ShortBookandScribes #BlogTour #BookReview – Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney
Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney which is published by Pan Macmillan and out now. My thanks to Chloe Davies for the review copy and the place on the tour.
Author Grady Green is having the worst best day of his life.
Grady calls his wife as she’s driving home to share some exciting news. He hears Abby slam on the brakes, get out of the car, then nothing. When he eventually finds her car by a cliff edge, the headlights are on, the driver door is open, her phone is still there . . . but his wife has disappeared.
A year later, Grady is still overcome with grief and desperate to know what happened to Abby. He can’t sleep, and he can’t write, so he travels to a tiny Scottish island to try to get his life back on track. Then he sees the impossible: a woman who looks exactly like his missing wife.
Wives think their husbands will change, but they don’t.
Husbands think their wives won’t change, but they do.
A book about a writer and a remote Scottish island? Yes please! Bestselling author Grady Green’s wife, Abby, went missing a year ago. Unable to write and earn a living, he is down on his luck when his agent suggests taking himself off to the Isle of Amberly to knuckle down and try and regain his writing mojo.
From even before Grady boards the ferry something feels very amiss about the island and that continues throughout the whole of the book. I loved the way it messed with his mind and with mine. Was Grady the ultimate unreliable narrator or was there something seriously odd going on? The mystery of Abby’s disappearance, the bizarre behaviour of the characters and the brilliant and peculiar setting kept me hooked.
For I do love an island setting and a map such as the one at the beginning of the book. Amberly takes remote to an extreme and Grady’s feelings of being trapped there become more and more intense. I had a little idea of what might be going on but Alice Feeney still managed to throw in a few more curveballs to keep Grady and me on our toes.
I really enjoyed reading Beautiful Ugly. It’s cunning and clever, the plotting is tight and the storyline is taut and gripping.
Alice Feeney is a New York Times million-copy bestselling author of novels including His & Hers, Sometimes I Lie, Rock Paper Scissors and Daisy Darker. Her books have been translated into over thirty-five languages, and have been optioned for major screen adaptations, with His & Hers currently in production for Netflix, produced by Jessica Chastain, and starring Tessa Thompson and Jon Bernthal
Alice was a BBC journalist for fifteen years. Her seventh novel, Beautiful Ugly, will be published around the world in January 2025.
You can follow Alice on Instagram, Facebook & Twitter. To find out the latest book and TV news, or to sign up for Alice’s free newsletter, please visit alicefeeney.com.
