Grady Green is waiting to hear from his agent. He's expecting to hear that his latest book has been added to the NYT bestseller list. The only thing that's marring his excitement is that his wife Abby hasn't come home yet. He's been on the phone with her and she assures him she'll be there soon. After he gets the confirmation call from his agent, he calls Abby again for an updated status on her location. She again says she's nearly home but then he hears an alarming sound of screeching tires. Abby tells him there's the body of a woman on the road in front of her car. Despite her husband's warnings, she gets out of the car and disappears. The story jumps ahead a year when Grady's life has fallen apart. Unable to deal with the mystery surrounding Abby's disappearance, he's lost their house and been unable to write another book. His agent, who also happens to be Abby's godmother, suggests he travel to a remote Scottish island for a writing retreat. Another of her clients left her a cabin on the island after his death, and she thinks being away from places that remind Grady of his lost wife might rekindle his creative spark. Grady is alarmed to realize just how remote the cabin and island are. There is only a sporadic ferry to the island, and only 25 people live there full-time. Visitors such as Grady aren't permitted to bring vehicles onto the island, so his ability to get around is restricted. The cabin, despite being abandoned for many years, is in surprisingly good shape and Grady and his faithful dog settle in and wait for inspiration to strike.

The set-up of the story was very intriguing, but once Grady got to the island, there wasn't a lot going on. All of the inhabitants acted very odd and sinister, so Grady had to run around having strange encounters with most of them. Different people tell him different stories about various things (why the phone box doesn't work, for instance) and they all keep making odd statements about how he can't leave the island. There is apparently a mail ferry that comes to the island most days (as he's able to send and receive things), but it never seems to occur to him to see if he can catch a ride back to the mainland that way. The explanation for what happened to Abby is confusing and not really plausible (or I couldn't make the details work!). I was excited to see where this was going, but I didn't really care for the final destination.

Beautiful Ugly is another incredible psychological thriller the Suspense Queen Alice Feeney. Set on a remote island in Northern Scotland, Feeney’s latest mystery is CREEPY times 100.

When main character Grady’s wife goes missing, the author is understandably distraught. A year later, with a book deadline looming, Grady travels to a tiny island with no service, determined to write until his book is done. That is until he sees a woman identical to his presumed dead wife. Plagued with nightmares and accruing more questions than answers from the standoffish and cult-like locals, Grady soon discovers the island is far more sinister than it appears.

This is my favorite Feeney novel so far, and I think it’s because of how creepy it was! I was flinching at every shadow as I was glued to this book far too late into my evenings, and I was perturbed more often than not by the side characters populating the island. Such an amazing twist, as always, and a great wintery read! Fans of Lucy Foley, Holly Jackson, Riley Sager, and Rachel Hawkins will enjoy.

I absolutely love Alice Feeney's books and have read them all. So, I was very thrilled to have been approved for an ARC of "Beautiful Ugly". I listened to the audiobook and found the narrator, Richard Armitage very easy to listen to and interpretative with his voice styles when reading each character. The book is a story about a marriage that is complex but viewed differently by the husband and wife, and each describe their perception of the marriage. The story had me both liking and disliking the characters and at different times in the story. I was shocked at the ending, but not surprised as was because this is an Alice Feeney story and she is one of the best. I highly recommend this book and rate it a 5 Star read/listen. I wish to thank NetGalley and Flatiron Books for the ARC of "Beautiful Ugly", by Alice Fenney.

A grieving husband who is struggling with writer’s block after his wife Abby, an investigative journalist who’s been getting threats, disappeared one year ago on the night he made the New York Times bestseller list, Grady Green jumps at the chance Kitty, his agent and Abby’s godmother, gives him to get out of his pathetic hotel room in London and spend three months on the Isle of Amberly off the Scottish Highlands in the writing shed of a late author who willed it to her. Even before he reaches its shores, he gets his first sighting of who he believes is Abby. Is it a hallucination, a ghost, or a result of his alcoholism? As it turns out, this is just the beginning of the strange happenings on the small island, its only full-time inhabitants about 25 women who are both mysterious and disturbing. There’s plenty of tension as Grady realizes that he’s essentially trapped with no phone service and a ferry that runs at the whim of the captain who seems determined to keep him from leaving.

Through a series of flashbacks in both Grady’s and his wife Abby’s voices, we get a sense of the state of their marriage before she vanished. There was definitely love but, contrary to what Grady professes, his writing had been his primary focus. Like any good psychological thriller, Feeney kept me on the edge of my seat, but I never anticipated the twists near the end. This isn’t my usual genre, but I appreciated the way Feeney set up the story and her eerie depiction of Amberly. Recommended.

I received a complimentary ARC of this book from Flatiron Books through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

I've read a few Alice Feeney books, and I think I am at the point where I am comfortable enough to say that this author isn't for me. Her plot twists are too out there and don't make a ton of sense.

The unreliable narrator here was basically just lying to the reader the whole time, which I don't appreciate. It's one thing to have hallucinations and wondering different things, but this was outright lying. This in itself ruined the entire book for me.

The Abby chapters were better and the twist there was a good one... but then it raises so many more questions about what had happened at the beginning of the book.

Overall, this didn't make a lot of sense and went on and on with seemingly the only intent being to sway the reader.

Wow! I didn’t not see that one coming. I thought I knew what was going on, but I was so wrong! Alice Feeney did a great job writing in a way that let the reader feel some of what Grady Green must have been feeling. Creepy with shocking twists, Beautiful Ugly was an unputdownable read that I wish I could read for the first time again.

Thanks NetGalley for an ARC of this one.

I'm a fan of this author, but not every book is a winner. This one is somewhere in the middle. As always, an entertaining story with fun twists. But some of the plot points are just beyond the realm of any sort of believability. In some of her books, she goes so far that the whole story just feels ridiculous. That didn't happen here, but it comes close.

Still, nice atmosphere, and I was entertained while reading it!

If you want a dark, entertaining thriller dive in. Personally, I'm over the unreliable narrator thriller trope, and this book leaned heavily on that plot mechanism. It also got a bit confusing with the characters, and made you believe that two storylines happened to the same person. If you want a thriller wrapped up in vengeance this book is for you. Lots of stories of women wronged by men appear in these pages. Thank you Netgalley for the digital ARC and the audiobook. I read a combination of the two.

I had high hopes for this one as I have enjoyed this author in the past. This started off strong but the pacing was so slow and things didn't really pick up until the last 25 percent. I still enjoyed it, I just wish it had been more thrilling and suspenseful.

Alice Feeney is known as the “Queen of Twists,” but unfortunately, Beautiful Ugly just wasn’t my kind of plot pretzel. It had all the ingredients for a gripping thriller—mystery, a remote Scottish island, and a protagonist unraveling at the seams. Yet, I found myself more invested in Googling Scottish island tourism than in Grady’s plight.

The premise is undeniably intriguing: wife disappears under suspicious circumstances, and a year later, her doppelgänger shows up to haunt our tortured author-hero. But somewhere between Grady’s endless brooding and the parade of moody metaphors, the story lost me. It felt like being served a beautifully plated dessert only to discover it’s mostly air.

Grady himself? He’s having the worst best day, but also the most monotonous year. I wanted to root for him, I really did, but his self-pity party had no end in sight. As for the twists, they weren’t so much jaw-dropping as neck-craning—mostly because I kept tilting my head and thinking, Really? That’s where we’re going?

Don’t get me wrong, Feeney’s writing is clever and atmospheric, but the characters felt distant, and the pace dragged in places where I needed it to sprint. This might just be a case of “it’s not you, it’s me.” Plenty of people will likely devour this book like their favorite comfort snack. Me? I’ll be over here, sticking with thrillers that feel a little less… existential crisis in a cold climate.

If you’re a die-hard Feeney fan, give it a go.

This was a very readable suspense thriller that I enjoyed until the end- the conclusion of this book was very bizarre and I think it will find the right reader but that reader was not me. I didn’t know how the author would make this work in the end, but I didn’t enjoy it. I would have liked a more realistic suspense thriller considering the circumstances. I am also not a fan of the unreliable narrator who keeps drinking even though he or she knows it is impairing their ability to function - sorry this trope is tired.

Really loved the wild setting and the ever-building mystery. There are layers of female rage and a reveal that pulls the rug out from under your feet. I'd be happy to give the book 5 stars for the epic revenge at the heart of this story, but the very ending canceled out the entire premise that had been set up at the end.

3 stars!

I'm a bit disappointed with this book because I feel like Alice Feeney is the Queen of Twists, and instead this book felt on one hand obvious from the start, and on the other hand almost incredulous. I never cared for the main character, which is not needed for a good thriller, but I quite literally could not care about his writing career, what was happening to his wife, or how he felt about it.

Once Grady got to the island, the book unfortunately took a nose dive. It was so boring and monotonous, and again I found myself not caring at all. I also think I caught on to what was going on SIGNIFICANTLY faster than Grady did, which drove me nuts because it was so unbelievably obvious.

And then don't even get me started on the twist. I love a great twist, I don't even mind a fun twist, but ultimately this twist made no sense. It felt almost implausible actually, and it made me extremely annoyed with the book because the whole first 80% became essentially a moot point once it was revealed. This was frustrating to me just because there was no realm of possibilities where I thought such a thing would happen, which makes it a bit upsetting for me as a reader.

Thank you to Netgalley and Flatiron Books for an ARC n exchangei for an honest review!

Alice Feeney does it again! The pacing of this book keeps the reader on the edge of their seat. Grady is an author who last talks to his wife, Abby, on her way home to celebrate his latest accolades. How can she just disappear? Grady finds himself thrust into a writing slump as he tries to figure out what happened to Abby. His agent recommends time away on a secluded Scottish Island to clear his mind and find peace to finish his latest book. Grady reluctantly goes but what he finds there will permanently change his future. The Island only allows day visitors under certain conditions. With Grady planning to stay awhile, his life and the ecosystem of the island are upended. Once there will (can) he ever leave? Thanks to Flatiron Books and Net Galley for the ARC. This is my honest review.

Beautiful Ugly is the kind of book where if I described the plot to someone, they would think it sounds exciting and suspenseful, but unfortunately the actual experience of reading the book is more of a dull slog with characters you never care about and an ending that's more of huh than revelatory.

Author Grady Green has just received the biggest news an author can get…he officially has a best seller! While he is in the process of getting this news he is talking to his wife on the phone. She is on her way home to him, but sees someone lying in the road. Against his advice she gets out to offer help. That’s the last time he ever sees her. Grady has a very difficult time moving on after her disappearance. When his agent offers him a chance to go to an island and attempt to get back into writing. He has nothing else so he finally agrees. From the moment he arrives he feels that something is off. He is right, but he can never imagine what it is.

Feeney is very hit or miss with me. Honestly, this was a miss. I wanted to get into the story and love it, but I just didn’t connect with any of the characters and even the big twists didn’t do anything for me.

What an atmospheric and creepy story! I loved it, but I'm curious to see how the reviews shake out, because it reminded me of Daisy Darker, which seems to be one of her fans less favorite books AND The Blue Hour, which I loved but a lot of people didn't. I don't want to say too much because there's a lot in the book that is a spoiler. If you're a Feeney fan like me give this a try!

Grady, once a successful author, has lost everything- his wife went missing a year ago, he had to sell his home and he has such writer's block he not only can't write, he fears he will need to repay his advance, which he absolutely can not afford to do. But then, his agent, Kitty, offers him a big break. She has offered for him to go to a small island and stay in the writer's shed of his now-dead favorite author. However when he arrives on the island, things start to get fishy and he swears he can see his wife everywhere. Grady tries to find out what is going on, but everyone on the island has secrets, and Grady does too.

Thoughts: What the hell did I just read? What started off as a fun, interesting story ended up so strange I needed a break 20 pages before the ending so I could sort my thoughts. I don’t mind an unreliable narrator, or a farfetched twist, but this was just too much weirdness for me.

This is my third book by this author and she is usually an instant-read for me, but this book fell short. It had all the ingredients for a good story, but the end got too insane for me and the final was twist was more baffling than anything else. That said the writing was pretty and there were a lot of quotes I highlighted throughout the book. Will I continue to read her books as they released? Sure, but I am hoping the next one is more reminiscent to her earlier stories.

Thank you NetGalley for an arc of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Alice Feeney is the master of the psychological thriller. She is one of the only novelists in this genre that can still surprise me, and she has done it again with her latest.

Grady Green is an author on the brink of making it big on the bestseller list. He excitedly shares the news with his wife, Abby, who is on her way home with takeout. But when Abby encounters a human lying in the road, Grady discourages her from going to help. To his dismay, Abby gets out of the car … and then vanishes.

Still overcome with grief a year after Abby’s disappearance, Grady can’t sleep and he certainly can’t write. When his agent invites him to use her secluded cabin on a remote island in the Scottish Highlands, Grady jumps at the chance to revive his life and career. What he didn’t count on was seeing a woman that looks exactly like his wife.

Oof. This book had me so engrossed. The setting was eerily engaging, the characters were interesting and the whole book just captured me right from the start. My mind was spinning from the get-go. I didn’t know who or what to trust, and some of the twistiness I did not see coming. I think what made this book the most enjoyable for me was the tiny island community. I don’t want to say too much because I feel this book is best to go in blind.

Thank you to Alice Feeney, Flatiron Books and NetGalley for an advance digital copy of the book for an honest review.

All I can say is what was that?
This book had me hooked for a very long time until we got to the “one year later” chapter. This made me question everything I had read and I still am lost. I can’t stand when an author leaves us lost with no explanation.