3.5, rounding up to 4 stars!

Maddie and Ian’s romance first began when they met overseas many years ago. They were both young and attracted to each other. Ian was serving in the British Army and Maddie was a travel writer. Brought together in a chance encounter thanks to mutual friend, Jo, the two can’t seem to get each other off their minds.

Almost two decades have passed since they first met. They are now married and raising their son, Charlie, in your standard suburban town in Kansas. Tragedy strikes the family while out on a camping trip. Maddie has a terrible accident that leaves her face badly scarred and unable to remember what happened. She being writing therapy as a way to heal and to make the memories of that night come back to her. Her fears start to come to light about Ian’s PTSD, the safety of their son, and what might happen in the future. Then the night of the 911 call happens and suddenly this family is down to two members. What exactly happened that night? Who doesn’t make it out alive?

BEAUTIFUL BAD falls into the domestic suspense realm of the crime fiction genre. Annie Ward does a fantastic job of building the story of Maddie and Ian for the reader through the use of alternating timelines, alternating narrators, and flashes to “The Day of the Killing”. Three different writing devices can be an overwhelming mix, but Ward effortlessly blends everything together to make a cohesive story about this couple. I’m typically the reader who would rather focus on present day situations between a couple, but Ward succeeded in actually making me interested in the backstory of how Maddie and Ian met. The couple’s origin story was quite intriguing and certainly necessary knowledge to understand their present day mindsets.

One of my favorite aspects of this story was the suspense created around the “The Day of the Killing” passages. Ward doesn’t immediately tell you what has happened, but tosses a partial bombshell at the reader from the start. I found myself anticipating these sections and getting to the truth of what was happening. Ward smartly backtracks the reader to a few weeks before the day in question as a way to keep the reader’s mind guessing.

I loved everything about this book, until I got to the ending, which is where things started to fall apart for me. There were some obvious clues about what have happened and I was able to guess the final situation. Not every single detail, but enough to know where things were headed. The ending itself got to be a bit too far-fetched for my tastes. While I appreciate what Ward’s end goal was, I would have preferred certain pieces to have been different. I’ll leave it at that to avoid spoilers.

Despite not loving the ending, I do think that BEAUTIFUL BAD is a book worth reading! There are plenty of twists and flawed characters to keep you entertained by this story. It’s definitely a book you’re going to want to discuss with others, so while you’re picking up your copy, snag one for a friend too!

I am struggling with how to explain how I feel about this book without giving too much away. Up until almost the very end, I would have given the book 2 stars. It somewhat redeemed itself at the end, but still left a bad taste in my mouth. I was annoyed by Maddie's assertion that she knew Ian was damaged but that she loved him, wanted to marry him and have a child, and then would go from there. Characters like this deserve what they get! I also could not understand the attachment between Maddie and Ian. So by the time I finally waded through the long, long set up and got to the end, I was more interested in being done with the book than enjoying the ending itself.

Beautiful Bad is an absolute top read of 2019 for me! It’s so unique in the way it’s written and kept me on the edge of my seat through the whole thing. Every time I thought I knew where it was going it took a different turn. At first I was struggling with the book because of all the different times and places and then it made more sense as I kept reading. But once I got more into this book I couldn’t put it down and ended staying up all through the night to finish it but totally worth the book hangover! I would normally give a detailed review a book explaining characters but this would ruin this book! It’s a five star book and I highly recommend this book!

I don’t typically read anything that gets categorized as thriller, mystery, and/or suspense. My reader wheelhouse spins around historical fiction, magical realism, and maybe a contemporary romance or an occasional cozy mystery. But there was something in the publisher’s blurb for this book that piqued my interest. It might have been the Eastern European backdrop or the centrality of post-traumatic stress disorder to the storyline. Whatever it was in the blurb that caught my attention, I’m glad that I read this book, as it will haunt me for some time to come.

I really could say that the author could have done much more with her book, as the settings and characters themselves could have been more richly developed. But at what cost? The book started innocuously enough, with one of the central characters questioning whether she should see a therapist, then flashed forward to the day of the killing, and then flashed back to weeks before the killing, and then continued nonlinear until the end. Information about the characters and their relationships was carefully parsed out through nonlinear development and alternating points of view. That made the book reminiscent of a little freight train: it took a while to gain steam, but once it was off and running, it was almost impossible to stop.

Post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury are integral to the storyline, but in different ways. The portrayal of post traumatic stress disorder was predominantly portrayed through third party observation, with the character afflicted by the disorder adding to the complexity by vomiting his feelings through dialogue. I would have wished for that character to have first person narrative to enrich the complexity of the post traumatic stress disorder element to the story. Traumatic brain injury element didn’t emerge until almost halfway through the novel, but quickly gathered steam from there. Its portrayal through inferences and clues scattered throughout the novel seemed very subtle and appropriate to the book.

Without spoiling the plot, I can say that this book definitely has an “Oh my! How did I not see that coming?” moment. And that definitely makes me want to reshelve this book for a reread. I’m curious as to whether knowing the end of the book will help me see all the clues that I may have missed throughout the way. Then again, there are unreliable and manipulative narrators throughout the book, so the reread may not be as enlightening as I hope it might be.

Loved this book!!!!! It has a lot of characters to remember in the beginning but once it gets started, it keeps you on your toes !

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read this in exchange for my honest review!

Beautiful Bad is definitely one of the top books I have read in awhile. It was so captivating and had me pulled in immediately. I just loved this book. The characters were real to me. I could picture the settings. I felt genuine sympathy for the main character, Maddie. This was just so well written and shocking. I would totally read more by this author. I can’t say enough good about this book!

Thank you Park Row for the copy of this book - all opinions are my own.

I completely devoured this book - this has to be one of the fastest-paced domestic suspense thrillers I have read in a long time. I had read some mixed reviews of this book going in, and I wasn't at all surprised to find myself firmly on the "LOVED IT" side of the discussion when I hit the last page.

Annie Ward does a magnificent job of creating a tension on the pages and between the characters. I love a book that moves back and forth between timelines, especially when it's done as well as it is in this story. Jumping between the day of the killing, the early days of Maddie and Ian meeting, and the many years between the two dates, the way that the story unspools a bit at a time had me on the edge of my seat guessing while finding myself totally surprised over and over again. Even when I had ideas of what twists might be, they were never quite what I expected, and I that is a mark of a terrific book in my world.

As usual, I won't offer a single spoiler for this book. I will say that its a fantastic character drama, and a very well done suspense novel, and that I cannot imagine a thriller reader out there who won't be entertained by this one!

The story starts off with a bang, or rather a 911 call for help. The first officer to arrive jumps into the middle of a long story. Annie Ward tells the story in three definite parts, moving forward and backwards to keep the reader thinking. As she tells the story of this marriage it becomes clear that something is not quite right. How she moves from each character telling their version of the story is often used to build back story and in this case, sometimes it works, sometimes it's confusing. How the characters arrive at the 911 call is a really good story that the reader will enjoy. Keeps you guessing until the very end...as a good book does.

The story begins with an alarming 911 call that drew me in. When the first police officer arrives, she has a feeling that the female who called needs help immediately; going against regulations, she enters the house and finds a bloody crime scene. Cut to the beginning....

The books goes back and forth through time. I’ve found this is a very effective, way to lead the reader through the twists and turns found in psychological thrillers and keep them hooked until the very end. I really enjoy the way these books lead me to believe one thing, then with the sleight and careful wording from the author’s hand, I find that wasn’t what happened at all.

The author, Annie Ward, did a great job of describing the main character, Maddie. Much of the story is told through her remembrances and experiences. Her voice is very realistic. Like most books of this kind, it has twists and turns with an unveiling toward the end.

There is cursing and much talk of sex.

Overall, I thought the book was good.

Favorite Quotes:

“What do you fancy? The throat or the crap?” He pushed the menu in front of me. It was immediately obvious to me that whoever had translated “trout” and “carp” for the English menu had made some very unfortunate spelling errors.

The toothless octogenarian playing the accordion suddenly fell upon our table like a vampire bat on a herd of cows, and I started digging through my wallet for a tip.

“You could never be just another one of the flock,” Ian said, leaning close to me and looking into my eyes. One of his fingers batted at my hair. “Your wool is far too dark.”

And all the while I was sitting there getting my head wrapped in foil like it was a giant baked potato, these girls kept bringing me drinks. In retrospect I see very clearly that I should have been suspicious of a salon that felt the need to get you drunk before you see the results of their handiwork.

Something profound had happened to me just before I lost consciousness. At the exact second that I gave up all hope of surviving, my mind sparkled with unhinged, ecstatic, unbridled euphoria, a joy of such magnitude that I was instantly captive to it, and of a replete and searing sensuousness so irresistible that I opened my mouth to take it all in more deeply. I knew with utmost certainty, as it were as simple as two plus two or the sky is blue, that there was nothing at all to fear.


My Review:

My mind is still processing this compelling tale, it was ingenious and frustrating, and mesmerizing, and maddeningly paced all the way to the chilling end. The characters were a train wreck, and much like arriving at a train wreck I couldn’t look away; they fascinated, vexed, intrigued, antagonized, annoyed, and held me captive to my Kindle. I wasn’t sure who was the most disturbed as they were both over the edge and a hazard to themselves and others. The storylines were intensely absorbing, deviously plotted, and distressingly tantalizing. The narrative thrummed with tension and I read with a ratcheting sense of apprehension. Ms. Ward’s writing was lushly descriptive, profoundly observant, and hauntingly addictive. I fear I will be ruminating on this one for days and am in need a glass of wine or ten. It was brilliant, unsettling, yet brilliant nonetheless.

This book is a little different than I expected from the description. It is very dark and suspenseful. It’s set all over the world with many of the places wartorn and impoverished. All of the characters are well developed and complex. The three main characters I would describe as broken people. It’s unclear at the beginning what really makes these people tick. They all come from different backgrounds but meet through their very different jobs. The ending will absolutely blow you away!


Also reviewed at B&N and Kobo under the name IrishEyes430

Beautiful Bad tells the story of Maddie and Ian’s relationship that ended in murder.

The story starts with a bang: a female calls 911, a child screams in the background and the call is abruptly cut off. When police arrive, they find a large bloodstain on the open concept kitchen’s floor. From that scene, we are shown the story of Maddie and Ian’s relationship from the beginning through the day of the killing and forward.

Within Beautiful Bad, the day of the killing sections were fantastic. Unfortunately, you had to slog through a lot of details to get to them. While the end is twisty, it probably won’t be much of a surprise to experienced thriller readers. 3 stars.

Thanks to Park Row and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

This story has been on my mind for a couple of days since I finished it, as I have been trying to process what I just read. Then I learned from a fellow blogger that this originally started out as a memoir, and ironically it helped everything make a little more sense. The story essentially is about a marriage that goes horrifically wrong, and that is probably putting it mildly. It is the marriage of Maddy and Ian, and to get the full picture we are given different POV's from the present day with events leading up to 'The Day of the Killing', as well as different POV's from several years ago when Madeleine first meets Ian. It should be noted that the novel goes back and forth from past to present, and switches POV within timeframes. Oddly enough, this made for a very slow progression at times, and it wasn't until we caught up to the actual 'Killing Day' did this book take off and never look back. And honestly, I was glad to not look back because it was quite riveting once we got to the present day, the killing day.

Before I get too ahead of myself, here is the brief synopsis - Maddy is a travel writer and upon a visit to her friend Jo, meets Ian at an overseas party one evening (he was serving in the British army at the time). He has a brief fling with Jo, but over many years, and many flirtations, ends up with Maddy. They marry and have a son Charlie. She and Jo have a falling out, and does not speak to Jo again for most of their marriage. Ian feels at home in Maddy's rural hometown of Kansas, a place she never thought she'd return to, and is not thrilled to go back to either. But at this point, it is best to do whatever it takes to keep Ian calm, to keep his PTSD at bay....

As noted above, I struggled with a few things in this book, and one of them was the fact that it took so long for them to get together for good. They only had a few chance encounters over the span of nine years or so, and therefore that part of it was not altogether believable for me. The other part was the fact that Maddy was a bit naive in the beginning, but if she and Jo were so close, it was again hard to believe that she wouldn't at least ask why her friend was so adamant in certain statements about Ian? Again, I have been in love and know it can make you blind, but she had only met him once or twice at this point? There were just so many secrets at the very start from two people who were supposedly great friends.

Now, all that being said, the ending was a super, fantastic twist that was just absolute perfection. And with that revelation, I then later answered my own questions, which was ok too. The ending turned this around for me and added an extra star. Really well done, and mind blowing that this started out as a memoir. Makes you think, no??

I was really looking forward to Beautiful Bad. I have been really in need of a good thriller. The premise was interesting. A 911 call brings police to ta house where blood is all over the kitchen and one person is dead. As the story unfolds, we learn about Maddie and Ian's life together.

The opening scene hooked me in and I was excited. However, that feeling didn't last long. To put it bluntly, the book was boring, unfocused and too long. I wasn't a fan of the timeline jumps because a majority of the scenes in them added nothing to the overall story. There was a lot of information about the characters that I didn't need. I did stuck it out to a predictable ending. I mean, there was one minor surprise. But for the overall story of what really happened, I wasn't shocked. The best parts of the book were the present day scenes with the police. The book has gotten a lot of great reviews, so I would try it out for yourself. I just wanted more.

I’ve been sitting on this one for a couple of days now debating how to give feedback. I had a lot of anticipation going into it: it opens with a 911 call and a bloody crime scene. What’s not to like? The story then shifts to many years earlier in Eastern Europe where we meet the characters and the story begins to unfold. But things just didn’t seem to add up. I felt like I was missing details about characters and their interactions. They didn’t seem to really like each other but yet they hung out and had relationships. Over time friendships diminish and a romance starts but seems contrived. The story bounces back to present day, and then to a few weeks before the crime occurs. And finally we get to the end. I thought about quitting this one several times as I just didn’t really care what happened and didn’t like any of the characters. But I powered through and was greatly disappointed in the ending. Very predictable. The whole story felt like just words on a page. They didn’t make me feel anything yet I think they were supposed to. Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to review this book.

3 1/2 stars. Kept my interest and there were some surprising twists and turns. I am not a fan of the skipping back and forth between timeframes.

This was a hard book for me to read. I found the beginning confusing with the constant jumping from one timeline to another and was tempted to stop reading early in the book. But, unfortunately, I continued. I slogged on through all those pages (and there were a lot) about war and being miserable and years apart. The only thing that kept me reading were the parts leading up to the day of the killing and the ones on the day of the killing. They were what I thought the book was actually going to be about. It was almost like reading two separate books. This is unfortunate, because the book set in the present was fairly enjoyable while the one about the characters’ past was not one I liked. While I know the past was extremely important to the story, I think you either thin it out or let potential readers know the majority of the book will be actually set in a dark and brutal past.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Beautiful Bad is the story of murder, what led up to it and what transpired after. We know from the beginning as the 911 call that brings the police to the house is the second chapter. The narrative moves on three different time streams; the past that recounts Maddie’s history, her friendship, meeting Ian, their marriage,’ then the weeks immediately preceding the murder; and the night of the murder and its followup. The narrative is through the eyes of Maddie, Ian, and the officer who broke protocol, entering the house before backup arrived.

As you come to know Maddie, you are almost ready to guess what happened. There are all the hints. Maddie was terribly hurt on a camping trip, her face stitched up and she has no memory. The police suspect she was struck but she adamantly denies that. She seeks therapy and seems terribly concerned about not angering her husband, protecting her child. Ian seems questionable, easy to anger. Maddie is isolated, cut off from her friendship with her best friend, choosing Ian over her. Meanwhile, there is evidence he may be having an affair. It all seems so obvious.


However, we live in an era of surprises, twists, and everyone is trying to be the next Gillian Flynn. Annie Ward comes closer than most, though she is utterly fair, which is why the denouement felt more like fulfilled expectations. This is what makes it work so well. She doesn’t flip the script at all, she completes it. Dawning awareness that this is more complicated than we first think comes with subtle chinks in the narrative. This is a success.

I received a copy of Beautiful Bad from the publisher through NetGalley. It will be released on 3/19.

Beautiful Bad at Harlequin
Annie Ward author site

★★★★

Beautiful Bad took me longer to read than usual. It is not a fast paced thriller, in fact, it is quite the opposite. The story moves forward at a slow pace, and it was often filled with chunks of information, and details I found were unnecessary in order to move the plot forward. The story is told in past and present time, and in multiple points of view. There were simply too many elements to the telling of this story that did not work for me. They greatly affected my enjoyment and left me feeling entirely unsatisfied by the time I made it to the end.

There are three main characters within the story- Ian, Maddie, and Jo- whom I found to all be unlikable, and the relationships between them did not feel authentic. Maddie and Jo were supposed to be the best of friends, but the way they treated each other at times painted them more as people who didn't even like each other. Then there was Maddie and Ian. Maddie and Ian were attracted to each other during their early days as friends/acquaintances, and that attraction grew to be something more. They wanted each other, cared for each other, and eventually loved each other- without saying it. They went on to spend YEARS apart, yet I was to believe as a reader that these characters had become hopelessly in love after all that time, with limited interactions. Of course, in the present time they are married and have a son, but I never bought into their love affair. I felt no chemistry or connection between the two of them. The opening line of the synopsis says, "a beautiful marriage turns beautifully bad," which to me is entirely misleading, because at no point did I view the couples romance as beautiful or touched with love. There was something off with everyone from the start. I came to trust no one, and the story continued to head in a direction I could predict.

As we reached the climax and the remainder of the story unraveled, nothing really shocked or surprised me. It was missing that edge of your seat intensity. I do wish too, that the crime was completely resolved. There are some cases where I don’t mind an open ending, or one that leaves you questioning what is true and what is not, but this wasn’t one of those times. I needed closure and I felt this story needed it too.

I’ve seen some reviews from people who have loved the story, so take a look at those if you’d like a different view or opinion. In the end, this psychological thriller was clearly not for me.




**Complimentary copy for review provided by Harlequin Books and NetGalley. All opinions expressed here are honest and entirely my own.**

I’m a sucker for a strong start to a thriller, the kind that grabs you instantaneously and makes you want to know more and this one had exactly that. After a brief chapter where Maddie is contemplating therapy, you switch to a police officer who is called to a quiet, family home where something awful has happened but all you know is there’s blood and it’s now referred to as the day of the killing. Aren’t you just dying to find out more?! I sure was and my interest was maintained throughout.

After that shocking opening hook the book flips back and forth between twelve weeks earlier as Maddie begins therapy and then ten years earlier to when her and Ian first met. All along I kept wondering how such a young, happy couple would end up with someone dead ten years later and as more pieces of their complicated relationship were unveiled I was always guessing who was dead and more curiously, why?! Domestic suspense always engages me and I couldn’t get past the idea of this enigmatic couple taking such a sharp downward dive, it was crazy!

Besides a throughly engrossing plot, the use of setting was strong as well and brought a sense of excitement and danger to an already dark storyline. This is a thriller with deep psychological exploration, the author has an evident knowledge of PTSD and the terrible ramifications of it and I found it both eye opening and fascinating. While there are some solid twists along the way, what makes this one a standout is the keen insight into a troubled marriage and the deep exploration into the psychology of people suffering from trauma. Recommended for fans of domestic suspense that are looking for something unique, it’s not your typical suburban thriller.

Beautiful Bad in three words: Explosive, Authentic and Chilling.