Beautiful Ugly

August 1, 2024

Grady Green's wife has inexplicably gone missing. Still overcome with grief a year after her disappearance, Grady takes a trip to a small Scottish island, where he spots a woman who looks just like his wife. Bestselling Feeney's (Good Bad Girl) latest receives a 150K-copy first printing. Prepub Alert.

Copyright 2024 Library Journal

Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2024
Following the mysterious disappearance of his wife, a struggling London novelist journeys to a remote Scottish island to try to get his mojo back--but all, of course, is not what it seems. Grady Green hits the pinnacle of his publishing career on the same night that his life goes off the rails--first his book lands on theNew York Times bestseller list, and then his wife, Abby, goes missing on her way home. A year later, Grady is a mere shadow of his former self: out of money and out of ideas. So, when his agent, Abby's godmother, suggests that he spend some time on the Isle of Amberly, in a log cabin left to her by one of her writers, it seems as good a plan as any. With free housing for himself and his dog and a beautiful, distraction-free environment, maybe he can finally complete the next novel. But from the very beginning, Grady's experiences with Amberly seem weird, if not downright ominous: As a visitor, he's not allowed to bring his car onto the island; the local businesses are only open for a few hours at a time; and there are no birds. At all. Not to mention the skeletal hand he finds buried under the floorboards of the cabin, the creepy harmonica music in the woods, and the occasional sighting of a woman in a red coat who's a dead ringer for Abby. As Grady falls deeper and deeper into insomnia and alcoholism, he begins to realize his being on the island is no accident--and that should make him very afraid. Through occasional chapters from before Abby's disappearance, told from her point of view, we learn that Grady is not necessarily a reliable narrator, and the book's slow unfolding of dread, mystery, and then truth is both creative and well-paced. Every chapter heading is an oxymoron, like the title, reminding us of the contradictions at the heart of every story. "Nasty little fellows...always get their comeuppance," a movie character once said. Deeply satisfying.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from December 1, 2024
This may be Feeney's most delightfully chilling thriller yet, following a clutch of best-sellers that includes Sometimes I Lie (2018), His & Hers (2020), and Rock Paper Scissors (2021). Here, Feeney mixes gothic atmosphere on a remote Scottish island; not one, but two possibly unreliable narrators; a woman who may or may not be dead; and a plot that delivers suspense like an IV drip. The protagonists are both writers living in a thatched roof cottage near the sea on the south coast of England. Husband Grady Green is a fiction writer; wife Abby is an investigative journalist. Grady is on the phone with Abby when she leaves her car after witnessing an accident--and then she disappears. One year later, Grady's life in tatters, he accepts his agent's offer of a writing cabin on an island. The residents are a bit strange, informing him that no one ever leaves the island, and communicating with each other solely by walkie-talkies. The bulk of the narration belongs to Grady, with some shards of Abby's therapy sessions before she went missing. Grady's increasingly eerie experiences on the island intensify the suspense. Is he just unraveled by grief, or is he being hunted? A completely immersive puzzle.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

December 13, 2024

Eager to give his wife, Abby, the exciting news that he's just made the New York Times bestseller list, Grady Green calls her while she's driving. She tells him she sees a woman lying in the road; he urges her to stay in the car, but she does not heed his warning. The police later find Abby's car with the door open and her phone on the seat, but no one is inside. As the days and weeks pile up, Grady is no longer able to write, such is his grief and worry over his missing wife. Then Grady's literary agent, a longtime friend of the couple, suggests he visit her cabin on a Scottish island. It's remote, beautiful, and a good place to recover and write again. The island is idyllic, the cabin quaint, but Grady keeps seeing Abby's ghost. The longer he stays, the more foreboding it becomes. VERDICT Feeney (Rock Paper Scissors) pens another superb domestic psychological thriller with plenty of twists, as her readers have come to expect. Demand will be high.--Cynthia Price

Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.