I’ve enjoyed most of Alice Feeney’s novels, so I was pretty excited to get an e-galley of this one! I found the premise to be intriguing. That being said, I found the switches to the various POVs and timelines confusing. It took a while for me to understand what was happening. This made it a struggle to get through the book, but I was committed to figuring out “who dun it.” The reveals at the end, were just okay for me.

Alice Feeney has quickly become a household name for her twisty and tangled thrillers.

Struggling to survive the newborn days and nights Clio's daughter is stolen one day from her buggy in a supermarket. Woven together amongst Edith, Patience, Frankie and Clio's points of view this tangled web of lies, deceit, murder come to an unforseen head in Feeney's latest.

Wow!! That ending was one I didn’t see coming! This is such an excellent book. It starts terribly slow but at about the 60% point it picks up. It doesn’t really have any major twists but the ending is unpredictable.

Good Bad Girl
By Alice Feeney
Audiobook
Narrated by Katherine Press; Stephanie Racine
Pub Date: 29 Aug 2023
Macmillan Audio
General Fiction (Adult) | Mystery & Thrillers
Rating: 5/5

Good Bad Girl is a gripping, mind-bending story that no one can tell better than Alice Fenney. There is an unexpected connection between four women throughout the story that is told in both the past and present.

Past:
During a grocery store visit twenty years ago, a baby was snatched from her carrier. Her caregiver turned her back for a minute, and the baby disappeared. A master weaver of stories, Alice Fenney uncovers the extraordinary past behind the kidnapping as she explores the darker side of these women's secrets and struggles.

Present:
Currently, a nursing home is the scene of a murder in a twisty plot. The motive for the murder remains a mystery, leaving investigators to unravel the clues and piece together the truth. Uncovering secrets and lies along the way will expose generations of buried truths.

My Thoughts:
In spite of the fact that Good Bad Girl is complex and requires your full attention, it is also brilliant at the same time. The two narrators are Katherine Press and Stephanie Racine. Their retelling of the book is captivating and entertaining. For multiplex thriller fans, this is a must-listen.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the opportunity to review this audiobook. This is another shocking thriller by Alice Feeney. I loved every minute of it!

#GoodBadGirls. #AliceFeeney #Audiobook

This thriller will keep you guessing up until the very end. Readers who have enjoyed Feeney's previous novels will gravitate toward this one as well.

Good Bad Girl follows Edith, Clio, Frankie, and Patience--all women with secrets that tie them together in unknown ways. The slow build of this book allows plot points to appear in a purposeful manner to help the reader tease their way through the many mysteries that are unfolding.

I read this as an audiobook, so the multiple perspectives was rough at first but got better over time. I liked how the narrator(s) used accents to provide clues for the listener--this is not something that you'd experience when just read the book yourself!

Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the advanced audiobook copy!

Three suspects, two murders and one victim.

The story is told from the POV’s of four different women whose stories will all intersect. Much of the novel focuses in on the complicated relationships between mothers and daughters and convoluted family dynamics. Alice Feeney writes these relationships with so much feeling, truth and humor that her work is a joy to read.

Good Bad Girl has an ambitious plot, but it works well in this author’s capable hands. I enjoyed the surprise twists and how the stories all came together in the end. The audiobook is beautifully narrated by Katherine Press and Stephanie Racine. I’ve enjoyed every single one of Alice Feeney’s books and rumor has it she just completed her seventh novel which will be published sometime in 2024. I’m looking forward to it.

Thank you to @netgalley @macmillan.audio @alicewriterland for an advance audio copy of Good Bad Girl. I loved it! ♥️

“People love to collect gossip. They feed on it, gobbling it down too greedy to know when to stop. So they get fat on the stale sugar of other people’s lives.”

“My daughter is the villain in my life, I am the villain in hers. We both believe our stories are true.”

“Strangers are less likely to let you down than people you know.”

Alice Feeney’s newest novel is a little different than her other hit novels, but in a good way! Typically, @alicewriterland explores the dark side of romantic couple dynamics, such as in His & Hers and Rock, Paper, Scissors. However, in Good Bad Girl, she switches to the mother-daughter relationship. This book is still filled with her trademark twists and surprising revelations. The audiobook is well narrated and while there are 4 different POVs, I did not have a problem keeping track of them.

I highly recommend listening to this audiobook or reading the book. 🖤

Thank you @macmillan.audio and @netgalley for allowing me to listen to this audiobook ahead of publication in exchange for my honest review.

Rounded up to a 4 because I'm unclear if the plot was too hard, or I am too slow. When in doubt, the tie goes to the author.

When I saw the audio arc for Good Bad Girl by Alice Feeney, I requested to review immediately because I adored Daisy Darker and it's Agatha Christie (and now Ruth Ware) vibes.

Narrators Katherine Press and Stephanie Racine did excellent jobs keeping me listening, BUT, I struggled with catching on (and keeping up) with the multiple characters, pseudonyms, and alternating timelines. There was a lot going on. As I stated earlier, that could be entirely on me. Nearing 60, with all the accompanying brain challenges of aging, along with an audio vs paper version of the book, made Good Bad Girl feel harder to process.

But, Feeney always tells a good story and the ending was satisfying. My one criticism which lays squarely with the author - there was not a single character I liked or could identify with. That makes it challenging as a reader to root for anyone, or be invested in their good outcome.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️I’m a huge Feeney fan & was so excited to be able to listen to the audio of Good Bad Girl . Thank you @macmillanaudio!!

This is a slow burner, domestic drama/thriller which initially takes a little while to get going as the four main characters & their relationships are established. This is by no means her darkest novel, but the premise is excellent as she explores the good/bad idea through an examination of motherhood, especially those struggling with situations such as postpartum depression, mother- daughter relationships . Feeney always has such clever nuances weaved throughout her stories & Good Bad Girl is no exception.

I think you need to go into this book knowing as little as possible, if you’ve read this author previously , you know why.
I thoroughly enjoyed the story on audio & found it easy to follow. The dual narrators brought the characters to life & were so much fun to listen to.

RATING: 4/5
PUB DATE: August 29, 2023

Many thanks to Macmillan audio & NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan audio for the alc in exchange for my honest review. How many pov are too many for a thriller my answer anything more then 2 so 4 pov makes its very hard when their voices sound so so similar. Also i must have missed something i didnt get the twist.... i loved her previous work this wasnt my favorite.

Unfortunately, I was disappointed with this one. I am a huge Alice Feeney fan, and her books are an auto-read for me, but this one missed the mark.

Patience ran away from home a year ago and is working as a caregiver in an elderly care home. It wasn't clear how old Patience was, because at one point she is referenced as being 18, at another point you get the feeling she is just under 18, and then there is reference to her being 20. Patience also isn't her real name. Edith is an elderly woman living in the nursing home. Patience busts Edith out of the home. Frankie is Patience's mother and has been searching for her for a year. Clio is Edith's daughter, and searches for her missing mother. All of their worlds collide after a murder at the elderly home.

First off - there were way too many POV's at the beginning and in true Feeney fashion, they were mixed in with mysterious POV's where you didn't know who was going to turn out to be the narrator. That issue resolved itself a little once I got going with the story.

This book was a little bit of a hot mess express, where there were too many stories going on at once, and when they came together, they fit so unrealistically perfectly that I couldn't help but role my eyes. Everything just so conveniently fell into place, including the detective. It was too much.

Every single character was a terrible person, and it was frustrating that there was no communication between them.

My biggest personal pet peeve in thrillers is leaving every single chapter hanging with a reference to a secret the narrator is keeping. I much prefer when the narrator finds out a secret with the reader, or when the narrator is unreliable, and the reader didn't know they had a secret. The whole ending every section with, "and no one knew the secret she was keeping," just feels like an annoying cop out to me.

I had no issues with the narration of the audiobook. And the writing was very good. It was the story itself that didn't hold up for me,

Thank you to Flatiron Books for the advanced copy. I didn't necessarily care for this one, but I will continue to be an Alice Feeney fan and wait patiently for her next book.

Wow - this book is a trip! It's comprised of four points of view from four individual, strong women who have each endured varying levels of hardship and have made questionable--largely illegal--decisions. A detective is nosing around, talking about three suspects, two murders, and one victim...

I read this (audio)book in a day, partially because I didn't WANT to put it down and partially because I was worried that I would get confused if I put it down for a while and came back to it! This is a rare audiobook that caused me to pause and take a few notes. I love audiobooks, but I am a visual person and was beginning to get confused with four separate points of view. Once I had a few notes written on each character, I was all set! This would have been a GREAT candidate for an ensemble cast of four rather than two similar voices.

Watch for this book to be released in late August! Thank you, sincerely, to MacMillan Audio and NetGalley for early access!

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this audio ARC. This book had so much potentially, but it just didn't work for me. There were way too many points of views that I found myself confused on who was who in the book. I don't want to have to take notes when I am reading fiction.

Holy moly! This book was so unexpected. It had so many twists I’m feeling whiplashed. I thoroughly enjoyed every piece of this book and loved that I never knew what was coming next!

Alice’s books just get better with each one that I read. This book was very different from her other books that I have read. I loved the different characters and watching how their personal narratives wove together. Even the characters I didn’t initially like grew on me over time. This was an audiobook I didn’t want to put down and kept me engaged and look guessing to the end. Thank you netgalley and Macmillan Audio for the ARC of this book.

Alice Feeney is an incredible writer. I have loved all of her books and this one is no exception. This book was a bit of a slow burn but it was just so good in the end. I loved the character development among the main characters and the story just tied together so well. I thought I knew where the story was going, and I was so wrong.

The book follows the lives of 4 women Frankie, Patience, Edith, and Clio. Each chapter comes from their perspectives.

Frankie works in a prison and her daughter recently ran away from home. Patience is a worker in a care facility taking care of Edith, and Edith is Clio's mom. Edith thinks Clio left her there to get rid of her.

When residents of the care facility turn up dead, Edith vows to escape, but not before the murder of another victim.

Although the story starts off a little slow, the way everything comes together and the final twist has kept me thinking of this book for days.

What another great Feeney novel! Devoured this in a day! Literally the only negative thing to say, I was a bit confused from all the characters. But I think that’s mostly from listening to it, and not having it in physical form. Other than that, the twists (multiple) and plot…. Amazing!

I absolutely love Alice Feeney books, but this one took it to a whole different level. The twists and turns were not what I was expecting at all! Wonderful book and wonderfully written.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for this ARC! This was a really twisty and surprisingly sad story. I love Alice’s books and this might be up there with my favorite of hers. Good Bad Girl is a psychological drama told through multiple POVS. I enjoyed the narrators, but I did have to keep notes to keep up with the characters.

I would recommend reading physically if you find multiple POVS hard to follow. All and all, this was a great book and I highly recommend to fans of Feeney’s other books.

Alice Feeney always writes some wild twists into her stories and this one was no different. While there were some parts of the storyline that I caught onto very early, I was not expecting how the entire story unfolded.

Giving this four stars because of adoption. I look forward to the day when really good books can be written and adoption does not have to be part of the story. As a first mother, I could relate to parts of 16 year old Chloe’s experience. There were some cringing adoption language parts in this. And for adopted individuals reading, they could be triggered by some of the scenes.

This is still a great book and I was eager to read it, which lead to completing it in one sitting.