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."

This was a strange read with a good beginning a strange middle and an ending that was very flat.
Having enjoyed Alice Feeneys other books I will read more in the future but this one just wasn’t her best in my opinion. Hope other readers will enjoy
Thanks to Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for the Arc.

So this is a bit of an early review for me as the book is not actually published until the end of January 2025 but my goodness I just couldn't wait to share my thoughts on this fantastic read!

Grady is a New York Times bestselling author and his wife, Abby, is an investigative journalist. Grady receives a call from his agent Kitty confirming the news that he has made the New York times bestseller list but unfortunately his wife wasn't there to share the news with him. He calls her on her mobile and she confirms she is driving home and not far away. Grady then hears her slam on the brakes, initially thinking she's been in an accident but it turns out Abby came across someone lying in the road. Abby gets out to investigate and leaves the phone on loudspeaker in the car but she never comes back. Grady rushes to where Abby said she was when she stopped and finds no sign of Abby but does find a creepy looking antique doll with its mouth sewn shut.

The story then follows on a year later where Grady is understandably still broken, lost and unable to move on from his wife's disappearance. He's lost his house, as he couldn't afford the mortgage payments and was living in a one star hotel full of distractions meaning he hasn't written a thing in the last year. He goes for a meeting with his agent who throws him a lifeline and offers him the use of a cabin tucked away on the remote Scottish Highlands called Amberley, which was left to her by one of her clients who had been a famous bestselling author.

From this point on the book takes so many twists and turns I could barely keep up! The author really is a master at deception with this story, just when I thought the plot line was heading in one direction, it then swiftly turned and led me down another path. The setting of Amberley in itself could not have been more perfect to tell this tale, the isolation, the creepiness, the strange characters that also call Amberley their home, all mixed together to create a perfect storm in the best way possible.

I haven't read a book with an ending like that in a long while. I was honestly in shock at how things unravelled and the cryptic clue at the end left me flicking right back to the beginning of the book to see what I had failed to pick up on. When you get to the end you will know what I mean by this comment!

Bravo - well done Feeney, I can't wait to check out this authors backlist and eagerly await what she delivers for us next.

This is what i would call a dark and tense book. Excellent writing style as per usual by Alice. I found it a bit slow in the middle but it picked up again with a great twist to ensure that you had to keep turning the pages. However i did find the ending a bit unexpected and rushed.

This book is creepy dark and tense, The characters are well written and I enjoyed around 85% of the book. I found the ending was rushed and didn't really make sense. A good read just the ending let it down.

This is my third Alice Feeney book after Daisy Darker and Good Bad Girl and though the first two books were not that impressive, Beautiful Ugly made me understand why so many readers loved Alice's writing. This book kept me engrossed right from the beginning to very end.

The night that Grady Green receives the news that he has made the New York Times best-selling author's list, his wife, Abby goes missing. Her car is found with headlights on and the driver's door still open near a cliff. Grady is so distressed that he loses the will to write a new novel and soon finds himself in debt and without a decent place to live. His agent, Kitty, who is also his wife's godmother bails him out by allowing him to spend 3 months in a remote log cabin on an island called the Isle of Amberly. During this period, Grady is supposed to author a new book that will help him to redeem his career.

When Grady arrives at the island, everything feels strange, for instance the island has some very strict rules about visitors-they cannot bring their own vehicles into the island which is protected by a close knit community of twenty-five people. There are no birds in the forest of the large redwoods and some local tales gives the whole place a creepy vibe. But at the same time, its a beautiful, pristine island and the remote cabin provides Grady a good place to come up with his new bestseller. When he starts to see his missing wife on the island, Grady knows that either he is loosing his mind or there is something sinister going on in the island.

There are lots of twists that kept me guessing till the end. I loved reading the book and also loved the Isle of Amberly and honestly speaking, wouldn't mind shifting to this fictional island 😀.
There were too many plot twists towards the end but I didn't mind them too much. So overall it was a very satisfying and engaging read.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the advance copy of the book.

Thank you for NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for this ARC of Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney, in return for my honest and unbiased review.

Plot

Grady is an author whose wife disappeared a year ago. He’s lost everything and is given a second chance by his Editor to sell his next novel, and sent to live on a remote Scottish Island to recuperate and write. But secrets plague the island and Grady who seems to be losing his grip on reality.

Review

Although the book isn’t due to be released for a few more months, this book has been on my TBR for a while.

Alice Feeney is a one of a kind author who has the ability to send you down a hole you think you know the way out of, but ends up getting you lost, confused and happily surprised before coming out the other side.

Beautiful Ugly is probably her most tantalising tale yet, and does not disappoint. Just when I thought I had it figured out - Feeney found a way of giving me a great big metaphorical bump on the head. This book has Daisy Darker vibes, His & Hers twists and still manages to stand tall on its own merit.

This book is just enough dark, just enough twisty, just enough crazy to work. A combination that Alice Feeney has perfected for herself. The book is an absolute winner from start to finish. I could not recommend this enough. I’ve preordered my copy for official release because this is a book I need on my shelf. Whilst Daisy Darker is still my favourite Feeney book, this is a very close second.

Due for release January 2025

This book is CAPTIVATING! As to be expected with Alice Feeney, there are multiple twists and I found it impossible to predict.

The Isle of Amberly was so beautifully described I can’t believe it’s not a real! The writing is so atmospheric and eery. I didn’t want to put it down.

There is an excellent little nugget at the end - a secret message in each chapter of the book that had me searching back through and re-reading!

(Also, as a fan of book maps the illustration is stunning!)

Highly recommend.

* Thank you Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for providing me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Absolutely spellbinding, the best so far from Alice Feeney. This is simply superb storytelling. Feeney explores those dark areas of the soul and human nature with exquisite ease, creating characters and situations that are so believable. This is a take that grips and doesn’t let go. The central character is a tortured soul after his wife goes missing and he retreats to a remote Scottish island, seeking solace and peace. His world turns upside down when he thinks he sees her…The clue to the heart of this book is in the seemingly ambiguous title. Feeney excels at reaching the dark side of humans. Scrape away the surface and all is not as it seems. What appears on the surface is not reflected beneath. And she extends this skill to places. The remote setting is superficially a place of healing but it too has secrets. This is just a wonderful adventure. Her narrative flows and there isn’t a wasted word. Miss it and be sorry.