I loved this book, it had me hooked from page one. Alice Fenney's writing is so brilliant, a auto buy author for me.

I have loved all of Alice Feeney's books so couldn't wait to read this new one. It's slightly different from her others- no marital strife or gaslighting, but the mystery and intrigue is there from the first page. It's told from various female pov andeach one has a little picture which reminds you who is who.
It's a really gripping tense mystery with mysteries within and will keep you guessing until near the end when everything starts to slot into place. Then your mind will be blown!
What a fantastic read!

Alice Feeney is one of my favourite authors and having loved her last novel 'Daisy Darker', I was excited to read 'Good bad girl.'

Feeney has a unique writing style and I love the way she makes the reader feel involved in the narrative, peppering the prose with little thoughts to ponder on. I also love the little illustrations at the beginning of chapters. The theme of ladybirds (ladybugs) including an explanation of their symbolism worked well and was a clever way to link the characters, as was the paper cut art.

In this novel, I think her writing really shone through the character, Edith. The dialogue and mannerisms of Edith were particularly authentic and she made a great anchor for the book. However, although I could see what the author was trying to achive, I felt there were too many characters telling the story. This became especially confusing when one character was known by three diffent names.

There was one reveal which made me gasp, but by the end I felt I had already had enough clues to deduce the final reveal. So while the premise was good and the book was well written, I felt it didn't have the impact of her previous work.

I would happily recommend this read . Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the advance copy.

I am afraid this one was just average for me. Did not make me want to keeping reading longer to find out what was coming next as it definitely got repetitive. Perhaps too predictable. Just something missing.. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the chance to review it. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for chance to review it.

Without a shadow of doubt, this is the BEST BOOK I'VE READ THIS YEAR. OMG! OMG! OMG!. I can't stress how much I loved this book. All the characters are amazing, I especially fell in love with sweet Edith, a remarkable, tenacious, funny woman. I have never known a book to have so many twists and turns. I read it one sitting, because it was so hard to put down. It's gripping from beginning to end. I had a massive lump in my throat at the end, it's heart breaking and at the same time, it's a deliciously dark psychological thriller. I will never forget this book and I can't express how good it really is. I really hope it's picked up by a TV network, because trust me it will be a big hit. LOVED IT, LOVED IT, LOVED IT.

I am usually a huge fan of Alice Feeney, but unfortunately for me this wasn't a favourite. I enjoyed the fast paced-ness of the book and the short chapters, however I found the plot pretty predictable except for one twist at the end. It was a quick and easy read.

Three suspects, Two murders, One victim!

I could simply say that I read this book in the space of 24 hours, and I think that would say enough about my thoughts on this book! I was addicted and could not get enough.

This is one of the few books that has truly kept me guessing the whole way through, not quite being able to ‘figure it out’. I felt like I was racing against myself and time to solve the mysteries… and I loved it!

We have multiple points of view, which for me really made this book as we initially follow the story of Edith, Clio, Patience. As time goes on, more people start to come out of the woodwork. With the mystery of a missing baby and a murder in the care home where Edith lives to be solved, this book twists and turns like no other while everyone scrambles to find out the truth.

Alongside the mysteries, there is also a deeper exploration between the characters and their relationships, particularly mothers and their daughters which I felt gave some depth to the book.

The only thing about this book that I didn’t overly enjoy were the amount of ‘near misses’ throughout. Where characters just missed finding the person they were looking for by a mere second. It started to frustrate me 😂 but perhaps that was the intention!

Overall a truly great read. Fast paced, clever and addictive! Highly recommend!

*Thanks to @netgalley for giving me this advanced e-arc in exchange for a balanced review

Alice Feeney always delivers and this is no exception. A superbly plotted and intricately woven psychological suspense which follows the lives of four women.

Chapters written from the point of view of Frankie, Clio, Patience and Edith.

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"Sometimes bad things happen to good people, so good people have to do bad things....."

Twenty years after a baby is stolen from her push-chair, a woman is murdered in a care home. The two crimes are somehow linked, and a good bad girl may be the key to discovering the truth.

Edith may have been tricked into a nursing home, but at eighty-years-young, she's planning her escape. Patience works there, cleaning up mess and bonding with Edith, a kindred spirit. But Patience is lying to Edith about almost everything!


Edith's daughter, Clio, won't speak to her. And someone new is about to knock on Clio's door!

With every reason to distrust each other, the women must solve a mystery with three suspects, two murders, and one victim. If they do, they might just find out what happened to the baby who disappeared, the mother who lost her, and the connections that bind them.

******************************************

Not only is this full of secrets, lies and murder, it is quite emotional and clearly written from the heart. Different to any other book Alice Feeney has written but totally brilliant.

Absolutely loved it!

3⭐️

Having loved the last two books I was excited to read the latest release.
The premise of the story is a mystery to be solved with three suspects, two murders and one victim.

There are several characters and time frames we have to wait to see how things unfold to find the connections.

Bullet points for Good Bad Girl
📕it’s a murder mystery with amateur sleuths
📕 Mother’s day is relevant
📕there are pictures for each character under their names.

There are pictures they have a relevance to each of the characters, but I don’t think that they added anything to the storyline. Felt like jumping on the hidden pictures bandwagon.

Twenty years ago a woman’s baby is stolen from a stroller never being found.
Frankie is a prison librarian,
Patience works at a nursing home and is friendly with resident Edith ( retired store detective) who feels she has been tricked into living there. Edith’s daughter Clio has a difficult relationship with her mother. It’s a character driven story, but I found it too slow, and I didn’t manage to engage with the characters. They all have secrets, there are some great revelations in the later part of the book. However for me the majority of the book really struggled to keep my interest.
On reflection this one was a miss for me.
If you’re up for a slow burn the end is good.

Good Bad Girl marks the return of the Queen of the Twist in an emotional and suspense-laden psychological thriller. Plunged straight in at the deep end right from the off, we are introduced to an unnamed mother who, twenty years ago, while out supermarket shopping became distracted for a split second only to discover her stroller to be empty when she turned back around. Her six-month daughter now vanished she panics and subsequently becomes wracked with guilt believing herself to have only lost her infant due to her own ambivalence at motherhood and all its foibles. Next, we meet Frankie, fresh out of her job as head librarian at a women's prison; a job she felt kept her sane, but needs must. Her reason for resigning is to allow her the time to search for her teenage daughter, Patience, who ran away from home over a year ago. 18-year-old Patience now lives in a cramped room above an art gallery in London and is employed as an attendant in a care facility for the elderly. There she has an unbreakable, unusually strong bond with 80-year-old resident Edith, an ex-store detective who had been tricked into signing away her home by her estranged daughter, Clio, landing her in the facility for the rest of her days.

Patience will do anything to protect Edith, but Clio despises how close they seem to be. There are a lot of lies and deceit flying around between these four women with many lying to themselves as well as other people. Then when a resident of the care home dies suspiciously, therapist Clio sets out to find who the murderer is. But that won't be all she unravels. This is a compelling and deeply twisty psychological thriller with bags of mystery at its centre and a multitude of dark secrets ready to explode. Our four main characters, who take it in turns to narrate, are somehow connected to one another from generations ago and a plethora of shady happenings, and the shocking twists and turns the narrative takes to reconcile these women leaves your mouth agape. Secrets, lies, drama, selfishness, the story grips you tightly from the very first propulsive page with everything linking back quite neatly to the initial abduction. A meditation on the often strained and unique relationship between a mother and daughter, Feeney imbues the text with heartfelt emotion as well as betrayal and grief. Well written, fast-paced and terribly addictive, nothing and no one is quite what they appear to be in this richly layered tale of familial secrets and lies.

Good Bad Girl by Alice Feeney was fast paced and fun. As always the author keeps you wanting to turn the pages. I love these type of thrillers the best even if it means you’re left near frustration at the end of each chapter because you still haven’t come any closer to the answer.

Although I had a good time with it, I wasn’t as on edge as I was reading Rock Paper Scissors or blown away by any of the revelations. Unfortunately, although told well, the whole story is rather forgettable. 3.5

"sometimes bad things happen to good people, and so good people have to do bad things."

I picked this up through Netgalley, with thanks to Alice Feeney and Pan Macmillan for gifting me this e-ARC

twenty years ago, on mothers day, a baby is stolen in broad daylight from a supermarket. twenty years later, a woman is murdered in a retirement home. how are these linked, who did it, and what makes a 'good girl' bad?

rating: ⭐⭐⭐

my thoughts: after picking up the indie signed exclusive version of Daisy Darker (which is still sat on my shelf unread woops), and after seeing this on netgalley, i had to request this.

lets start off with maybe reading this on an afternoon/evening flight was one of the worst ideas ive ever had, because for the first 25% of the book i was so bloody confused as to who was who originally, and could only distinguish edith from the other characters. but this slowly started clearing up the more i was reading and the deeper i got into the book.

i was expecting more of a thriller-esque book, especially since thats what i've heard alice feeney does amazingly well, but it felt more domestic and familial drama than thriller. yes there is a death (or two!) in the book, but the focus isn't really on who did it, but more on how the characters are connected, past and present.

the multiple different pov's did get extremely confusing, but again the latter part of the book was extremely enjoyable - even if part of the ending was a bit far fetched, and a bit too happily-ever-after for my liking. as someone in a semi-strained mother-daughter relationship, exploring these challenges throughout the book and the intricacies of how the past alters your interactions.

i feel like with a physical copy it may be easier to understand and place who is who, but i did love patience and edith's friendship together, and i wish we got more time with them.

Sometimes bad things happen to good people, so good people have to do bad things.
Four women’s lives intersect when a care home manager is murdered and a resident goes missing.
Are the events linked to a baby disappearing from a supermarket 20 years ago.
A slow burning domestic drama, but pay close attention to all the details as there are lots of red herrings to keep you on your toes, however they’ll soon start to weave into a web of betrayal as you get further into the book.
I found the chapters a bit short and think this was why I wasn’t feeling the emotional attachment to the characters.
Still a very raw emotional book as you’re exploring the bond between mothers and daughters.
Thanks @alicewriterland, @panmacmillan & @netgalley for the eARC

A baby is stolen from her stroller; Frankie’s daughter has disappeared; Edith’s daughter, Clio, has put her in a home; Patience is searching for her identity. The first of these events happened on a certain Mother’s Day and the other’s are converging on a different Mother’s Day, but initially it isn’t clear what time interval separates these two. The connection between the kidnapping and the rest is also initially unclear. Frankie, a prison librarian, is an unmarried mother whose daughter, Nellie, recently marched away from their home on her eighteenth birthday – whereabouts unknown. Frankie is fixated, for reasons unknown, on Clio. Edith is eighty, compos mentis, but locked away in a dodgy Old Folks Home because, she believes, her daughter is after her assets. She has always disliked her daughter, a psychotherapist, and the feeling is mutual. Patience is around twenty, unqualified to do anything so is working as a cleaner come carer in the Home. She has formed a strong bond with Edith and is planning to help her escape. Four woman drawn into a whirlpool, spinning closer and closer to a collision which will expose secrets and lies which could wreck all of their lives. And let’s not forget the baby!
This is a domestic thriller, with some resonance to the author’s earlier works but with an entirely different dynamic. It takes about half the book before the underlying events driving the whirlpool start to form a pattern, at which point the picture the reader is building gets wrecked by an unforeseen twist. And then, as that starts to integrate back into coherence, another surprise connection appears, and then some more . . . It is an intellectual challenge to keep reassembling the pieces and the final surprise is, I think, impossible to spot coming but is so right when it appears. In many ways this is quite an unsettling tale, but the writing is so fluid that there is never any feeling of disquiet.
I would like to thank NetGalley, the publishers and the author for providing me with a draft proof copy for the purpose of this review.

Full of twists and turns, secrets and past deeds.
A little confusing initially until you become more familiar with the various characters and then you just want to keep reading.
I had some suspicions but some reveals came out of the blue.
A good read

I always look forward to a new book by this author. The first chapter is quite confusing in retrospect - and definitely misleading and what follows in the rest of the book eventually unravels it all.
The story is told from four perspectives - Frankie, Patience, Edith and Clio. and it is not always easy to follow the relationships - no doubt, deliberate.
I did enjoy this book, perhaps not quite as much as her others. Alice Feeney has set herself a very high bar.
Three and a half stars for me.
Many thanks to Netgalley/Alice Feeney/Pan Macmillan for a digital copy of this title. All opinions expressed are my own.

My 6th Alice Feeney book and not once has she ever missed for me. Fans will be thrilled to know that she continues her winning streak with her latest gem.

Talk about a gripping opening chapter!! 😳 Although I was confused by the multiple POVs and how everything was connected at first, the beautiful writing kept me going. I have pages and pages worth of highlights on my Kindle because the prose is just something else. There are writers, and then there are storytellers and wordsmiths. Alice Feeney is all 3.

She also explores difficult topics such as postpartum depression and moral greyness with such flair and shrewdness. One of my favourite parts of this book is the way she highlighted mother-daughter relationships and all of its complexities.

The story and plot unfolded so beautifully and seamlessly, while the characters were well-written. I flew through the last 2/3 of the novel in one sitting and was left not just deeply moved, but even found myself tearing up in public!

I'm seriously impressed by how the author has taken a common thriller trope of missing children and spun it into something so original, captivating and outstanding. I'm not sure how I ever had doubts about Good Bad Girl because it truly is fantastic.

WOW! Another superb rollercoaster of a ride from the brilliant Alice Feeney.
This book hooked me from the start and didn’t let go until the final page.
Two different crimes that are connected with a twisting turning storyline. A must read!
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in return for an honest review.

In the past, we watch as a baby is stolen from a pushchair whilst the mother is chatting. Back in the present we witness a murder in a care home. The two crimes are 20 years apart but they are linked. Quite how we have yet to discover.
Back at the care home we meet Edith, an inmate, reluctant, tricked into her circumstances by her family, specifically her daughter Clio. We also meet Patience, a young girl working in the care home, who bonds with Edith. And then there's Frankie who works in a prison library and who has her own issues to contend with as her daughter has run away from home.
It's actually quite hard to say anything else about this book without giving away potential spoilers. It's all a bit interconnected and convoluted once you start to examine what is going on. Especially when you factor in Patience's full circumstances and quite how Clio fits into it all... So I am going to leave it to you to discover all this for yourself as the author intends. It will deliver the right shocks and surprises at the right time for maximum impact.
It's a relatively slow burn of a book but one which builds up the layers of intrigue slowly but surely before, once that has been done, starting to peel back the layers one after another until the whole truth is finally laid bare. Delivering twist after turn after shock all the way to a wholly satisfying end.
All in all, a cracking addition to an already well impressive back catalogue... Roll on next time. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

I was drawn to the striking cover design and intrigued by the book's description.

I really liked the dark tone of this book, and was drawn into it from the very beginning. I was very interested in the characters, even if I didn't relate to all of them or find all of them likeable. I think the character that I identified with the most was probably Frankie. Having said that, I was able to empathise with most of the characters in one way or another. Once I started turning the pages, it was hard to stop, and I finished this within a couple of hours.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for a free copy to review.