Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney

 

Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney.

Published 30th January 2025 by Pan Macmillan.

From the cover of the book:

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.

***********

It should have been the best day in author Grady Green's life, but it turned out to be the worst. Just as he was celebrating the news that his latest novel had become a New York Times Bestseller, his wife Abby went missing on her drive home. Worse still, Grady was actually on the phone with her when the call cut off abruptly after she told him she was stopping to check on a body lying in the road. Her car was found abandoned on the cliff-edge, with her distinctive red coat lying tattered on the ground beside it, but Abby had vanished into thin air.

A year later, Grady is unable to move on. His grief consumes him, insomnia plagues him, and he is unable to write. Somehow he needs to produce another book, so his agent sends him, and his dog Columbo, to the remote Scottish Isle of Amberly, where the writing cabin of his dreams awaits. On the tiny ferry to the Isle, Grady sees a woman that looks just like his wife, and events just keep getting stranger. Soon, he is questioning his own sanity.

I've not read an Alice Feeney before, but have heard such good things about her books that I was intrigued - and dear, readers I can tell you that there is nothing unwarranted about the all the praise! A missing wife, a broken man, and an island that screams Wicker Man vibes from the word go... This book grabbed me by the scruff of the neck from page one, and did not let me go for the entire journey through all the eerie twists and turns that Feeney conjures in this cracking thriller.

Two narrative drive the plot - Grady and Abby - taking you back and forth in time, set against the backdrop of a gloriously claustrophobic, and seriously creepy island,  I've read a fair few island-based, locked-room thrillers, but there was something so unsettling about one covered in trees, while totally absent of bird-life, and Feeney layers carefully contrived elements of disquiet on top of this - weird interactions with the locals, the palpable feeling that Grady is being manipulated, the fact that he is unable to escape now he is here, and scary ghost stories of missing children... not to mention Grady's almost fever dream experiences at every turn.

You are never quite sure what is real, who is telling the truth, or how to put together all the carefully dropped little pieces of the puzzle. Is Grady the man we think he is? Is Abby still alive? What really went on in this marriage? Feeney plays such a clever game by leading you nicely down the 'woodland' path with her suspenseful, weaving narratives, until she whacks you upside your head with a shift in perspective that is jaw-droppingly brilliant. And she ties up all the threads with an intricate bow infused with a Twilight Zone kicker. Glorious!

I loved everything about this book, particularly the way she uses the perspectives of characters looking at a relationship from opposing corners, the secrets that lie at the heart of an apparently happy marriage, and the lovely dive into the world of an author. The oxymoron chapter titles are delicious too.

This may be my first Alice Feeney, but it will certainly not be my last.

Beautiful Ugly is available to buy now in hardcover, ebook and audio formats.

Thank you to pan Macmillan for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

About the author:

Alice Feeney is a New York Times million-copy bestselling author. Her books have been translated into over thirty 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 was a BBC journalist for fifteen years, and now lives in Devon with her family.