ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

This book was just okay for me. The first three quarters were mainly filled with long ago background and I felt it could have been condensed a great deal. Also the protagonist was slightly annoying. The final quarter picked up the pace and I did really enjoy the ending, but it wasn't enough to redeem the story as a whole. 3 stars.

Beautiful Bad starts with a crime and then slowly unravels what happened. It takrs many years of backstory to get to the reaolution. 

What I liked:
*I loved reading about life overseas. The main characters meet in Macedonia and live in Eastern Europe throughout much of the book. Very interesting setting.
*The suspense level was great! I enjoyed trying to figure out where the story was going. 
*The characters were unique and had compelling backstoriess

The multiple POV was difficult for me, especially since the majority of the book is told from one POV and then when others chime in at the end, it was confusing and jarring for me.

Overall, a fast and intriguiging book.

This book was fun. That’s really the best way I can describe it. I enjoy thrillers — they’re quick-paced, they keep me interested, and I like to try and guess what happens at the end.

The main character in this book — Maddie — suffers a mysterious and disfiguring accident while camping with her husband and son. She seems like a timid woman — though the reader quickly learns that she wasn’t always so. The novel hops back and forth in time, allowing the reader to see Maddie as she is now (anxious and stifled), and as she was in the past (adventurous, intelligent, seeking danger and thrills in third world countries — this is where she meets Ian).

After her camping accident, Maddie begins to deal with large amounts of anxiety, and she seeks help through writing therapy. Through her writings, we learn about her best friend Jo, her son Charlie, and some important nuances of her marriage with her husband Ian. Despite her self-proclaimed love for both Jo and Ian, we find out that Maddie’s relationship with Jo was tumultuous and we find out that her husband Ian is dealing with PTSD and paranoia due to his time spent at war.

This book moved quickly, I read it fast — the plot kept me interested, and the writing was good. I can’t say that the story is entirely unique, though honestly, I don’t know how one would go about writing a unique thriller, as the market is saturated with this type of novel right now. I knocked off a half-star only because I was able to figure out the ending — and every thriller says “you’ll never be able to guess the ending.” I was hoping I’d be shocked, but I wasn’t.

If you’re looking for something fun and quick, that will keep you guessing (for much of the story), then I’d recommend this one.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for the e-arc of this book.

BEAUTIFUL BAD enters the, now crowded, collection of thrillers with unreliable narrators as their hallmark. In this tale, a seemingly brain-injured wife might, or might not, also be a battered wife with a villainous husband intent on harming her. The rest of the tale is meant to confuse or inspire the reader. At times it does, other times not so much. There are some really good scenes, others drag on forever. How I wish there had been a really good twist at the end to really set this book apart and make it memorable. For me, there wasn’t one. I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

You know when everyone says how great a book is and you start reading it and it's not quite what you expected? That's what happened with Beautiful Bad by Annie Ward. I'm not saying the book is bad but it simply did not grab my attention. I would have loved it more if there was more chapters about the actual killing and whodunit and why instead of all the different timelines that goes back and forth and only ended up confusing.

The pacing is slow and at times, some events seemed unsignificant. Even though the ending was predictable, the final twist was shocking as I didn't realise just how crazy the murderer was. What made the book a little bit more interesting was Maddie's character.

As I've said before, my low rating doesn't necessarily mean the book is bad. It just didn't fall into my prefered genre.

Thank you NetGalley and Harlequin for my copy in exchange for an honest review.

Good story! This story is told in alternating voices and dates that are all over the place covering more than a decade, Beautiful Bad has it all. It starts with a potential murder scene, but who, if anyone, has been murdered? Then we learn the back stories of Maddie, Ian, Jo and Charlie; how they met and how their lives all became intertwined.

Since we meet Maddie first, it's easy to feel she is a victim and Jo seems so strong, but roles are reversed at times leaving the reader not quite sure where things stand. Ian, from Maddie's eyes, seems loving, but troubled. Jo sees him as trouble, bad news, but does she/did she once care for him and that colors her thinking?

Just as we really get into the part of the story being told, the dates change and leave the reader hanging. It is frustrating at times, but adds to the suspense.

I still don't understand the title, but other than that, thank you NetGalley for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest opinion.

What did I just read? Beautiful Bad is the first book by Annie Ward that I have read, so I didn't know what to expect. The blurb of the book grabbed my attention, and I did have a good feeling about this book. However, little did I know that I would be… Totally. Blown. Away.

Beautiful Bad is well written. This book takes us from Bulgaria to Macedonia to Iraq and then to a quiet little town in Kansas. The author does an excellent job of setting the scene for all these places, which in my opinion make for a better story. The story is mostly told from Maddie’s perspective and jumps between three different timelines. We also hear from Ian, and that part of the story is written in the third person point of view. Jo, Maddie’s best friend, is weaved into this twisted tale as well. The relationship between Maddie and Ian is filled with drama and agonizing intensity. These characters are damaged, peculiar and devious and I found myself liking them and disliking them at the same time.

Now on to the story, I feel that I can't say too much about the story without giving away its twisted nature. What I can say is that it kept me reading well into the night. The author has a cunning way of building and building the story - she will have you thinking one thing and then twist it around to where you haven't a clue as to what is going on or whose story we are to believe. The only thing I would have liked to see a bit more of was the criminal angle of this book. Overall, Beautiful Bad is a tense psychological thriller that will keep you guessing till all is revealed.

***I kindly received this galley by way of NetGalley/publisher/author. I was not contacted, asked or required to leave a review. I received no compensation, financial or otherwise. I have voluntarily read this book, and this review is my honest opinion .***

In the description, this book is compared to The Girl on the Train, this book does not have what The Girl on the Train had, nor does it even come close to Defending Jacob. Not saying that it was a bad psychological thriller, it just wasn’t a remarkable one, and far from perfect. It had its moments, but I did not feel the all-encompassing dread that something terrible was going to happen and it didn’t have the overwhelming, oh WOW, blow me away moment at the end.
The story is told via different chapters, listening to Maddie’s story as told to her writing counselor or her daily activities, and then from Ian’s point of view. I will say there is one surprise the story alluded to, but in the end it had no relevance. I really liked that each chapter had a timeline, which always helps in keeping track. I found the story engaging, I just never felt that I cared for Maddie, she was an odd character and I came to have much more compassion for Ian, than I did for her. Jo was just a byline.
If you like psychological thrillers, I would say you may enjoy this one, but I have read many other gripping, surprising, pathological thrillers that carried a bigger punch. I will give this one 4****’s, it held my attention and did have a few twists.
I found this to be a quick read, and was allowed an advanced copy from Harlequin – Trade Publishing through Net Galley for my honest review, this one gets 4****’s.

Three stars because I liked the ending, but it was kind of a slog to get there. Didn't like Mady, didn't like Joanna, really didn't like Ian and could not for the life of me figure out why anyone would be attracted to him. But, like i said, good ending.

From different time periods and different points of view, Annie Ward takes you on a journey through the dynamic of Maddie, Jo, and Ian that results in a murder and a twist you don’t quite see coming. From the minute they meet Ian in a war ravaged Eastern European city as ambitious twenty-somethings, the relationship between Maddie and Jo is never the same. Ian is ever present in their lives as the years go on, and when you add a marriage and a child, things start to go awry. The way the relationships unfold and the troubles caused by this friendship triangle is one readers will be dying to find out.

Such a thrilling ride! Many unexpected twists and surprises in this book! I loved the wife between us and this reminded me of it and definitely worth the read!!!

This book had such a good premise but unfortunately for me it just didn’t work on any level. I don’t know if it’s because I read so many thrillers and I just picked up on things but I knew how the book was going to end pretty much from the first couple of chapters. Since I already guessed the ending it made the book feel like a very long journey to the end. I kept waiting for something to happen that would be shocking but it never really happened.

Another big issue that I had with this story was the blurb on the front cover. It says “the perfect marriage leads to the perfect crime”. The husband and wife, Maddie and Ian NEVER had a good relationship. They were dysfunctional from the word go and never had a healthy relationship. So for the book to proclaim from the beginning that they had a perfect marriage really annoys me. If you read this book, please let me know what you think of their relationship. Also, a large chunk of the book is spent building up to the actual start of their relationship and the whole time I was irritated. It was so over the top dramatic and went on for way too long.

Which brings me to another thing I disliked. The story is cluttered with unnecessary subplots and characters which just make the story longer than was needed. Way too much time was spent on an ex-girlfriend. Too much time on the author trying to show us what good friends Maddie and Jo are. (Sidenote- they are not. Another book and another poor representation of female friendship. Or just friendship in general. Why in some books is one friend obviously going through something and the supposed best friend is not supportive or caring about it at all?) Also, the full circle of the friendship was not even believable to me at all. I don’t want to get into spoilers but that was the one thing that surprised me about the ending. (Can I be any more vague?) I probably would have appreciated the police angle of the story more if it had a bigger impact through the majority of the story. But we barely got any of that story through like 90% of the book and then it just became a huge part of the plot. Which wasn’t even vital to understanding the ending, so like everything else, it just served to make the book drag on.

Not very impressed with this story line. It had/has potential, but it's seriously loose in a lot of important areas. I think the back story was lacking bigtime. It was kind of vague and left me questioning and second guessing which isn't fun if I never get the actual answer. The main character was also kind of unbelievable and She rubbed me the wrong way-which I normally like lol but in this case I just couldn't enjoy her story. The twist is actually what saved the book for me. While not entirely believable, it got me good.

Thanks to NetGalley, Park Row, and Annie Ward for the opportunity to read and review this book - 3.5 stars rounded up.

The story starts with a frantic 911 call and a policewoman investigating a bloody scene. Armed with that information, the book takes us mostly through Maddie's point of view in various timeframes. Maddie was always adventurous and as a Fulbright scholar, found herself working as a travel writer oversees where she meets Jo, a humanitarian aid worker, and Ian, a bodyguard. The three have a tumultuous relationship and go in and out of each other's lives. But for Maddy, Ian was it from the beginning.

Before the killing, Maddie and Ian are married with a young son, Charlie. We also know that Maddie had a bad fall on a camping trip with Ian and she can't remember the details. She ends up in talk therapy where she talks about how afraid she is of Ian and is PTSD and drinking.

The ending was surprising and upped my opinion of the book. For some reason, I could never relate to these characters and the jumping of timelines where mostly the same thing happened slowed down the read for me.

If you are a fan of the psychological thriller genre, of which there seem to be a plethora of options, Beautiful Bad is a worthy candidate for your list.

There has been a killing. We know that because one of the time/perspectives is of the police officer responding to a 911 call. We also get Maddie's perspective starting from several weeks before the killing, and also from the early 2000s, when she lived in Bulgaria and often visited her friend Jo in Macedonia. On one of these trips, she meets Ian, a British bodyguard. Eventually, we get some of Ian's perspective too.

We know that Ian and Maddie end up married. They have a son, Charlie. But the road to how they got together and how "The day of the Killing" turned out, well, that's quite the story. Ward does a masterful job telling it, as we weave through all these time periods.

It becomes very obvious that Ian has issues -- PTSD being one of them. But...Maddie is pretty messed up herself. Along with being married to a man with PTSD, she has also been physically damaged by a couple of earlier accidents that I won't go into.

That's really about all I want to say. It is interesting that you don't even know who the victim is until the last part of Beautiful Bad. And even after you know that...well, you still don't know everything.

Beautiful Bad is well written, well-paced, and the characters are such that you really don't know who to root for. The ending is sooo twisted, and I really can't imagining anyone realizing what is going on until they read it. If you figure it out...well, you are as twisted as Annie Ward!

I loved Beautiful Bad. Read it.

I love a good thriller, and I love when books take their time to reveal what exactly happened. This book is great at doing this - keeping the suspense almost all the way to the end. I just think it overdoes a little bit in the middle, in a way that you start to connect the dots a little bit too early. Other than that, if you don't think too much about what you're reading, it is a great thriller.
We learn in the beginning that Maddie is married to Ian and has a child named Charlie. But then the book keeps alternating between the past (to a time when they haven't even meet each other), a few weeks earlier, and the day it all happened. I would say that some chapters dedicated to the past are a little bit too boring (and I struggled to go through them), but they were important to understand the present, so I understand why they were there.
Overall, I would say this is a beautiful read if you like suspense and thrillers.

I really liked this book. I loved the story of the two women's relationship. I wasn't so fond of the boyfriend/husband. I thought it was well written; loved the backstory and then the chapter of the day of the killing. I didn't guess the ending at all.

Such a great book and it has left me with such a haunting feeling. Reading it, I felt I was understanding the characters and thought the characters knew each other. The tables turned and it shows there are sides to people we don't know and there truly is more than one side to every story. Fantastic read.

This is being billed as the "2019 Thriller of the year", but I think it missed the mark by a long shot. Certainly there will be some people who enjoy this book, just not me.

I entered this book with very little information on what it was about, except I knew it would be a "thriller". At first I was surprised by the two girls, Maddie and her best friend Joanna, living abroad in out of the way countries: Bulgaria and Macedonia. Soon Maddie meets her future British husband at a fund raiser. I started to think we'd have Eastern European travel type story, no the reality of the book was quite different.

There is a lot of shifting, between time lines, and we have Ian's perspective a few times, although not many, it is mainly Maddie's. Her friend Joanna plays and important role as well, since she was a good friend when Ian comes into their lives, yet not in the present time living in Kansas. I wished to hear from Joanna.

I had several problems with the book. The shift in time lines wasn't a problem per se, but it was distracting at times. The book was longer than it needed. It felt that cutting out some of the material would have been a tighter, better book. Another problem for me was Joanna. Her story was important but we get so little of what was going on, it was frustrating. And then there was Maddie herself. It felt so off her behavior while younger, then even when she goes back home to New York.

Finally was the ending, which I will not reveal anything. I will just say that it seriously downgraded the book for me. The telling wasn't necessary, and then added more strangeness really. In the end we may find out who these characters are, or not. It felt actually unresolved. Perhaps the characters weren't fully developed on the page. I just left unsatisfied in so many ways.

I hate to do this but I could not finish this book. From the description it is about a mom who lives in Kansas and is struggling with anxiety and memory loss after a head injury. It hints that her husband is dangerous and a friend from her past returns. It also says it is similar to "The Woman in the Window". I felt like I was very misled by the description. This is a book about war. I do not read books about war, explosives, and descriptions of these things really bother me. One of the reasons I picked up this book is because the description says it takes place in Kansas where I live. Most of the book is set in Bosnia, Macedonia, Iraq and other countries with genocide and violence. I think a hint this in the description would be really helpful for this book to find the right audience. The cover has a quote "The perfect marriage leads to the perfect crime." Because of this, I was expecting a domestic thriller. I am feeling very misled.

Thank you to NetGalley and Park Row Publishing for the free advanced reader's copy in exchange for my honest review.