Beautiful Ugly

This book was so different to anything I’ve read before. It really felt reminiscent of a folk tale or something from a film. Grady is an author who is struggling. Struggling to write another book and struggling with the disappearance of his beloved wife Abby.
Grady starts to lose his way in his grief and times become desperate, unable to write he can no longer afford his house, he is desolate & living in a run down flat until his editor Kitty throws him a lifeline. She was left a cabin on a remote Scottish island - and she is offering Grady the chance to go & stay in this cabin in the hope he can overcome his writer’s block & write another best seller.
So Grady packs his things into his car with his dog Columbo & heads off to the Isle Of Amberley.
From the unusual map, the micro climate, the strange community & the lack of birds on the Island, Grady feels a little unsettled at first - not least of all when he starts to see his missing wife wherever he goes.
I honestly don’t know what to say about this book - the characters, the plot, the twists…it’s SO good & SO clever! I really loved it.

I have to say this is not the best book that I have read. I personally found the story difficult to get into and follow. The characters didn’t draw me in and I did not manage to finish the book

This was a book I found that i didnt really know what was going on and what was going to happen next.

It’s a wild and captivating setting on a remote Scottish island and you never know who to trust and the events that unfolded had me second guessing as to what was really going on.

I loved the premise of a missing wife and an author finding solitude to write his new novel and the cast of characters added to the feeling of tension and unpredictability and i was hooked to find out how it was all going to play out.

I did think I knew at one point how the book would end but the twists and turns towards the end as the story unravelled left me breathing a bit too quickly.

I great isolated setting with characters and events you cant put your finger on and an ending I am still thinking about, even after a few days of finishing it.

Author Grady Green is waiting for his wife Abby to return home so they can celebrate his inclusion on the New York Times bestseller list together. But Abby calls him on the way home to say she's stopping the car and that there's a woman lying in the road. That's the last Grady will hear from his wife - he finds her abandoned car on the road with her mobile phone on the seat. A year later Grady is still grief stricken and, as he's been unable to write, his agent suggests he goes to stay in an old cabin on the remote island of Amberley, where another of her authors previously stayed.

Grady takes her up on the suggestion and moves to Amberley. Whilst there he often imagines that he sees his wife and sometimes feels he's rather losing his mind. There are twists and turns aplenty along with an ending that is a surprise. Sort of.

I admit that unlike most of the other people who've reviewed this I found it pretty tiresome - the plot does drive you to want to read to the end, but that's about the only positive thing I could say. I found Grady to be annoying, self-pitying, vacuous, self-absorbed and pretty one-dimensional (incidentally he's the second male character I've recently encountered in a psychological thriller who follows this self-pitying path). As the story became more convoluted it also became more far-fetched and by the time I got to the end I couldn't care less what happened to Grady, only that I wanted to finish the book and get it over with. Plus the ending is a complete copy of the ending of a fairly well-known Danish film I watched some years ago - only in the original film the ending is much more shocking and horrifying than here, partly because you cared about what happened to the character.

Oh my God! I couldn't put it down! What an amazing read that truly is a page-turner. Alice Feeney has done it again, delivering a knockout story. I shrieked with joy upon receiving this book, and it's clear why Alice Feeney is an automatic purchase for me. This book reaffirms that reason.

Author Grady Green calls his wife on her way home, to share some exciting news. But during the call he hears his wife slam on the brakes and she leaves the vehicle. It is the last time he speaks with Abby, as she disappears into the night. A year later, Grady has been unable to write and is still consumed by grief. He is broke and living in a motel when he is offered the use of a cabin on the Scottish island of Amberley. Grady loves solitude and needs a change, so he jumps at the chance. But once on the island strange things occur and it feels like he is seeing his wife everywhere.

This one was twisted and spooky, with the deserted island setting of just 25 residents and ghosts appearing everywhere. I did not deliberately set out to read this in the spooky month of October but it was perfect timing. For anyone who has read this author previously, you know what to expect - the unexpected!
I honestly could not have guessed where this one was heading and it was another wild adventure.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Panmacmillan and the author for this gifted review copy. I am so thankful I was able to read it early.

This book is creepy, tense and gripping. I certainly did not see that twist at the end. All in a a good read.

Thanks to the author and NetGalley for gifting me this advance copy.

𝙼𝚊𝚛𝚛𝚒𝚊𝚐𝚎 𝚒𝚜 𝚖𝚊𝚍𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚊 𝚖𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚋𝚎𝚊𝚞𝚝𝚒𝚏𝚞𝚕 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚞𝚐𝚕𝚢 𝚖𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚜 𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚝𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘𝚐𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚘 𝚊 𝚜𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚊𝚙𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚢 𝚘𝚏 𝚖𝚎𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜, 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚘𝚏 𝚠𝚑𝚒𝚌𝚑 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚟𝚒𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚍 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚛𝚎𝚖𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚜𝚕𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚕𝚢 𝚍𝚒𝚏𝚏𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚕𝚢, 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚝𝚠𝚘 𝚙𝚎𝚘𝚙𝚕𝚎 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚊𝚖𝚎 𝚙𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚏𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝚘𝚙𝚙𝚘𝚜𝚒𝚝𝚎 𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚊 𝚛𝚘𝚘𝚖.

He is an author and she is working as an investigative journalist and finding good stories about bad people. They are married, childless, with a dog as Grady’s best friend. And on his best day of he’s life, his wife Abby disappears.
Written in dual POV and dual timelines, with so many stuff going on, this was definitely one of my favorite reads this year. At moments, it was so trippy that I needed to read a page or two again just to confirm I read all of it correctly. I absolutely loved the map at the beginning of the book, it was so fun to have the map of the little island and don’t trying to figure out where everything is. I highly recommend this book, and would recommend reading it without reading the blurb (if it’s possible for you cause of TWs).

Loved this book!! Grady Green is having a baby day. His wife want home for him when he was waiting for a call to let hi know if he was now a New York Times bestseller and he felt disappointed. But she phones ro say she's on her way home now but tells him she's stopping the car as there's someone lying in the road. She is never seen again. After a year his publisher offers him the use of a cabin to write his next book on a wee scottish island where he starts to think he sees his wife. Cuttings froths wife's columns as a journalist are starting to be left in the cabin for him but he has no idea what is going on. Another great twist of an ending

Being approved for the new Alice Feeney book I was absolutely delighted. I have loved this author's books since Sometimes i Lie.
Generally a good story which I enjoyed but there were a few, quite major negatives.
I haven't noticed anyone mention formatting issues but there were major issues with my copy. Broken sentences and random bits inserted made it challenging at times to read.
The other issue was the book was written with Americanisms and American spellings. Not every English language book should be written in American. British English is a language that is alive and well. The author is British after all.
I live on a Scottish island and the issues were unbelievable. Yes it's challenging sometimes but this stretched believability to the limit.
I am female but this idea of a female only island made me shudder.
Grady was clearly unlikeable but so was Abby which meant you couldn't really be totally OK with the ending and it all felt a bit disjointed.
Overall 2.5/5 stars

A year ago marked a turning point in author Grady Greens career, he made the New York Times bestsellers list. It was also the day he lost his wife, travelling home to celebrate with him she came across a body in the road, pulled over and vanished without trace.

Since then he's been on a downward spiral, he's lost everything and failure to produce the second novel in his contract has resulted in this publisher pulling the plug on him too. His agent offers him a lifeline - the loan of a cabin on the remote Scottish island of Amberly, a chance to get his head in order and start writing again.

Creepy and atmospheric the scene setting is impeccable, portraying the beauty and wilderness of the Amberly landscape, a scattering of locals and a definite sense that somethings not right. I thought I'd figured it out but it was never going to be that easy, the curve-balls, twists and red herrings, they kept on coming.

Perfectly put together with great characters, its clever, its intriguing and its a great read.

I literally couldn't put this book down and would find myself still reading it way after I'd planned to go off and do something else for a while. I just wanted to keep coming back to it and to find out what would happen next to the main character, author Grady Green.

The book starts with Green calling his wife on the phone, anxious for her to return home. He's about to find out if his latest novel has made him a New York Times bestseller, and he wants to mark the occasion with her there. However, she's in the car and isn't there when she'd said she would be, causing him some frustration.

When she calls to say there's someone lying in the road in front of her car, he begs her not to get out and investigate. But she does - and disappears.

We meet Grady again a year later, when he's still struggling with grief and also with writing any more novels. His agent tells him that his publisher wants their advance back - which he no longer has. He's under pressure to deliver another novel, so his agent suggests he move to a cabin in a remote Scottish island that was left to her by another of her novelists who has since passed away. This is where the book turns much more creepy.

The island is tiny, with only a handful of residents, and is the sort of place where everyone knows everyone else and everyone sticks to rituals that only they understand. It's baffling for Grady. His grief has led to insomnia and he already thought he saw his wife everywhere. This only increases once he gets on the island.

But is he just seeing things, or is she really there?

There's a very sinister and eerie feel to the book which I loved. Essentially Grady is trapped on an island he knows very little about with complete strangers. Every time he asks about the times for the ferry back to the mainland, he is fobbed off. There's a growing sense of claustrophobia and isolation.

His desperation to produce a novel leads him to take drastic measures, which only heighten his anxiety and stress. It's increasingly unclear as to whether he is seeing events as they really are or if he's delusional. Creepy interactions with his fellow villagers, who all seem to communicate secretly via walkie talkie, add to the mood. The ending, where he leaves a message for the reader, is spine-tingling.

The author does a great job of dropping in little pieces of information to make us more doubtful about what is going on in Grady's mind and about what really happened with his wife. We are told that she criticised him for drinking too much, for instance, and we discover that she was seeing a therapist shortly before she disappeared.

Did she consciously leave him or did something else happen? And is she really on the island - and if so, why?

It's a very engaging novel, and I would highly recommend it. Thanks to Netgalley for giving me access.

Loved this deeply disturbing psychological thriller from the very first page. This is my first Alice Feeney book but definitely won't be my last! A read-in one sitting book.

Beautifully written as always by Alice Feeney and with some fabulous twists and turns that just keep on coming, especially towards the end. Grady the writer was a great character creation and I found myself unsure whether to be scared for him or not when he faces the villagers on the Scottish island of Amberly. There was a very claustrophobic atmosphere throughout and I had in my mind the original film of The Wicker Man as it had that same sense of foreboding that unsettled me deeply!
A great new novel from my of my favourite authors.

Reviewing a book that isn’t released yet never gets old.

When I got approved to get an ARC of Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney, I was absolutely overjoyed. I have read every single book in Feeney’s backlist so this felt insane to receive !!!

Alice Feeney is known for her crazy plot twists. She is also known for pulling a crazy idea out in the last 50 pages which hasn’t ever been heard of so can be quite unrealistic? Despite this, I always give these books at least a 4⭐️ because of how intricate the plot tends to be.

This book follows Grady, a failing author trying to write another NYT best selling novel. In this time, his wife goes missing and they don’t know whether she wants to be missing, has been taken or is dead. In order to keep their house and his life afloat, a year after she goes missing, he moves to a remote cabin only accessible by boat and attempts to write another novel. As soon as he steps onto the Isle of Amberley, he feels like he’s being watched…

I won’t say any more about the plot to save ruining it, but this book kept me on my toes. At the beginning, every time I put it down I wanted to pick it up straight away, and for me, that’s a contender for a higher rating.

However there isn’t a 5⭐️ to be given here. I really thought it was going to be on track for one of Feeney’s best and for the first 60% of the book I agreed with that, however the last 40% of the book felt like the author just threw every possible option at the twist and continually threw in paranormal aspects so I didn’t know whether I was coming or going.

Grady was a very wishy washy main character who had no likeable traits and I did find it hard to root for Abby (the missing wife) when we knew nothing about her at all except for the fact that she is a journalist. I felt like a lot more of the story could’ve been built on, as by the last 30% of the book I didn’t actually care for what the outcome was going to be. Which is a shame!

I really do love plots that are set on remote islands, when executed well. This has the ability to be a brilliant read and don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it but it’s just not her best work. I’d give a 4⭐️ overall.

Alice Feeney shows us again why she is the Queen of the mystery genre. This one was my favorite of her books so far. I loved the unique setting of an isolated Scottish island where the character is cut off from everything. I loved the main character of Grady, he was so interesting and you felt a depth and connection with him the whole time, even if you felt like something was off and you weren’t sure if he was losing it or if he really was seeing his wife. I devoured the whole book in one setting, I was hooked and needed to know the truth of what happened and why. The twist was unique and I loved every minute of this interesting thriller. I look forward to seeing what Alice Feeney comes up with next.

When I saw the synopsis, author with missing wife retreats to Scottish island to try to start writing again, I thought I would like this.
But I just did not. It is definitely not boring and I am glad I read it as it got my brain working , but I found it too confusing . As the book goes on and I realised that the narrators were being economical with the truth it then makes any twist possible as there is nothing that can be absolutely relied upon. Then the fictional Scottish island is so ridiculously contrived it casts further doubt on what is real and what is not. But there is plenty of spooky scary happenings on the island which give a good atmosphere of suspense.
Grady ,the author , is not a very likeable character so that by the end of the book I was not too concerned whether he was going come out of things successfully or not.
Thanks to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for the ARC

Review of ‘Beautiful Ugly’ by Alice Feeney. Many thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for this advance copy in exchange for a review. This book comes out on January 30th ♥️🗓️

3,5 ⭐️

Sometimes, when you’ve read a lot by an author already, your demands get higher and higher. Sadly for this author, I read her book ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’ as my first book by her and it’s one of the best thrillers I’ve ever read. That makes topping that very hard. After not really vibing with ‘Daisy Darker’ last year, I’m very happy to have picked this book up. I really flew through it and was very interested to see where it would take me.

We follow Grady, a writer who’s just made it onto the New York Times Bestseller List. But his happiness quickly fades when his wife goes missing on the same evening. He’s devastated, but his agent helps him out: a visit to a remote island to stay in her family member’s cabin. The solitude and escape from busy London might help him get his writing back. Grady decides to go to the tiny Scottish island, but weird things start happening soon and the question rises: is everyone who they say they are on this island? Which secrets are being kept?

Like I said, I flew through this one and that’s a very good sign. Alice Feeney has a way of writing that always keeps me hooked. I liked the story as well and the many layers the characters had. I did feel like the ending was a bit rushed and I had to go back to re-read some parts to fully understand what it was that I was reading. Usually, I find books to be too long, but this one could’ve been a bit longer. It would’ve made the ending feel less rushed for me.

Altogether, a great read for the colder months and I would definitely recommend it (as I would almost every Alice Feeney book I’ve read).

All opinions and thoughts in this review are my own 💕

THANK YOU !!!

Just superb as always I do not see the multiple twists coming - read it as your others super quickly totally engaged bravo !!!

Beautiful Ugly is the new dark thriller from Alice Feeney. The story centres on Grady Green, a reclusive author whose life is turned upside down when his wife goes missing one day. Determined to escape the ghost of his lost wife and to get his life back on track by penning a new book, he sets out to stay on a tiny isolated Scottish island not knowing what lies in store for him.

The island is almost a character itself, adding a deep sense of unease and foreboding to the story. As he encounters inexplicable happenings and his fears begin to unravel his sleep-deprived mind he's forced to question what is real and what is not. That wasn't really his missing wife he saw, was it?

It was definitely a slow burn story and a locked room mystery combined, with the dark, psychological suspense building to a crescendo where you will be questioning everything you think you know.

"Wives think their husbands will change but they don’t.
Husbands think their wives won’t change but they do."