ALC Review: Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney
Release date: 14 January 2025
Rating: 4.5/5
Narrators: Richard Armitage, Tuppence Middleton
Narration Rating: 5/5
Book Box(es): Book of the Month January, UK Indie Bookstore Edition
Synopsis: The million-copy bestselling Queen of Twists Alice Feeney returns with a gripping and deliciously dark thriller about marriage. . .
. . . and revenge.
Author Grady Green is having the worst best day of his life.
Grady calls his wife to share some exciting news as she is driving home. He hears Abby slam on the brakes, get out of the car, then nothing. When he eventually finds her car by the 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.
Review
Beautiful Ugly makes my first Feeney book, and I think I may be hooked. I've officially been Feeneyed. I had the pleasure of listening to this one as an audio book (ALC), and the narrator, Richard Armitage, is one of my favorite narrators: I checked, and it looks like I'm in luck - Armitage also narrates at least to three other Feeney books. Which I will be adding to my audio TBR five minutes ago.
I usually avoid thrillers. Like the plague. I bore easily during stories I know the ending to, and most thrillers do not escape the easily-predictable orbit. Feeney's Beautiful Ugly gave a mystery to solve but no reliable narrator and a few twists that came from nowhere. It would take me a second read through, which I'm unlikely to do, in order to make sure there wasn't some kind of foreshadowing. If there proves to be some, it was undetectable for me on a first listen.
Grady, our grieving widower, has a pet and practically no job. I say practically because ever since his wife disappeared, he's been unable to create a story he can sell to his publisher, even though he's a bestselling author. He's shiftless, only relates with his dog; and his agent, bless her, takes pity on him and sends him to a remote cabin so he can get out of his own head and write. As an adult, he will need to be able to feed, clothe, and shelter himself; so he reluctantly takes the trip—and slowly starts losing what's left of his mental clarity.
The cabin and the island, for the most part, give strong Edgar Allan Poe vibes. Here, Feeney puts readers in an all-encompassing and immersive setting. I've read immersive, and I mean absolutely fantastic, transportive writing, before. Feeney can write setting and atmosphere extremely well. But, though the setting is immersive and the unreliable narrator had me questioning my own recollections as I progressed through the book, a story must be more than its setting.
The tale starts to struggle a bit once Grady gets to the island. It’s not too much of a struggle, but it’s enough of one that the reveal was a bit out of left field. I may not be used to Feeney’s style, maybe, but I didn’t see that coming and I sure didn’t catch any of the foreshadowing if Feeney was throwing it. It’s okay, though, I enjoyed the ride enough that I didn’t care what carnival ride was at the end or if the peanuts were stale or not.
The Armitage/Middleton narration was awesome (it’s Armitage—it’s ALWAYS going to be awesome), the environs were spooky enough to make me jumpy, and I didn’t have a clue what was going on until Feeney told me when the book was finished. I loved it, and I’ll be reading more Feeney in the future for sure. Who cares if there aren’t any unicorns, fairies, or laser guns?
My thanks to Macmillan Audio for the ALC, for which I willingly give my own, honest opinion.
Comments