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.
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Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney is published in hardback on 30 January 2025 by Macmillan. My thanks to the publisher who sent my copy for review.
Prepare yourselves folks; this one takes you one of the most twisty, mind bending rides that you will ever encounter. What appears to be an almost run-of-the-mill 'missing wife' mystery turns into a complex, psychologically chilling story. Narrated by two narrators who appear to be increasingly unreliable and populated by a cast of some of the strangest, most bizarre characters that I've ever read. This is a novel that pushes the reader's boundaries but grips with a very firm fist.
Grady Green was a New York Times best selling author. It's difficult to imagine that just one year ago he was celebrating the success of his latest book. Twelve months on and he's a broken man. He is unable to write, he lives in a dingy hotel with his dog, he has no friends, no money and is most probably an alcoholic. Why? Well, on the night that he found out that his book was a best seller, his phoned his wife Abby; she was driving home, with celebratory fish and chips. Whilst on the phone, Grady heard Abby stop the car, telling him that there was a woman laying in the road. Although Grady begged her to stay in the car, Abby got out. That was the last time that Grady heard from her. He dashed to the scene but Abby was gone, and she's still missing.
Grady's agent is worried about him and offers him the chance to stay on the remote Scottish island of Amberley, in a cabin previously owned by a top author. Grady packs his car, takes his dog Columbo and makes the long journey to the ferry to the island. However, he's not given the warmest of welcomes by the woman who runs the ferry, and is also Sheriff of Amberley. He has to leave his car on the mainland, and carry essentials to the cabin.
Amberley has just twenty-five residents and as Grady meets each one of them, he realises that the community is a little strange. Everyone that he meets seems to know who he is. The most frightening thing for Grady is that he thinks that he sees his wife Abby on the island, not once, but a few times. However, he's aware that he's exhausted, his insomnia could be making him hallucinate, how on earth could Abby be here?
Grady makes a very strange discovery under the floorboards of the cabin, it's quite macabre but is also the answer to his predicament. He gets on and begins to write his book.
I'm not going to go into more detail about the plot, but it's an absolute belter. With characters who are perfectly created, yet always quite bizarre and the incredible setting of the wildness of the island, this author has produced a totally unpredictable, dark, chilling and extremely clever thriller.
Highly recommended by me.
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