Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Did I just read my favorite book of 2025?
I’m gagged, I’m gobsmacked, I’m elated. I had so much fun reading this. I highly recommend the audiobook, fabulously narrated by Richard Armitage and Tuppence Middleton.
It’s like Feeney wrote this with me in mind.
The very start of this novel gripped me so hard I could barely breath. That’s how you start a story. I can’t remember if it was a Prologue, or just the first chapter, but I was immediately hooked.
This story follows author, Grady Green, who we meet when he is on the cusp of receiving some excellent news for his career. His wife, Abby, is running late for dinner and he is anxious for her to return home, so they can hear the news together and celebrate.
They end up on the phone on her drive home, and while speaking, she comes across a person laying in the road. He tells her to keep driving, but she insists on stopping. He hears her get out of the car, with him still on the line, but never hears anything from her again…
Picking up a year later, Grady is an absolute mess. He can’t sleep, he can’t concentrate, and he certainly can’t write.
There are so many unanswered questions. Abby’s car was found, all of her belongings still there, but she was just gone without a trace.
Worried about his state of mind, his agent, Kitty, who was Abby’s Godmother, offers Grady an escape. The use of her cabin, a verifiable Writer’s Retreat, on the remote Scottish island of Amberley.
By remote, we’re talking only a handful of people live on this island year-round. Grady is willing to try anything, he needs to get his mind straight, so along with his lovable Labrador, Colombo, he sets off for Amberley.
From the very start, things do not go as planned. Once there, even he is shocked by the remoteness. It’s a bit like traveling back in time. The atmosphere, the solitude, the quiet, it ends up getting under his skin and into his mind.
Complicating matters further, he keeps seeing a woman who looks exactly like his missing wife? How can this be? Is it just the island playing tricks with his mind, or is Abby alive and well on Amberley?
Beautiful Ugly has everything I love. I was beyond immersed. I barely remembered the synopsis by the time I picked it up and I loved the directions Feeney took this one.
Not to mention, the ending left me with that exquisite little evil grin on my face that I love so much at the end of any Thriller story. It was brilliantly-executed.
I’m an Atmosphere Girlie, first-and-foremost and the atmosphere in this is off-the-charts.
The island itself was so interesting. We get to meet quite a few of the regular residents and they had me scratching my head. It’s an odd group of people.
There were aspects that reminded me a bit of Thomas Olde Heuvelt’s Hex, just in regards to the overall mystery of this little community. In fact, this did feel like she was toeing the line into Horror territory on more than one occasion with the haunting descriptions of this location.
As an island resident myself, I feel like Feeney truly nailed the island vibes, from the troubles with getting a ferry to and from, to the isolation over the off-season months.
The mystery and suspense of the story also kept me guessing and kept me wanting more. I read this so quickly, because I needed to know the truth of what was going on.
I know some Readers are not going to like the truth behind the mystery, but for me, I felt it was really fun and I’m happy with how it all turned out.
I would absolutely recommend this story to any Mystery-Thriller Reader, particularly if you’ve enjoyed other works by Feeney. I feel like it’s a must-read for 2025. I loved it.
Thank you so much to the publisher, Macmillan Audio, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I consider Feeney to be an absolute Queen of Suspense, and she didn’t disappoint here!