Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney
Read by Richard Armitage and Tuppence Middleton
Published: January 2025
Summary from Goodreads:
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.
Wives think their husbands will change but they don’t.
Husbands think their wives won’t change but they do.
Confession:
This was my first book by Alice Feeney, but I don’t think it will be my last. Especially if they are all like this one. I was immediately hooked into this story and I was floored by the big twist at the end that then made me rethink everything that had happened before. I didn’t totally love the final chapter, but it did sort of fit with the rest of the book.
The audiobook was great. I liked the way the used music and some sound effects, such as the crackle of the walkie talkies. It really added to the story. I also really enjoyed listening to Richard Armitage as Grady. He did a really excellent job of portraying a man who was on the edge the whole book. He is quickly becoming one of my favorite readers. Tuppence Middleton also did a great job of voicing Abby. She sounded just like a woman who is unhappy but unsure what to do about it.
I really liked Grady to start with, but he kind of eventually lost my trust slowly over the course of the book. He tells the majority of the story, and I really felt sorry for him and his grief over losing his wife. I could feel his slow spiral into madness through his actions and his thoughts. I really thought that he believed he loved his wife. I also liked Abby and totally understood her feelings about feeling trapped but unsure about how to get herself out of it. I also really enjoyed some of the quirky characters that lived on the island.
I don’t want to say too much about the plot, because you really just need to read it for yourself. The story really grips you from the start and then it just rushes along until you get to that surprise ending. When that twist happened, I started to question everything that had happened up to that point, I almost started the whole book over again, just to see how I missed what was really going on. Really well written and I loved every single bit of it.
I hadn’t run across this book before Goodreads put out their Reader’s Hit New Books of the Year list a few weeks ago. I don’t usually click on those banners that pop up, but I decided to see what books were on this list and see if I agreed with them or not. There were a lot of books that I had either seen around or read, but this one caught my eye and I am so glad it did.
If you love twisty stories with great characters and a surprise ending you will never see coming than this one is for you. If you enjoy audiobooks that is definitely the way to read this one. I hope to pick up another book by this author soon.
Confessions of a Serial Reader 
I loved this audiobook with the sound effects and all
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The sound effects were perfect!
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