Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney is a suspenseful mystery, set largely on an obscure Scottish island. It’s a chilling portrayal of marriage and revenge, with an ominous tone that will keep readers guessing until the very last chapter.
Grady Green has just received a call from his editor, informing him that after years of toil, he is finally a New York Times Bestselling author. Overjoyed, he calls his wife to share the news. While they’re on the phone, his wife gets out of the car to investigate a woman lying in the road. She stops responding, and by the time Grady gets there to see what’s going on, her car is there, but both his wife and the woman on the road are gone.
A year later, Abby is still gone, and Grady still has no idea what happened to her. The not knowing is torturing him, but the police have long since given up the search. In the wake of Abby’s disappearance, Grady’s life completely fell apart. So his agent — his wife’s godmother — offers him a place to stay, a cabin in Scotland where a late client of hers used to write. On this island, while he’s supposed to be writing his new book, he starts thinking he sees his wife. Is it grief, madness, or drink making him lose his mind? Or has she been hidden away here the whole time? Either way, there is more to this story than it seems.
Grady is a bit of a tricky character. He’s constantly wallowing in self-pity. He’s a maudlin sort of guy, and at times his grief makes him a bit bland, especially before he moves to the island. But he’s also incredibly sleep-deprived, which is an excellent tool for building an unreliable narrator.
While her husband is the central character in this story, Abby’s influence is certainly felt, despite how little readers know about her. I wanted to know more about Abby throughout the course of the story, but only ever got tidbits, up until the very end.
Beautiful Ugly is, at its core, a story of a troubled marriage. Throughout the book, something feels off the entire time, obviously intentional, but it makes for a slightly unsettling reading experience. Grady is an unreliable narrator, but it’s clear that something is quite wrong in this village.
The complex web of characters and coincidences leads to a gripping third act, which was welcome after a bit of a slow start. I could not put this book down until all the loose ends were properly tied up. Despite mixed feelings while reading this book, in the end, Beautiful Ugly was a fascinating exploration of a failing marriage and a unique island with a story to tell.
Writing: 3.5
Kindle: $14.99
Hardback: $25.00
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