The Lioness by Chris Bohjalian

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🦁 THE LIONESS: Glamour, Guns, and a Safari from Hell (⭐️⭐️⭐️)

A luxury African safari.
A newlywed Hollywood actress.
A hand-picked group of famous friends.

And — because this is a novel and not a brochure — multiple violent deaths, betrayals, and at least one extremely unfortunate leopard encounter.

Chris Bohjalian’s THE LIONESS is an ambitious, blood-soaked historical thriller that looks like it should emotionally destroy me. Instead, I found myself admiring it from a distance… like a very well-written nature documentary where I somehow forgot to bond with the animals.

⚠️ Trigger Warnings (Seriously, Read This First)

This book includes:

  • Graphic violence & death

  • Kidnapping

  • Animal attacks & animal death

  • Pregnancy loss

  • Child abuse & physical abuse

  • Racism & colonialist themes

  • Sexual content

  • Substance abuse & addiction

  • Mental illness

  • Suicide

This is not a cozy safari.

🗺️ The Setup (Very Brief, I Promise)

THE LIONESS is set in 1964 and follows Katie Barstow, a famous Hollywood actress honeymooning in Africa with her brand-new husband, David Hill. Instead of, you know, relaxing, Katie invites a small entourage of friends and industry people along for a luxury safari.

Because what could possibly go wrong when you mix fame, money, unresolved trauma, and geopolitics in the African wilderness?

Answer: everything.

🚨 FULL SPOILER PLOT SUMMARY (THIS IS A SPOILER BLOG — LET’S GO)

🏕️ The Safari Begins

Katie’s safari group includes:

  • Billy, her older brother, deeply traumatized from severe childhood abuse

  • Margie, Billy’s pregnant wife

  • Carmen, a fellow actress with ambition to spare

  • Felix, Carmen’s insecure husband who already hates this trip

  • Reggie, Katie’s publicist and WWII veteran

  • Peter, Katie’s agent and consummate opportunist

They’re guided by Juma and Muema, experienced African guides, and led by Charlie Patton, described as one of the last “great white hunters” — which is… a phrase.

The early chapters luxuriate in lush safari imagery, animals, landscapes, and gossip-magazine-style teasers that hint — very unsubtly — that these people are absolutely doomed.

🔫 The Attack

Four days in, armed white men storm the camp.

  • Juma is shot and killed almost immediately

  • The group is split into three vehicles

  • Chaos erupts, and any illusion of safety evaporates

Peter, attempting to grab a gun like the genre demands, is instead killed by a leopard, which is honestly one of the most memorable deaths in the book and also deeply unfair.

🚙 Three Vehicles, Three Disasters

Vehicle One: Katie, David, Billy, Margie, and Terrance

They’re taken to abandoned Maasai huts, tied up, and psychologically tormented.

  • Margie miscarries and later dies

  • David is singled out for special interest by the Russian kidnappers

  • Billy’s childhood abuse resurfaces as he’s restrained, mirroring his mother’s cruelty

Vehicle Two: Carmen, Felix, and Reggie

This group attempts resistance.

  • The vehicle crashes

  • Felix is shot and killed

  • Reggie later dies after being mauled by hyenas, which feels both excessive and very on-theme

Carmen survives by sheer force of will and possibly main-character energy.

Vehicle Three: The Safari Staff

This is the bleakest storyline.

  • The African guides and porters are treated as expendable

  • Benjamin, a chief porter, is killed defending his friend

  • This section sharply exposes the novel’s themes of colonialism and disposability

🔍 The Big Reveal (AKA: The Emotional Pivot)

Here’s the twist that should have wrecked me:

  • David helped plan the kidnapping

  • He was being blackmailed by the Russians

  • His art gallery was failing

  • He wanted a cut of the ransom

  • Oh, and he cheated on Katie

David is shot and killed, and the mastermind Viktor Procenko reveals everything.

Katie, finally done with men and their nonsense, kills Viktor.

Honestly? Fair.

📖 Epilogue (2022)

  • Carmen goes on to have a long, successful acting career

  • Billy writes a bestselling memoir about his childhood abuse

  • Katie becomes a recluse, emotionally shattered by betrayal and survivor’s guilt

Carmen reflects on survival — why she lived, why others didn’t — and compares herself to a lioness, which ties neatly back to the title and the book’s fixation on predators, both human and animal.

🤔 Why This Didn’t Fully Work for Me

Here’s my issue — and I’ve noticed this with THE PRINCESS OF LAS VEGAS too.

Bohjalian is a very strong writer. The scenes are vivid. The violence is brutal. The tension is real. The structure — gossip-magazine snippets followed by tragedy — is clever.

But by the end, I felt… detached.

I kept asking myself:

If this is “just” a fictional kidnapping, why should I care so deeply?

There wasn’t enough humor, no truly shocking twist I didn’t see coming, and no overwhelming sense of how on earth did someone dream this up? — which are usually the three things that make a fictional book really stick for me.

Instead, I admired it. From afar. Like a beautifully staged disaster.

🦁 Final Thoughts

THE LIONESS is:

✔️ Visually immersive
✔️ Well-written
✔️ Brutal and unflinching
✔️ Structurally interesting

But emotionally? It never fully grabbed me.

That said, I’m not writing off Chris Bohjalian. He’s clearly talented, and he has a deep backlist. I’m still holding out hope that one of his books will hit that fantastic story sweet spot for me.

Final Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (3/5)

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