Novel set in USA, VIETNAM and JAPAN
A twisty mystery set on a remote island (HEBRIDES)
27th January 2025
Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney, a twisty mystery set on a remote island (Hebrides).
Grady Green is now a successful author, featuring in the New York Times Bestseller List. It has been a long time coming.He is delighted to have his wife Abby in his life, who has been a great support in his working life. The feeling however isn’t mutual and we soon discover the level of her unhappiness given the lack of support she feels she has from him.
Early in the novel she is driving home as he is waiting to hear about the success (or not) of his latest novel and Abby is not yet with him, but covering the miles to get home. She lets him know that she has stopped for an emergency as a woman is lying in the road. Abby gets out… and disappears. Grady is heartbroken and his life starts to fall apart. Abby remains missing.
His agent, Kitty, steps in (she is also Abby’s godmother) and suggests he decamp to the (fictional) Isle of Amberley, where she has a cabin and where, in recent history, a brilliant writer spent a great deal of time penning books. Perhaps the isolation and focus will facilitate work on the new novel that Grady so desperately needs to produce. The island is six by five miles and there are, it turns out, only 25 people living there. A few tourists are allowed to travel across the water in the Summer months but generally it is an extremely tight-knit community with a quirk or two, as Grady soon discovers.
The author creates a real sense of isolation and suspense by creating a cracking atmospheric and textured backdrop. The trees, the moaning of children’s voices, whilst the wind and weather lash the bleak crags.
photo ©Alice Feeney at Barnes and Noble
Grady’s first impression is of a normal community, as the inhabitants eke out a living, but gradually it becomes clear to the reader that all is not what it seems. At first, Grady continues about his daily business seemingly oblivious to some of the oddities of the island (everyone uses walkie talkies, the public phone box doesn’t seem to work, there is a fully-stocked butcher for the 25 inhabitants, several islanders wear similar rings…). A discovery changes the trajectory of his life and as he starts to consciously assimilate some of the weirder aspects of island life, everything is turned upside down.
I have seen this novel appear on my Social Media timelines over the last couple of months, it has been extensively and positively reviewed and I concur – especially if you like a storyline that is just a bit different. It also reminded me in many ways of Paula Hawkins’ latest novel The Blue Hour, set in the Borders and also on a very well described island in the middle of nowhere, further north.
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