I’ve always been a huge fan of Alice Feeney novels. I think my favorite so far would be Daisy Darker. If you haven’t read it, go read it. Prepare to be amazed! Daisy Darker was one of the rare books that I’d probably reread if I had nothing new to read. I’ve yet to reread a book! Except the one time I did on accident. Read a whole book and then at the end, at the twist, it suddenly hit me that I’d read it before and I’d hated the ending! Haha, that was so disappointing.

So, Beautiful Ugly. Honestly, I have mixed feelings toward it. The story is about an author who’s wife goes missing while driving home one night. He’d been on the phone with her when she saw a person in the road, and against his wishes, she went out to help them. She disappeared. It then goes to a year later, he’s still in a state of distress after losing his wife. Can’t function, can’t sleep, can’t write a new novel that he’s already been paid by the publisher for. Long story shortened, he ends up on a nearly deserted island (25 inhabitants) staying in a cabin. Starting on the ferry ride over, he thinks he sees his wife everywhere. He assumes he’s hallucinating from being unable to sleep since she disappeared. The police have presumed her deceased.

Starting nearly right off the bat, he keeps having bizarre things happen to him. He really thinks he’s losing his mind at times! But once he’s warmed up to the island and gotten in the swing of things, the strange occurrences stop and he feels a bit more at ease for awhile. Until he’s sent his final draft to his editor and has decided he needs to get off the island. I won’t share anymore as I don’t want to give it away!

I was enjoying the story and having fun working my brain piecing everything together. All of the characters are unique and I loved trying to decipher who they really were. What were they hiding? Alice Feeney is incredible at writing and the entire book was so easy to envision exactly what the scenery looked like. I love when authors can do that and you feel right there with them.

The ending was a huge surprise. So it’s a good thing, I didn’t see it coming at all. My reaction was “wait, WHAT?!” Which typically I love. But I also love when there’s a couple clues throughout the book that would be like oh my gosh yes that makes sense. There wasn’t. It seemed it just came out of nowhere to me.

Overall, I do recommend Beautiful Ugly. It’s very well written and a fun read. One of those can’t put it down books. If you read it though, pay super close attention and once you’ve finished, see if there were any clues! Maybe I missed it. Let me know!

💞Bethany