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Book Author(s): Chris Bohjalian

The Lioness

The Lioness book cover

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From Goodreads:

Tanzania, 1964. When Katie Barstow, A-list actress, and her new husband, David Hill, decide to bring their Hollywood friends to the Serengeti for their honeymoon, they envision giraffes gently eating leaves from the tall acacia trees, great swarms of wildebeests crossing the Mara River, and herds of zebra storming the sandy plains. Their glamorous guests—including Katie’s best friend, Carmen Tedesco, and Terrance Dutton, the celebrated Black actor who stars alongside Katie in the highly controversial film “Tender Madness”—will spend their days taking photos, and their evenings drinking chilled gin and tonics back at camp, as the local Tanzanian guides warm water for their baths. The wealthy Americans expect civilized adventure: Fresh ice from the kerosene-powered ice maker, dinners of cooked gazelle meat, and plenty of stories to tell over lunch back on Rodeo Drive.

What Katie and her glittering entourage do not expect is this: A kidnapping gone wrong, their guides bleeding out in the dirt, and a team of Russian mercenaries herding them into Land Rovers, guns to their heads. As the powerful sun gives way to night, the gunmen shove them into abandoned huts and Katie Barstow, Hollywood royalty, prays for a simple thing: To see the sun rise one more time. A blistering story of fame, race, love, and death set in a world on the cusp of great change.

Rapid Rating: High.

Profanity includes 32 uses of strong language, around 30 instances of moderate profanity, almost 100 uses of mild language, and around 80 instances of the name of Deity in vain. References to sex. Violence includes a bloody/gory shooting death, more shootings and injuries, a reference to a suicide, an armed kidnapping.

About Rapid Ratings

The Rapid Rating option allows Rated Reads to rate more books for content. A quick search of an e-book can show all instances of profanity and at least some of any sexual content or violence. Likely, most Rapid Ratings will be of books rated High.

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