, Sun Damage tells the story of a young woman named Ali who makes her living as a con artist. Whether it’s selling bogus timeshares in Spain or simply using misdirection to get more change than she’s entitled to in a shop, she has honed her skills to perfection.

Ali doesn’t work on her own, though. Her older “business” partner Sean taught her everything she knows, and now acts like he owns her. When one of their schemes goes awry, Ali makes a break for it and goes on the run with 60,000 euros.

She winds up working as a private chef for a British family renting a vacation home in Provence, despite the fact that she doesn’t have much culinary expertise. If there’s one thing Ali does well, it’s pretending to be something she’s not. The family members are keeping their own secrets, and are so focused on themselves that the obvious holes in Ali’s story seem to fly over their heads. “People see what they want to see,” she notes. “They don’t like ambiguity. If something doesn’t make sense, they try to supply the missing link.”

The suspense ratchets up as a newcomer to the house begins to question Ali, who is already fearful that Sean is closing in on her, unwilling to let his partner in crime—or that €60,000 in cash—get away.

This stylish and entertaining thriller has plenty of twists, and while a scammer may seem like an unlikely heroine, Sabine Durrant gives Ali a sympathetic backstory: abandoned by her teenage mother, she was raised in foster care and never had a stable home life. Sean has been her only constant, and getting out of his orbit is an opportunity for her to do some self-reflection. I found Ali to be complex, resourceful and easy to root for.

This is the summer/vacation read you may be looking for. Twisty, turny, but not overly complicated.

A thriller taking place in the south of France, nine house guests reunite for a holiday in the sun. In the heat of summer, loyalties and secrets are exposed as someone among them is a con artist.
This had a lot of potential for a good thriller but just felt it took too long to get to the good stuff and was a bit drawn out.
Thank you to Harper Perennial for the copy in exchange for my honest review.

This wasn't at all what I expected based on the book's description. I enjoyed it, but first I had to double check that I hadn't opened the wrong title on my Kindle. The situation that the cover copy described does happen, eventually. The plot is a slow burn, with a setting and conflict that gradually pulled me in. The background of the woman who isn't who she claims to be kept me reading until the end. It's different than most of the domestic thrillers I read, a nice change of pace with lower stakes and more subtle drama.

Sadly I'm DNFing this one. I wish I could say that it was because of my reading mood, but the characters are so dry seem to have little to no personality even though they are con artists. There is nothing to keep me interested.

<i>Disclosure: I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley, however all opinions are my own.</i>

This book was a bit of a bait and switch for me.

When I read the premise, it sounded like a bunch of people who know each other, minus Lulu, and maybe crazy things start happening. It almost sounded Agatha Christie-esque.

But that's not what I got. The entire first part of the book is two grifters whose relationship I couldn't really figure out. Are they friends? Like brother and sister? Lovers? The entire relationship was incredibly weird. And then they meet a woman that they decide to con, and suddenly Ali is thrust into a situation that she desperately wants to get out of.

The entire second part of the book is nearly like an entirely different book. And while I liked Ali, I just felt like I didn't really care about anyone in this book.

I think the author wanted this to be a slow burn, but the problem is that it never bothered to pick up the pace. I finished it, but I wanted so much more from it.

Twists and turns, backstabbing and cons, hunters and preys - You wouldn't think this story would end from the way it started. An alpha male with a sensitive and lonely girl under his wings was conning his way in to good life. Their latest con led them into a hairy situation. Now, girl was scared and wanted to hide away from preying eyes as much as possible. Best way to do that - hide in plain sight

Girl walked into a house ready to cook bunch of people Ottolenghi style lunches and dinners. She would be the new Lulu, the cook who worked with them last year too. People did not seem to do a double take; she was Lulu. She was feeding people. She was familiar with the house. However, trouble was coming closer.

I don't know how these people were pulling these cons and I don't understand how can you forget the person who cooked for you the year before. It must be the "privilege" of hiring people and never needing to commit to them your memory. I'm glad that book ended the way it did, but also I felt like it was bit rushed. This is a good book to read by the water and start looking into people's faces little bit more intently

There's something captivating about stories featuring Grifters and their exceptional observation skills. It's like watching a behavioral scientist use their knowledge for greed and evil. One of my all-time favorite movies is The Grifters, and I loved how Sabine Durrant quoted Jim Thompson in her novel Sun Damage. Remember, The Grifters is a story about a trio of conmen and -women that reaches the deepest level of toxicity, foreshadowing the direction of this novel set in the South of France.

The book starts with one excellent chapter where we get to watch the set-up of the hustle through the protagonist, Ali's eyes, as she zeroes in on a distracted English girl, Lulu, alone in a hotel in the south of France. Before you know it, Ali and her partner Sean had their whole day of eating, sunning, and drinking, paid for by the unsuspecting girl. That would have been enough for Ali, but Sean keeps the scam going, and before they know it, they are on a boat with Lulu, and after a fight, the girl ends up dead.

So begins this captivating novel, and then Sabine Durant veers into an unexpected side road; in a panic, after Lulu's death, Ali decides to take the summer job the girl was heading to, cooking for a well-to-do London family in a pastoral villa in the Provence. This part of the novel is just a joy and encapsulates the summer vacation spent by an English family in France perfectly. They are not snobs, but out of their depths, they don't really understand their surroundings and don't even notice that the girl cooking for them is not precisely a master chef, apart from Rob, a visiting writer.

The novel is brimming with simmering tension that remains under boiling point for a long time while filling the room with the wonderful aromas of the French countryside. Of course, we all know this is an unsustainable situation, but when the tables turn, you will not see it coming. Sun Damage is the perfect book to read on a cold, rainy day.

“I think often about Sean’s definition of the perfect hustle: working out what a person wants and fulfilling that desire. The funny thing is that’s also what you do when you care for someone. Love, the greatest con of all.”

Sun Damage by Sabine Durrant

What a fun book! The description on the back of the book is vague but that’s for the best- it was a fun ride to go into this book blind.

I loved the setting in the South of France, it was fun to read a book that was set somewhere different than what I read all of the time 🇫🇷

Thank you #NetGalley and @harperperennial for the digital copy!

This book is “a compulsive psychological thriller…involving gorgeous grifters on the loose in the south of France who prey on a group of unsuspecting vacationers . . . and each other.” I was so intrigued by the conman/woman angle and couldn’t wait to dive in. The pacing is uneven and you have to suspend your disbelief quite a bit, but still a fun ride. 3.5 stars.

This psychological mystery set in France, opens on two grifters (Sean and narrator Ali) sizing up their next target, who looks very like Ali.

When Sean kills their target, Ali wants to call the police but fears that Sean will set her up as the guilty party. She flees to a holiday home in the small Provence village where their victim had contracted to work as a chef.

Ali is terrified that Sean will find her, and so he does - which is when the author makes a final, and very satisfying, twist to her mystery.

I was really interested at the beginning when Ali was doing her grifting thing with Sean. I love reading about scammers working their scams! This part of the book was so interesting, where the reader can't quite tell who they're supposed to be rooting for or what's going on. I loved the summertime seaside French setting!

Things got slow once Ali took over Lulu's life, though. The middle 50% was her working at some villa with a rich family, and nothing happened for a really long time besides petty family drama. Then the ending felt very abrupt--the outstanding issues were resolved, but everything was magically wrapped up effortlessly when things had all been a big mess for Ali.

Overall, it was a good beachside summer popcorn book, but I wasn't quite satisfied with the ending.

First published in the UK in 2022; published by Harper Paperbacks on August 1, 2023

A moderately interesting protagonist in Sun Damage never quite overcomes the mediocrity of the plot. The novel sets up a promising thriller but falls short of delivering the promised thrills.

The story is narrated by a young woman named Ali. She has been grifting in a partnership with Sean Wheeler. They had a perfunctory sexual encounter but Sean has those with many women. He’s protective of her and is skilled at the art of the con. Ali stays with him because she wants to learn his tricks and craves his approval.

Before the story starts, Ali and Sean ran cons in Marrakesh and India. Now they’re in France, where they befriend Lulu Davies. Sean introduces Ali as his sister. Lulu is enjoying the Sainte-Cécile beaches before she begins a gig as a private chef for a family that has rented a house in Provence. Lulu has money and is rather improbably taking the chef gig to have something to do, although the house has a pool and the work is far from demanding. She prepared meals for a different family in the same house the year before.

After scamming a meal at Lulu’s expense, Sean decides to make a bigger score. He steals a speedboat so that he and Ali can spend a fun afternoon with Lulu. Sean casually mentions a plan to rent a boat for a trip to Corsica. Lulu wants to join them but Sean vetoes the idea because the boat he is renting would be too small. Lulu naturally offers to contribute to the cost of a bigger boat, opening the door for Sean to steal her money.

Before Sean can implement his scheme, Lulu tumbles to the fact that Ali is not his sister. They scuffle and Lulu hits her head but isn’t quite dead. To Ali’s dismay, Sean suffocates her to prevent her from ratting them out to the police. He tells Ali to go back to their hotel while he finds a good spot to throw her body overboard.

Ali grabs Lulu’s purse and returns to the hotel. Coincidentally, Ali has stolen their stash of cash from under Sean's nose. How she thought she would get away with the theft is unclear, but her indiscretion turns out to be prophetic. Horrified to discover that Sean is a killer, she takes the money and runs.

Since Ali has a strong resemblance to Lulu, she assumes Lulu’s identity. Knowing that Sean will come looking for her, she takes a bus to Provence and presents herself as Lulu the chef. With that setup, the anticipated thrills relate to Ali’s efforts to evade Sean and stay alive.

That Ali looks like Lulu is one coincidence too many. That Ali can pass herself off as a chef by buying and disguising TV dinners is hard to swallow. In any event, Ali spends a week hiding out with the family, learning about their mundane family drama (one of the kids fears she’s pregnant) and meeting their tedious guests.

The home renters work in the publishing industry and have invited an author to stay with them. Naturally, Ali instantly falls for the author, contributing predictable scenes that would be at home in a cheesy romance novel.

It is inevitable that Sean will eventually appear. Durrant does too little to create believable tension before that moment arrives. Most of the story consists of Ali fretting about her problems, some of which stem from a difficult childhood — the kind of childhood that is common to thriller protagonists who have followed a scofflaw's path.

While Ali is a passably interesting character, the supporting cast is assembled from stereotypes. The novel’s atmosphere focuses on tourist destinations. Location details read like they were gleaned from travel websites.

The plot benefits from a careful structure but the final act is underwhelming. Ali cleverly resolves her Sean problem with surprising ease. Will she be able to keep the author as her lover? I won’t tell but I really don’t need to. Most readers will predict the ending.

Sun Damage held my interest and generated occasional moments of mild dramatic tension. Those moments encouraged me to hope the plot might lead to a strong ending, but the novel is ultimately less than the sum of its parts.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

Unfortunately this book just wasn't for me. I hate giving a bad review because I had to "put it down." A much nicer way of saying I had to DNF it. I have enjoyed other books by Sabine Durrant but this just didn't work for me.

A great summer suspense novel! Ali and Sean are a con team. On holiday in France, the two set up a con on a young woman also on holiday. When the woman winds up "accidentally" dead, Ali has to make a choice. Should she continue with this scheme, or should she run away to seek a better path for herself? It doesn't help that she looks just like the young woman who died. If you enjoy non-graphic thrillers or suspense, this one is for you!

Really enjoyed this story of a professional con woman who takes on the life of one of her cons...a chef! But her past is catching up to her. Quick and enjoyable read.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for this Advanced Readers Copy of Sun Damage by Sabine Durrant!

please don’t think this is a happy go lucky fun summer story because of the cute jeep in the sun on the front. It’s anything bad. But it was also everything I loved. This book is amazing!!!

I loved this book - fast paced, complicated characters you didn't know if you should love or hate, and interesting plot. A great recommendation for a summer read!