Thank you HARLEQUIN – Trade Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC.

Definitely a roller coaster of a ride here. The story zig and zgged and when I thought I knew what was happening we switched it up all over again. The ending wasn't what I expected at all but definitely left me satisfied.

Check it out....

How many thrillers have you heard described as twisty-turny that turned out to be fairly predictable? Beautiful Bad is NOT one of those. I have a pretty good track record of guessing endings but I was taken by surprise with this novel. There were times when I thought that story could pick up its pace but in retrospect, all was there for a reason. A beautifully crafted thriller with a wallop of an ending. A satisfying read.

Thanks netgalley for the review copy.

5 stars for Beautiful Bad by Annie Ward!!

This book is for sure going to be a top read of 2019 - grab you copy now!

Many thanks to the publisher and net galley, who provided a free ebook in exchange for my honest review.

Although billed as a domestic thriller, the real grip of this book comes in the backstory. It begins in the late 1990s in Eastern Europe, where longtime friends Maddie and Jo are working in neighboring countries amid social and political conflicts. After they meet a group of British bodyguards, including the enigmatic and sometimes-cold Ian, their friendship implodes. More than a decade later, the three find their way back to each other in an unexpected and explosive fashion.

I received an ARC copy from netgalley for my honest review, so thank you netgalley and publishers for offering me this book! ♡
The cover and title is what originally drew me to this book.
A devoted wife, a loving husband and a chilling murder that no one saw coming.

Things that make me scared: When Charlie cries. Hospitals and lakes. When Ian drinks vodka in the basement. ISIS. When Ian gets angry… That something is really, really wrong with me.

Maddie and Ian’s love story began with a chance encounter at a party overseas; he was serving in the British army and she was a travel writer visiting her best friend, Jo. Now almost two decades later, married with a beautiful son, Charlie, they are living the perfect suburban life in Middle America. But when a camping accident leaves Maddie badly scarred, she begins attending writing therapy, where she gradually reveals her fears about Ian’s PTSD; her concerns for the safety of their young son; and the couple’s tangled and tumultuous past with Jo.

From the Balkans to England, Iraq to Manhattan, and finally to an ordinary family home in Kansas, sixteen years of love and fear, adventure and suspicion culminate in The Day of the Killing, when a frantic 911 call summons the police to the scene of a shocking crime.
This was my first book by this author. It was alltogether an easy read. ♡ I give this book a
4.5 star rating!

BEAUTIFUL BAD by Annie Ward was a slow burning suspense novel that lets you know pretty early on something bad is going to happen. This book is full of intense, flawed characters and these flawed characters are what makes this book so interesting.

Maddie and Ian have an intense relationship, a relationship that sucks you in and makes you need to know what happens to them; throw Maddie's somewhat crazy friend Jo into the mix and you just know things are going to spin out of control.

This novel is full of relationships, locations and plots.. All intense, mostly foreign but always interesting.

Read this book, it builds to a satisfying ending and leaves you wanting more.

A twisted, psychological thriller that begins with a frightening 911 call, which is not completed until near the end of the book. The book then focuses around the main character, Maddie who travels to a Middle Eastern country to be a travel writer while visiting her free-spirited friend, Jo who is also working in a nearby country. When they meet Ian, a member of the British army, things change for the two of them. The book continues to vacillate between this time and the present, in which Maddie has married Ian, they have a three year old son, and Jo is estranged from Maddie. Jo repeatedly told Maddie to stay away from Ian, thinking he was bad news. Maybe she was right. Ian is suffering from PTSD. He has been drinking quite a bit. A recent camping trip has left the side of Maddie's face extremely disfigured. She doesn't remember the fall, but Ian insists he fell on rocks. Not that the doctors at the hospital believed that, but Maddie had no other choice than to believe what Ian told her. Maddie decides to attend writing therapy where she is able to begin to share her fears about her husband's behaviors and actions. All of this leads to The Day of the Killing. The chilling 911 call from Maddie and Ian's home. What has happened?
Fantastic book!!

Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC. I found the story very confusing with the different POV's and some bits and pieces were just not necessary to the story. I still don't understand what that ending meant. Sadly this book was just not for me, I guess with Thrillers it will always be a hit or miss for me.

It has taken me a stupidly long time to write the review for this. This book is so twisty, you'll never see what's really going on. It was awesome. Maddie grew up in a little town and did her best to escape and travel the world. She meets and falls for Ian, who also seems to have the same goals of never staying still and getting to see the world. Ian falls in love with the town that Maddie grew up in. Years later, they have a child and this is only the beginning. That's the background filler. You should read this. It's a psychological thriller of the highest order.

Beautiful Bad by Annie Ward, a well written novel. Maddie is very scared that something is wrong with her mentally. A tragedy has occurred that was unforeseeable and now things that concerned her now terrify her. If you like thrillers that delve into the mind put this book on your TBR list.

What a twisted book this was! I was instantly hooked after the first few pages. I loved & hated the characters, especially at the end! What a twisted, sick, psychopath Maddie is. I truly enjoyed this storyline and thought it was written well. Thank you Netgalley for the ARC!

So disappointing! I REALLY wanted to love this book... my gosh did I struggle with this.

I of course had a feeling that I would be the minority in this one... because I keep seeing 4-5 stars on this? Am I missing something here?

I really struggled with the multiple point of views and the timelines in this one. I was really struggling with all the war information and in all honesty... in the middle was just unnecessary information to the plot. I feel that a HUGE chunk of information could have been taken out. Yet again here's another book with way too many pages!!

I think the author was struggling with this and trying to pack way too much into this book. I think if the POV was strictly told from Maddie's point of view .. it could have taken a stronger turn here.

I enjoyed the beginning about Maddie and Ian and the story behind their attraction but I unfortunately can't say I enjoyed this story as a whole.

I found the outcome to be predictable and the ending twist wasn't enough for me at all to be unique. This reminded me of yet another thriller that has already been played out before.

2 stars for me on this one.

Huge thank you to Harlequin/Park Row, Kim and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Publication date: 3/5/19
Published to GR: 12/23/18

A tale of domestic suspense and psychological thriller, this book will have you reading to figure out what is really going on. The book opens with a murder and it flips back and forth in time to reveal a marriage that is on shaky ground. The book also touches on the topic of PTSD. With an unreliable narrator, the whole story slowly comes together and is finally revealed with a twist at the end.

I’m between 3.5 and 4 stars. The story was really well Told but I found myself getting bored with too many war stories and was trying hard not to lose interest.
The last 30% of this book was quite twisted and unexpected.
Thank you #Netgalley, the author and publisher for my free arc in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you Harlequin and Hanover Square Press for sharing a review copy of Beautiful Bad in exchange for an honest review. Beautiful Bad publishes March 5, 2019.

Beautiful Bad is told over three timelines, the Day of the Killing, shortly before that day, and when Maddie and Ian met overseas. I was only really a big fan of the current timeline and the rest sort of dragged for me. I was expecting more of a dramatic plot but this book is really about the characters.

Maddie is a travel writer who visits a friend who works supplying refugee camps. There she meets Ian, a British security worker who works in war torn countries. Almost twenty years go by and they live in a quiet neighborhood with a beautiful new son. Maddie has a camping accident that leaves her scarred both mentally and physically and is going to therapy where she reveals her fears about her husband who drinks and is suffering from PTSD.

Beautiful Bad is definitely a psychological suspense. It builds bits and pieces and reveals little things about Maddie and Ian and The Day of the Killing very slowly. It was a bit too slow for me and I found I had lost a lot of interest in these two quite early. Neither are loveable characters so there was really no one to root for in my mind. At some point I found that it was mostly written to really "shock" you at the end but I sometimes feel that type or writing to be a little manipulative and I had actually figured out the ending quite early so it did not even shock me at all.

Beautiful Bad is a great choice for anyone really wanting a character study or a deep look into the effects of PTSD. There is a deep look into the emotions and affects of it. If you want a quick moving and shocking plot, personally I'm not sure this is the one I'd recommend.

A psychological thriller that caught me right at the very beginning with a frantic 911 call that ended in a killing. We don't know what lead to the killing or who was killed, but it is an intense few pages before we are taken back in time to when the characters in play first interact with one another.

The story takes us back to when Ian and Maddie, our husband and wife, first met. Maddie and her friend Joanna are living in Eastern Europe where times are crazy and ridden in corrupt political times and war. Maddie visits Jo in her neck of the woods on a regular basis. They are the best of friends, Thick as thieves. But it's dangerous and the guards let them know that. Ian is a private guard/soldier for some important people, but has a knack for being a bit crazy physically. And when this man comes in between Jo and Maddie's friendship, we have the beginning to the story that we have been told thus far. The past is to build us up to their current characters and how their rocky relationships started. The past is where at times it felt like it lagged in excitement and pertinent information. The past they had was over so many years that I felt like we were getting too many details for what we needed to put the story and murder together.

The story continues to go back and forth in time and visits different locales with Ian and Maddie's intense relationship. At times it feels like a connection worth pursing, at other times it feels really uncomfortable and forced. Setting us up for a not so domestic bliss.
The plot is driven by characters that are unreliable and flawed at best. They make you question each person they are involved with. Whose truth is it? Who do you believe? The past leads you to believe one thing, but what if? What if there's more to the story than we could even imagine?

Overall a well told story that lagged a bit in the middle, but came together at the end. The excitement was that first phone call and then putting together the crime. The middle was mostly information we needed, but some felt like too much filler and a bit boring. A good psychological thriller that was connected well with the past and present.

Thank you #netgalley for my ARC

I couldn't really get into this book. It was hard to sympathise with the characters and the plot didn't get moving quickly enough to keep my attention.

Beautiful bad was an average read for me. I felt it was highly predictable and was just another domestic thriller that has been a hot topic for the past few years. Maybe if it was a different time or one of the first domestic thrillers I have read I would have ranked it higher. I think I am a little bored with the genre.
What I did like about the book was that it hooked me right away. I defiantly wanted to see what was to come.
This would be a fun beach read or a book to read in-between something you just read that was super heavy.
2.5/3 star
This book is out March 5, 2019
Thank you Annie Ward, Park Row Publishing and Netgalley for my advanced arc copy in return for an honest opinion. I look forward to other reviews.

This book had me from the get go with just enough suspense from chapter to chapter to keep me intrigued without giving anything away. And when I thought I knew what was going to happen it changed! Three very intense characters, love, war, and ptsd. I loved this book!

Thanks to Netgalley for an advanced copy. Although this book started slowly, I gave it 4 stars due to a solid ending. There was quite a bit of information, mostly in the flashbacks, that could’ve been cut out. There was quite a lot going on in the last 25% of this book! I knew that the main character, Maddie, was not innocent, but the author did a good job of not foreshadowing too much to give away just how much she was involved in the crime. I also felt Ian was misunderstood, but he came off as controlling also, so it was hard not to dislike him. The very last chapter where she ends up killing Joanna also was a great twist I didn’t see coming. I really enjoyed this book once I got through the beginning and wound read more from this author.