Jennifer Vido: What inspired your new release, SUN DAMAGE?
Sabine: Durrant: I came up with the idea during the pandemic and I guess it was sub-conscious wish-fulfilment. I was due to go on family holiday in the South of France, but I had to cancel it and, as I sat in south London, the villa we’d booked took up residence in my head. Sun Damage is about a grifter who takes on someone else’s life, and I guess my main character was in many ways taking mine.
Jen: Who are Ali and Sean, and why are they in the South of France?
Sabine: Ali and Sean are con artists. Ali, a damaged woman in her early twenties, had been living the life of a petty criminal until she met Sean, an older man, with more sophisticated tastes and skills. He taught her everything he knows and, having cut a swathe through India and Morocco, they moved on to Europe in search of new marks to work on, fresh scams to pull. The South of France, playground of the wealthy and the bored, has so far provided rich pickings.
Jen: How does Lulu fit in?
Sabine: Lulu looks like Ali but is socially her opposite. A young woman of privilege – posh school, good family, lots of connections – who uses her Cordon Bleu training to work as a private chef. In the winter, she caters ski chalets, in the summer, upmarket villas. She is in Saint Cécile sur Mer for a few days holiday on her way to work for the Ottys and their guests at the Domaine du Colombier when Sean approaches her in a bar. Haven’t they met before…? It is an encounter that is to prove disastrous for Lulu but a catalyst for Sean’s partner Ali. Can she escape the clutches of Sean and create a new identity for herself? This time for real…
Jen: What do you hope readers take away from this story?
Sabine: I’ve always loved anything and everything about con artists – from David Mamet’s House of Cards, though the Ocean’s 11 franchise, to Hustle, the long-running BBC drama about a team of London grifters. I hope my readers will be equally fascinated by Sun Damage. The grifter provides such a brilliant opportunity to play with sympathy and morality – by their very nature, they’re criminals with a narrative built in. You want to watch the ‘plot’ to play out, you will it to work, even while knowing you shouldn’t. I hope my readers love Ali despite seeing her faults; I hope they come to understand how she has become the person she is, and to wish better things for her.
Jen: What’s your current work in progress?
Sabine: I’m working on a novel set in the Mani, which is the middle finger of the Peloponnese in Greece, the southernmost point in mainland Europe. It is about a disappointed man, about the corrosive effects of long-term professional rivalry and the dangers of unrequited sexual obsession. I’m halfway through and really enjoying writing it.
Jen: For readers unfamiliar with your previous releases, which title would you recommend to take along on a summer getaway?
Sabine: All of them! Take them all! And if not, Lie with Me, which is set on a Greek island and is suffused with heat and sunshine and Greek salad and Retsina – it’s about a missing girl and a rich widow and a man who wouldn’t mind slipping into her life. Another kind of con artist, I suppose, though he would never think of it like that.
Jen: What’s on your summer reading list?
Sabine: I’ve had a brilliant reading run recently. Each one a winner.
Top of my list The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue; My Phantoms by Gwendolyn Riley; Windmill Hill by Lucy Atkins and The Family Remains by Lisa Jewell. I’ve just started Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin and loving it so far.
Jen: What’s the best way for readers to stay connected with you?
Sabine: I’m on twitter and Instagram. Message me!
Jen: Thank you for stopping by to chat about your thrilling new release. Happy summer!
Sabine: Thank you for inviting me and for asking such brilliant questions.
Reminiscent of the works of Patricia Highsmith and Lucy Foley, a compulsive psychological thriller—“the perfect poolside reading” (Guardian)—involving gorgeous grifters on the loose in the south of France who prey on a group of unsuspecting vacationers . . . and each other.
The heat is intense. The secrets are stifling. And there is no escape.
In a tiny village in Provence, nine guests arrive at a luxury holiday home.
The visitors know each other well, or at least they think they do.
The only stranger among them is Lulu, the young woman catering their stay. But Lulu is not exactly the woman on the video the guests thought they’d hired. Turns out Lulu has plenty to hide—and nowhere to run as the heat rises.
In this seemingly idyllic getaway, under the scorching sun, loyalties will be tested, secrets exposed, and tensions pushed to the brink . . .
Dripping in intrigue, Sun Damage is a glamorous, witty, and totally riveting story chock full of secrets, lies and . . . more lies.
Thriller Psychological | Mystery [Harper Paperbacks, On Sale: August 1, 2023, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9780063277687 / eISBN: 9780063277694]
Sabine Durrant is a journalist and the author of the best-selling HAVING IT AND EATING IT and the CONNIE PICKLES series of children’s books. Her first psychological suspense novel, UNDER YOUR SKIN, was published by Hodder in the UK and Simon & Schuster in the US in 2014. Her second, REMEMBER ME THIS WAY, was also published by Hodder in the UK and Simon & Schuster in the US in 2015. Both novels have been translated into more than 12 languages. Her third novel, LIE WITH ME, a Richard & Judy pick and Sunday Times bestseller, was published in July 2016. TAKE ME IN was published by Mulholland Books in June 2018. FINDERS, KEEPERS was published by Hodder & Stoughton in July 2020.
Her latest novel, SUN DAMAGE, was published by Hodder & Stoughton in the UK in June 2022.
Jennifer Vido writes sweet romances set in the Lowcountry filled with southern charm and hospitality. In between chapters, she interviews authors for her bi-weekly Jen’s Jewels column on FreshFiction.com. Most mornings, she teaches an arthritis-friendly water exercise class for seniors before heading to the office to serve as the executive director of a legal non-profit. A New Jersey native, she currently lives in Maryland with her husband and two rescue dogs and is the proud parent of two sons who miss her home-cooked meals. To learn more, please visit her website.
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