Beautiful Ugly is a contemporary domestic thriller about an author who stays in a cabin on an isolated Scottish island to write his next book but begins to see glimpses of his missing wife everywhere.

Grady Green’s wife went missing a year ago after investigating a body in the middle of the road. Inconsolable and out of money, Grady accepts his agent’s offer to stay in her cabin on a tiny Scottish island, hoping to find the quiet he needs to write his next book. But everywhere he looks, he sees glimpses of his missing wife. The island’s inhabitants are strange and seem unwilling to let him leave.

Beautiful Ugly is told through alternating POVs between Grady and his wife, Abby (in the weeks leading up to her disappearance). It quickly becomes clear that there are unreliable narrators at play, and we cannot trust anything Grady sees on the island. Each chapter is cleverly titled with an oxymoron (in keeping with the book’s title), and it has a stunning cover, but those are the only positive things I can say about this book. The characters are untrustworthy and awful, and there is a bland, humorless tone to every interaction that made the story completely unenjoyable. By the time the big reveal came, I didn’t really care why anyone did what they did—I just wanted the twist to happen so I could move on with my life.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️

🎧 Narrator Notes: Beautiful Ugly is narrated by Richard Armitage and Tuppence Middleton, who do an excellent job with the various voices and accents required for the story.

Disclosure: An ALC (Advanced Listening Copy) was provided by Macmillan Audio for review purposes. All thoughts and opinions are my own.