Author Grady's wife disappears after stopping her car and getting out on the way home - while on the phone to him. A year later she is still missing and he's trying to put his life back together plus get over his writer's block. His publisher arranges for him to go to a remote Scottish island to focus on his writing and get his mojo back. But from day one he starts seeing a woman who looks a lot like his wife and odd things begin happening on this tiny island with its mysterious inhabitants.
The idea of this book grabbed me and I was hooked from page one, I also loved the island setting but the plot didn't quite get going and the characters around Grady didn't feel developed enough to connect with them. It was an enjoyable read but not enough to be memorable sadly.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

A huge thanks to Netgalley, the publisher and author for allowing me access to this ARC of #BeautifulUgly.

Let me tell you, I am such a big Alice Feeney fan and this book was fantastic. I honestly never saw the twists coming and I was on the edge of my seat from when Abby disappeared whilst trying to help a woman who was lying on the ground.

Grady, the husband, is grieving his wife disappearing and not knowing what happened to her. He is also a writer and needing to write another book as he is on a timeline with his agent so she sends to him to a Scottish island where another writer stayed and wrote a lot of books, surrounded by the beautiful Scottish countryside and stunning views… sounds perfect, right? But there’s a twist!!

I couldn’t put this book down and I was dying to find out what happened to Abby. How did her story end?

It went in a complete other direction than what I was expecting (typical for an Alice Feeney book!) and from there on, I tried to read as fast as I could because the suspense was just about killing me!

Wow, just wow. Another 5-star read for me and a 5-star write from Alice Feeney.

After the mysterious disappearance of his wife Abby, author Grady relocates to a remote Scottish island in the hope of curing his writers block, but he soon realises the local residents aren’t who they seem to be

There was lots about this book to love, mainly the sense of isolation and intrigue making it a great page turner. With this author I knew there would be a big twist coming, but I was unfortunately confused and a bit disappointed with the ending, which for me left too many questions unanswered and a rather large plot hole!

I throughly enjoyed this book. I was gripped the whole way through and loved the twist. It was the first time I read this author and I will reading more.

@currentlyreading__
Book 4 of 2025

Thank you to @NetGalley and the publishers Pan Macmillan for the advance copy of Alice Feeney’s upcoming book. It’s no secret that I have loved all of Feeney’s previous novels with ‘Rock Paper Scissors” in at number one but “Beautiful Ugly” now shares that top spot. It is a beautifully atmospheric novel set on a remote Scottish island and the setting is as much a character as are the actual characters.

From the synopsis: Author Grady Green is having the worst best day of his life.

Grady calls his wife to share some exciting news as she is driving home. He hears Abby slam on the brakes, get out of the car, then nothing. When he eventually finds her car by the cliff edge the headlights are on, the driver door is open, her phone is still there. . . but his wife has disappeared.

A year later, Grady is still overcome with grief and desperate to know what happened to Abby. He can’t sleep, and he can’t write, so he travels to a tiny Scottish island to try to get his life back on track. Then he sees the impossible – a woman who looks exactly like his missing wife.

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

I love the fact that Grady is sent to this seemingly idyllic island of Amberly so he can write his next book after struggling through grief for the past year. The island is hauntingly beautiful and with just his black Labrador Columbo for company. There are just twenty-five inhabitants on Amberly and everybody knows everybody so when Grady takes residence in a cabin which has been left to his publisher by a recently deceased novelist, it seems like the perfect retreat. That’s until the claustrophobia sets in, bones are found in the cabin and Grady feels like he’s under the microscope from the Amberly inhabitants.

This is a page-turner; full of menace and it has to be devoured in a big hungry sitting. I can’t wait to see what Feeney has in store for us next.

Out: 30th January 2015

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The second Alice Feeney book I have read and a brilliant idea for a plot with a superb twist or two at the end. Looking forward to reading many more books by this author. Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the chance to ARC this book.

I read and thoroughly enjoyed Alice Feeney's 2022 book, Daisy Darker, so I thought I'd try her most recent thriller. I wasn't disappointed.

Grady Green is a bestselling novelist whose wife disappeared one night on her way home, while on the phone with him. He is distraught and cannot write, so his agent organises for him to go to a remote Scottish island to get his next novel written. There he encounters someone who looks just his missing wife and weird things start happening to him. All is not as it seems!

Beautiful Ugly started out well for me, but there were so many twists and turns and unlikely events that it started to erode my suspension of disbelief. Despite that I liked the book and found it to be a page turner which started 2025 off in a fun way for me. A recommended read.

One minute Grady is a bestselling thriller author, and the next his agent suggests he should go to a remote Scottish island for 3 months.

His main problem was that his wife, Abby went missing on her way home from work, he was forced out of his house and was not able to write again..

One year on and no news of Abby, his agent, Kitty knew of this secluded cottage on this Scottish island. Amberley which also used to be inhabited by another famous author. Rugged landscape and changeable weather adds to an eerie story which develops slowly with Grady struggling with insomnia, a drinking problem and not being able to communicate with the mainland.

The island had few dwellings; people seemingly unable to help him and he becomes desperate to leave.

Without any more spoilers suffice it to say the story unravels beautifully. Ms Feeney paints some beautiful descriptions of Grady's frustrations. Of course, a detective could have helped and Ms Feeney had one at hand - his dog Columbo!

Super stuff and well worthy of five stars.

Many thanks to Net Galley and Pan Macmillan for the chance to read and review.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me an e-arc in exchange for an honest review. I generally really like Alice Feeney. This book did well at creating the suspense and gradually revealing the story. Grady was incredible unlikeable for me but I think that was the narrative choice. The ending did underwhelm me slightly. I completely understand what Feeney was trying to do but the writing did not seem as strong for the last 20% of the book. I of course will continue to read Feeney's books as I love the way that she writes. I would recommend this still!

Oof, not sure about this one. Bit of a slow burn to start with, then it picked up, but the ending made no sense to me. Can't say too much without giving it away, but if you know you know, as the saying goes.

None of the characters were particularly likeable, apart from the dog!

This was a decent enough psychological thriller. I enjoyed the descriptions of the island and Grady's confusion about what was real or not.

A story about an author who wife goes missing, goes to an island to write and finds a woman who looks like his missing wife.

With unreliable characters and a twist i did not see coming this book was an enjoyable read. It had parts which did not make sense until the story unraveled.

The ending was great and not what I was expecting.

I would like to thank Netgalley and the Publisher for the opportunity to read and give an honest review of this book.

Grady has just got the best news - his book is a bestseller. Then he takes a call from his wife which goes silent when she finds a body in the road. He rushes to where she was but there is no sign of his wife or a body.
A year later he takes himself off to a remote island in the hope of finding his writing ways again. But then he thinks he sees his wife!
Is he going mad?

This is the second book by this author I have read and again I've found it to be a bit disappointing.

It starts out quite well with author Grady Green waiting for his wife to get home. He hears her on the phone get out of her car to investigate someone lying in the road and then she disappears. We pick up the story a year later, Grady is still grieving his wife, unable to write any books and he is offered the use of a writing cabin on the isolated Scottish Island Amberly. When he arrives he thinks he sees his wife, but why would she be there when she has been missing for a year.

I loved the setting of Amberly Island and all the strange characters that lived there. There was some mystery and intrigue to it but the pace was quite slow. We spend a lot of time with Grady who is pretty unlikeable and for a thriller this took me such a long time to read, I think in part because it was a bit boring in places.

When we did get to the twist and the ending it was both unbelievable (not in a good way) and rushed.

I think there was a good concept to this book but it just didn't work for me. It felt similar in places to One Of The Good Guys by Arminta Hall which I also didn't love but did prefer to this one!

Well what a twisty, turny thing you are!

Alice Feeney is a master of twisting a tale and then flipping it on its head. And that’s exactly what she does in Beautiful Ugly.

So buckle in and remember … trust no one.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

A year ago, Grady Green’s wife, Abby, disappeared from her car. Devastated, Grady, a bestselling author, lost his mojo, lost his everything. To throw him a lifeline, his agent, Kitty, gives him access to a cottage in a forest on the small, isolated, Scottish island of Amberley. The cottage had been left to her by a previous client, a globally famous, bur reclusive, author, who had written all his books there. Perhaps the change would similarly inspire Grady. The island is only reachable by ferry and the ferry is intermittent, in fact capricious since it depends on the whim of the pilot. There is no Wi-Fi; no phone signal; the weather is as capricious as the ferry; the twenty-five residents are all a bit weird, a bit secretive, a bit cliquish; the giant redwood trees are almost worshiped; strange messages keep appearing in the cabin; and he keeps seeing (or hallucinating) his missing wife.
All of that list suggests we are in a sort of “Wickerman” fantasy horror story, but are we? Nothing appears to be ‘normal’, but that is the author’s style: “keep the readers guessing”. And you will, right up to the end. The only problem is that this is all a bit too OTT, everything is misdirection. You can’t see the wood for the trees, but it is after all a mystery story. As to star ratings, I can see reasons for making it a 2, and reasons for making it a 5. That gives 3.5 as a mean, and so 4 with rounding.
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.

Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney is a dark and atmospheric thriller that kept me hooked with its mysterious twists. The story follows Grady Green, a bestselling author whose wife, Abby, vanishes under strange circumstances while he's on the phone with her. A year later, Grady, struggling with grief and writer's block, moves to a remote Scottish island to focus on his next book. But the island holds unsettling secrets, and Grady begins to question his reality when he sees a woman who looks exactly like Abby.
The setting is wonderfully eerie, with a cast of quirky, suspicious characters that add to the tension. While the pacing starts slow, it mirrors Grady's unraveling mind and builds to a shocking conclusion. The final twists had me rethinking the entire story, and I was tempted to reread for hidden clues. If you enjoy slow-burn psychological thrillers with a haunting vibe, this is a great pick!

Wow!! If you like dark thrillers, you must read this!!
Grady Green is an author. One night, his wife goes missing, and he loses everything! He is given a chance to get things back on track but has to move to a tiny Scottish island to try and write his next novel. So many strange things are happening on this island, including he thinks he keeps seeing he believed dead wife.
This book is anything but unpredictable, and once you start, you won't put it down until you have finished!
Love this part of the book:
"We live in a world filled with hate and hurt, these are dark times, but there is still love and light if you look for it. Everyone you know is capable of being both good and bad. And one man's right is another man's wrong. We have built a society that places far too much importance on a phony idea of beauty and perfection. The world is full of people behaving like clones, all trying to look, sound, and be the same. Too busy constantly comparing themselves to each other on tiny screens to see the bigger picture. I've accepted that I can't change the world, but I do believe that uniqueness is something to be celebrated, not feared or frowned upon. Life is beautiful and life is ugly and we have to learn to live with both sides of that same coin and see the light in the darkness. The world is Beautiful Ugly, relationships are Beautiful Ugly, people are Beau- tiful Ugly. Understanding that makes life easier to live with."
Read thanks to @NetGalley_UK #BeautifulUgly

It took me a while to get into this one, but once I was in…. Wow. The plot is unlike anything I’ve ever read before, the twists are insane and the final reveal had me literally gasping with shock so loudly that I scared my boyfriend! My first book by the author but definitely not my last

Beautiful Ugly is a wild ride so prepare yourself! Things kick off with devoted husband Grady Green waiting to hear if he's made the NY Times Bestseller list - without his wife being there, much to his irritation. Abby is on her way back from work, but celebrates with him on the phone. As they speak, she stops the car to help someone she can see lying in the road - but then disappears, leaving Grady to wonder what on earth happened to her.

Fast forward a year, and Grady's struggling to write his new novel, so his agent Kitty offers him a cabin on a remote Scottish island to write in. Off he goes - but it soon becomes clear that the island isn't quite what it seems to be...

This book does a great job of playing with Grady - and the reader-'s minds. You start to wonder whose minds we can trust - is Grady really seeing and hearing the odd things he purports to? As his mind seemingly unravels, the tension ramps up, and the story admittedly requires much more suspension of disbelief - but I loved every page! I loved reading about all the mysterious, unsettling characters on the island, and the mystery of what really happened to Abby which hangs over the book kept me intrigued.

I don't want to spoil anything about this novel so I'll just say that if you're a fan of Alice Feeney's other novels, you'll be pleased to know this is another corker! And if not, it's a great one to start with as it manages to be both tense and a slow burner at the same time. Island life is slow and relaxing but things definitely are not for Grady... Highly recommended!