🎧4⭐️

I had the audiobook read by Katherine Press and Stephanie Racine who managed to keep my interest in the very slow build up.

There are several characters and time frames we have to wait to see how things unfold to find the connection. The narrators carried this for me keeping my interest during the slow build up.

Bullet points for Good Bad Girl
📕it’s a murder mystery with amateur sleuths
📕 Mother’s day is relevant
📕it explores the complexity of mother daughter relationships

There are some good revelations and twists everything comes together nicely. However for me it’s too slow a burn for me to fully appreciate the intricacy of the plot and to fully engage.
In the book there are some pictures at the start of the chapters, but it’s nothing that you are missing out on with the audiobook version as they are not necessary to the storyline.

It’s not one of my favourites. I think this one is better as an audiobook. If you enjoy slow burns I think you’ll enjoy it as the end is good.

I was super excited to receive Alice Feeney's GOOD BAD GIRL, narrated by Katherine Press and Stephanie Racine!

⭐⭐⭐⭐💫

I've come to expect deeper looks into close relationships inside Feeney's twisty stories, and this one delivered just that!

20 years ago, on Mother's Day, a baby was taken from a stroller.

Mother's Day today, we meet Frankie who is struggling with her own daughter who she hasn't heard from in months. Then there is 80 year old Edith in a nursing home against her will, deceived by her son and daughter, Clio. There she meets a girl named Patience who seems to connect with her. Frankie, Edith, Clio, and Patience are the four women who are inextricably linked by two murders, three suspects, and one victim.

It is a mystery that kept me engaged with the characters. I loved Edith, of course, and as the story unfolded, my thoughts about the other women were complex. Though there were some things I guessed pretty quickly (I am thinking this was intentional and a bit leading), there were a couple of twists that had me gasping! The family drama is strong in this novel and explores the difficult dynamics of mothers and daughters, trauma, and family secrets. There is also not a small inclusion of life lesson tidbits. And some humor!

The dual narrators were really great in this format. Having the multiple POV's with all women, the distinct voices helped and they did such a fantastic job with the vastly wide range of personalities! I listened at 2.5X and had no problems keeping up.

Thank you so much, @netgalley & @macmillan.audio for this outstanding ALC. All opinions are my own, and this story will be out later this month in the US on August 29th.

Wowwww. Absolutely loved this book. The twists were crazy. Alive Feeney knows how to keep you on your toes.

The audio was good. Not my favorite because it was harder to figure out the different characters but it was still paced right and thrilled me none the less

What do a kidnapped baby, a runaway, an art gallery and a murder in a care home all have in common? A Good Bad Girl. And in true Alice Feeney fashion, just when you think you have it all figured out, she hits you with a twist leaving thinking, what the?!?!
Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC. #Netgalley #Goodbadgirl
Pub. Date: August 29, 2023

Sadly, I did not enjoy this one. I found it to be slow and a tad confusing. The reveal was interesting and I wasn’t expecting it, but that was the only highlight for me.

This book was of family dysfunction, secrets, lies, and crimes. Who can you trust? Is blood thicker than water? Nothing is quite as it seems in this story chock full of miserable people looking for truth/love/revenge. The multiple points of view, while confusing at first, really set the stage for the plot and gave readers an inside look into all perspectives , making it difficult to take sides. The twist was unexpected and so well executed, my jaw dropped as I scrambled to re-evaluate what I thought I knew. Perfect psychologist thriller, bravo! Thank you to Flatiron Books and NetGalley for this advanced copy in exchange for my honest review!

3.5 Solid thriller.
I feel like if you aren't super familiar with the genre this will absolutely keep you on your toes and for the seasoned reader you will enjoying working out the web of mystery.

Don't really want to go too deep into plot points, but I appreciated the exploration of the different relationships and the reasons that the characters make the choices they do.

Great audio narration from Katherine Press and Stephanie Racine.

***Thank you to Macmillan Audio for providing me with the Audiobook for free via NetGalley for an unbiased review.

Thanks so much to the publisher for giving me an early copy of this book for review, prior to release!

If you loved Rock Paper Scissors- then you will love this EVEN MORE.

I've been sitting here trying to find the words to describe how I felt about this read and all I can say is, "WOW." This book was EXCELLENT. I was entertained every step of the way. I can honestly say that no parts of this book were slow or boring- it was expertly written.

I felt connected to each of the characters and I was able to feel emotionally tied to each of their stories. Alice Feeney truly immersed the reader into a web of beliefs and then pulled the rug out from under us. It didn't feel forced and I was truly impressed with how seamlessly the stories intertwined and then untangled through to the end.

The twists that were in this novel had me audibly say, "WHAT???" I had to go back and see if what I just heard was correct. SO GOOD. I am thrilled to have been properly thrilled by Alice Feeney, YET AGAIN. I cannot wait to recommend this book to anyone and everyone who enjoys thrillers or a GREAT story.

Alice is an author that I know I can depend on. Her books are always a great ride and this one was no exception. The 4 main characters are all complicated women. They're all hiding something at the start outside of whether or not they murdered the care home administrator. I will say there is a lot going on. We have the murder, a kidnapping 20 years earlier, secrets that sound like more crimes may have been committed, and more from pretty much the get go. Told in alternating timelines between past (baby kidnapping) and present, Alice weaves a story full of twists and turns. It's hard to say a lot without giving anything away! I will say I guessed most but not all of the twists and I am always happy when an author really does manage to surprise me.

<b>I’ve never told mom what really happened that day. Mother knows best but sometimes it’s best if mother doesn’t know. -Patience</b>

This one was a super fast read (listen)! I love Alice Feeney and her twists are like non other!

This thriller begins with a woman in a supermarket who turns to have a conversation with someone else. When she turns back around, her baby is missing from the buggy.

18 years later we meet the characters that the novel is centered on. It’s told from multiple points of view. Patience, a young girl who works in an elderly care home. Frankie, a woman who works in a prison as a librarian whose daughter has disappeared a year ago. Edith, a care home resident. Cleo, a therapist. And probably a few others I’m forgetting at the moment. This novel has MANY points of view but I didn’t find it difficult to keep track of because I read the book so quickly.

The main focus of the story is Edith who doesn’t think she belongs in the care home. Patience has agreed to help her escape. Things happen and all hell breaks loose when they do manage for Edith to finally escape. It’s a twisting tale right up until the very end! I highly recommend this Feeney thriller!

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

This one requires a notebook to follow the storyline. Alice Feeney is the master of the redirect and that is key to this storyline. So, be fair warned, grab a notebook.

This one revolves around the relationship between mothers and daughters. You have a daughter stolen from her mother as an infant in a supermarket, a daughter that works in a nursing home after leaving home, and a mother forced by a daughter into the nursing home. The whole nursing home thing give me negative vibes to begin with so this one was a big of a trigger for me. Toss in a bit of murder and the whole story gets a bit more complicated.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy.

Thank you to NetGalley and Alice Feeney for this Audiobook!

When I first started this book, I was not too sure about it. The characters were not easy to keep track of so I was not truly engaged with them. But there was a point where everything started to click when the connections between characters became more clear. Once this happened for me, which was around 40% of the way through, I went from just liking the book to loving it.

You may think this story is predictable, but it is anything but. There are so many twists and turns that would not let me stop listening.

Edith and Patience, stuck out to me far more than Chloe and Frankie. I saw character development and attachment through Edith and Patience and really enjoyed following along, always wanting to know what the connection truly was, and how everything came to be. Chloe and Frankie fell a bit short of that for me, as I feel like they didn’t have as big of an arc as the buildup towards everything unfolding.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. As someone whose go to genre is fantasy, this book has me wanting to read more mystery novels!

A missing child; a runaway and murder 20 years later. How are they related?

I absolutely loved this slow burn thriller. Alice Feeney is a master of her craft.

Dual timelines plus multiple POVs kept me engaged the entire time and resulted in great character development.

I guessed one of the connections pretty early on, but I think it was set up that way. The other twists were expertly crafted and if found myself saying cwell done Alice. Bravo!"

In the end, this was an emotional story that left me a bit choked up, and I wouldn't want it any other way!

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

This quote really hit me "Sometimes bad people are just sad people in disguise"

I also liked these quotes:

"Mother knows best but sometimes it's best mother doesn't know."

"There is often a gap between what we think and what we say; it's where what we feel lives."

The audio was superbly done and I highly recommend it.

Good Bad Girl was one of my most anticipated books of the fall, and I was thrilled to receive the ALC!

This is a good one to go into blind. Just know it involves a murder, a kidnapping, four women, and plenty of twists. Cleverly written, with an ending that left me surprised over and over. This is a classic Alice Feeney book, with a slow burn set up followed by a race to the finish.

I was curious the whole time to figure out if and how the four women were connected, and I couldn’t stop listening after hitting the halfway mark. All the women seem to have done bad things, and many phrases debate whether you can be a good person while doing bad things. Feeney always writes some interesting phrases that really stick in your head, and this book has plenty of them.

I would call this a mystery or suspense rather than a true thriller, considering I almost forgot that someone had been murdered while trying to piece together the rest of the puzzle.

Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for the ALC in exchange for my honest opinion.

⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

Good Bad Girl
By: Alice Feeney
Narrated by: Katherine Press & Stephanie Racine

Publication date: August 29, 2023

“Sometimes bad things happen to good people, so good people have to do bad things.”

Twenty years after a baby is stolen from a stroller, a woman is murdered in a care home. This story follows 4 different women, first there is Edith a 80 year old women in a care home that is trying to escape because her daughter Cilo put her in the home against her will. Edith makes friends with one of the care home employees Patience who agrees to help break her out. Patience ran away from home on her 18 birthday and her mom is determined to find her. Through a bunch of twist and turns we learn about the baby that was stolen and how these 4 women are connected.

Let me start off with what I liked about this book:
- [ ] multiple povs
- [ ] The narrators
- [ ] The twist!
- [ ] The ending was great

What wasn’t my favorite:
- [ ] It didn’t start to pick up till about 55%
- [ ] It was a bit confusing to remember what was going on while listening to the audio


Overall I would recommend this book if you are a fan of thrillers that keep you on the edge of your seat. Even with it having a slow start this book really tuned it around with the final twist!

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for gifting me this ACR in exchange for my honest review.

This book was a decent listen but wasn't spectacular. I had a little trouble keeping up with who was who, and then the twist and ultimate ending was just hard to track because of that. Sometimes I think authors try too hard to make the twist unpredictable and then it just gets clumsy. There were aspects of this book that I enjoyed, and it kept me mostly entertained, just not enough to go above 3 stars.

Thank you Netgalley for allowing me to read and review this audiobook. Overall this story followed Alice Feeny's usual story line. This switching of perspectives can be hard to follow but once you get the hang of it the story line lays itself out. This book makes the reader think they have it all figured out but that is not the case! The clues give the reader the idea that they can solve the mystery but it is a surprise when they find out they are very wrong! At times the story felt slow and as if it dragged a little bit but once you reach the Alice Feeny plot twist the last half of the book flies by.
I recommend this read to anyone who enjoys a slow burn thriller and wants a book where they can follow the clues to try and solve the mystery. Although this was not my favorite Alice Feely read it definitely stacks up to her clean writing style and the mystery and thriller effect that she is known for.

This is one of those books that I really enjoyed and my jaw dropped at a few of the twists. BUT there was a lot of this that was unrealistic and convenient. I'm really good at overlooking the minute details, though. ;) This was a really good thriller and most who like that genre would enjoy it.

Another fantastic novel by Feeney. I received this audiobook from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This story is told in the voices of four different characters; Edith, Patience, Frankie and Clio. The novel opens in the past with the kidnapping of a young baby at a grocery store. This baby was never found and now, twenty years later, we learn the extent of devastation this kidnapping left. Edith and her daughter Clio (the mother of the lost child) have a strained relationship. Edith is placed in a nursing home and is not happy about this at all. She has befriended Patience, a cleaning person at the nursing home and daughter to Frankie. Frankie is a librarian at a prison and is desperately searching for her daughter (Patience) who ran away from home. The stories all converge when a woman at the nursing home is murdered. Each of the women have a motive to commit this crime. . As the mystery of the murdered woman is being investigated, no one knows who they can believe or trust. Is this murder somehow connected to the kidnapping from twenty years ago? As the story climaxes, long hidden secrets are revealed and the truth behind the two incidents begins to come through. This was a great story with some major surprise twists at the end. I gave this novel 5 solid stars!

More of a family drama vs a thriller, but also a lot of characters to keep track of. Honestly, I had a hard time until about 30% of the audio and I had a friend send me a map of the characters because I was so confused. That said I still enjoyed the narration and story overall. I'm not the biggest Feeney fan so take this with a grain of salt!