*I received an audio copy via Macmillian Audio. All reviews are my own.*
I have heard of author Alice Feeney for a couple of years now, and the way her books are talked about in high regard, I wanted to check out a couple of titles from her repertoire. I finally got my wish and received an ARC copy of her upcoming novel Beautiful Ugly, which drops on January 14, 2025. The story is shrouded with mystery about a wife who has been missing for a year and an author who swears he found her on a remote island off the grid.
"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."
I am utterly underwhelmed by what I read and am now seriously reconsidering if I want to read any other books by Feeney. In Beautiful Ugly, we have a writer, Grady, who details his life around the time when his wife mysteriously disappears and his downward spiral after. His agent throws him a bone and gifts him a writing retreat at a remote island to get him back on his feet and to produce a new novel. There, where the population is 25, he finds his wife, and the mystery ensues.
I wished I had DNFed this book at the first possible chance. The mystery writing reminded me so much of The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins, and after the first few chapters, I was instantly bored. Feeney creates the air of suspense; I'll give her that. But she also puts in as many random factors as possible to throw you off the trail to the point where the plot twists don't correlate with the story well. By the novel's end, it's a mumble jumble of instances you're forced to accept to get through the writing outcome.
The characters were disappointingly bland, lacking the depth and complexity that would make me care about any of them. Abby (the wife) almost had me with her version of events, but even towards the end, her plotline fizzled out. Every person in the story was just a moving body with no real purpose; that is a pointless tale for me.
The only things I appreciated about this book were the narrators' performances, actor Richard Armitage, best known for his role in The Hobbit film trilogy, and actress Tuppence Middleton, best known for her role in Downton Abbey. However, 9 hours and 19 minutes could have been longer if it wasn't through audio.
Overall, I rated this book 2-stars. I'm really disappointed that this is my first 2025 read of the year, and my "bang" started like this. It wasn't worth the read, but it's helping me understand more about the genre readings I've been doing. I don't often read Thrillers as much, but when it comes to the genre, I have a very specific type of Thrillers that I enjoy. I'm still trying to define it, but anything Carolyn Keene and Amanda Jayatissa write is my go-to. Feeney, Hawkins, and dare I say Àbíké-Íyímídé isn't it.
Beautiful Ugly debuts January 14, 2025
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