Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney
Genre: Psychological thriller
Read: 28th April 2025
Published: 14th January 2025
★★★★★ 4.5 stars (rounded up)
DESCRIPTION:
The million-copy bestselling Queen of Twists, Alice Feeney, returns with a gripping and deliciously dark thriller about marriage . . . and revenge.
Author Grady Green is having the worst best day of his life.
Grady calls his wife as she’s driving home to share some exciting news. He hears Abby slam on the brakes, get out of the car, then nothing. When he eventually finds her car by a 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.
MY THOUGHTS:
There's no need to be afraid of the dead, it's the living that you have to watch out for...
The day Grady Green becomes a New York Times best selling author is the worst best day of his life.
While awaiting the news that he has made the bestseller author list, Grady calls his wife Abby as she makes her way home from work in London. When he hears her slam on the brakes and go silent he is worried something has happened to her. She tells him that there is someone lying in the road and that she is going to check on them to which he implores her not to. But Abby can't leave someone laying there. What if it had been her? Surely he'd want someone to stop for her? And so he hears her get out of the car and walk away. As the minutes tick by, there remains silence - all but the ticking of her indicator still blinking.
Arriving at the scene, Grady finds his wife's car, her phone still on and the promised celebratory fish and chips on the front seat. But no sign of Abby. And no sign of anyone in the road. It's as if she's vanished into thin air. What on earth happened on that cliff road? And where on earth is Abby?
One year later, Grady is still overcome by grief and hasn't been able to write since Abby disappeared. So when his agent Kitty (also Abby's godmother) offers him a writing retreat on the remote Scottish Isle of Amberley. Grady figures what has he got to lose. The island is so remote, it only has twenty five residents and offers the silence and seclusion he always longs for to write.
He arrives on the Scottish isle with his trusted companion Columbo, a black labrador, after a rough ferry crossing and the self-appointed sheriff and ferrymaster Sandy drives him to the secluded cabin that once belonged to famed author Charles Whittaker before his untimely death, thus bequeathing this little cabin to Kitty in his will. Grady welcomed the tranquility and seclusion, hoping it will kickstart his writing. At least, he did at first.
But then strange things began happening. The strangest of all being when he sees a woman who looks exactly like his missing wife Abby! Until he looks again and she's gone. Did he really see her? Or is he so sleep deprived he is hallucinating?
Despite the strange goings on (of which there are plenty), Grady manages to churn out what he believes to be his best book yet - which he titles "Beautiful Ugly" - and sends it off to Kitty. And then he makes plans to leave the island. But he soon finds no one is forthcoming with ferry times or even about him leaving the island. And soon, Grady begins to wonder whether coming to Amberley was the best thing for him at all?!
The Isle of Amberley is a strange place. It is six miles long and five miles wide (I don't do miles as I'm metric but even I know that isn't very big) with a total population of twenty five residents. But that's not the strangest thing about them (I'll leave that one for you to discover). And yet, there is no phone signal, no landlines, no internet, no connection with the outside world. Even the ferry runs just twice a week (weather permitting) and there is no timetable for the ferry out...because "no one leaves Amberley".
First off, a huge THANK YOU to Alice Feeney for NOT injuring or killing off Columbo, Grady's trusted black labrador and companion. There was a moment there when Grady told Columbo that he had to leave him there (in the cabin) as it would be quicker without him and I started getting anxious. NO! Don't leave him behind! And I had visions of him returning to finding Columbo missing or something worse. But thankfully (no spoilers), this didn't happen and Columbo is alive and well. Injuring or killing off a beloved pet such as a loving companionable dog is a big no-no for me in books and I have been known to stop reading the moment it happens, never to finish it. So THANK YOU!!
There are so many layers to this intricate psychological thriller by one of the biggest Queens of Twist authors. And the beautiful setting of a remote Scottish island is both atmospheric and claustrophobic at the same time. It's tranquility and isolation are used masterfully giving the air of an illusionary calm. It isn't long before Grady begins to notice strange goings on and the hallucinatory visions he sees has him questioning what's real and what's not. But it's not only Grady that is questioning the reality but the reader as well. And one has to ask, is someone playing mind games or is Grady finally cracking under the grief of losing Abby? And yet everyone behaves oddly and everything just feels off.
There's a tension that is palpable throughout with a spooky and sinister undertone that is both chilling and eerie. Which is only made moreso by the unreliable narration that we didn't know was unreliable. But who is unreliable and who is reliable? And the plot twist?! I'm not just saying that - it really DOES have a great plot twist! But buckle up, because nothing is as it seems on the Isle of Amberley. It's like the Hotel California - you can check out any time you want but you can never leave.
Feeney delivers some cliched quotes that pepper the story throughout but in a way that tells the story that is unfolding before our eyes. There are some very clever witty quotes and some you have to re-read to try and get your head around. The most memorable quote of the entire book is the very last line, delivered with maximum effect and jaw-dropping realisation.
A dark tale about marriage and revenge but with a devious and unique twist.
I would like to thank #AliceFeeney, #Netgalley and #FlatironBooks for an ARC of #BeautifulUgly in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Alice Feeney is an author and former BBC journalist. Her debut novel, Sometimes I Lie, was a New York Times and international bestseller. It has been translated into over twenty languages, and is being made into a TV series by Ellen DeGeneres and Warner Bros. starring Sarah Michelle Gellar.
Her books have been translated into over twenty-five languages, and have been optioned for major screen adaptations. Including her novel Rock Paper Scissors, which is being made into a TV series by the producer of The Crown.
Alice has lived in London and Sydney and has now settled in Devon, where she lives with her husband and dog..
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