Unfortunately, I was disappointed with this one. I am a huge Alice Feeney fan, and her books are an auto-read for me, but this one missed the mark.

Patience ran away from home a year ago and is working as a caregiver in an elderly care home. It wasn't clear how old Patience was, because at one point she is referenced as being 18, at another point you get the feeling she is just under 18, and then there is reference to her being 20. Patience also isn't her real name. Edith is an elderly woman living in the nursing home. Patience busts Edith out of the home. Frankie is Patience's mother and has been searching for her for a year. Clio is Edith's daughter, and searches for her missing mother. All of their worlds collide after a murder at the elderly home.

First off - there were way too many POV's at the beginning and in true Feeney fashion, they were mixed in with mysterious POV's where you didn't know who was going to turn out to be the narrator. That issue resolved itself a little once I got going with the story.

This book was a little bit of a hot mess express, where there were too many stories going on at once, and when they came together, they fit so unrealistically perfectly that I couldn't help but role my eyes. Everything just so conveniently fell into place, including the detective. It was too much.

Every single character was a terrible person, and it was frustrating that there was no communication between them.

My biggest personal pet peeve in thrillers is leaving every single chapter hanging with a reference to a secret the narrator is keeping. I much prefer when the narrator finds out a secret with the reader, or when the narrator is unreliable, and the reader didn't know they had a secret. The whole ending every section with, "and no one knew the secret she was keeping," just feels like an annoying cop out to me.

I had no issues with the narration of the audiobook. And the writing was very good. It was the story itself that didn't hold up for me,

Thank you to Flatiron Books for the advanced copy. I didn't necessarily care for this one, but I will continue to be an Alice Feeney fan and wait patiently for her next book.

Wow - this book is a trip! It's comprised of four points of view from four individual, strong women who have each endured varying levels of hardship and have made questionable--largely illegal--decisions. A detective is nosing around, talking about three suspects, two murders, and one victim...

I read this (audio)book in a day, partially because I didn't WANT to put it down and partially because I was worried that I would get confused if I put it down for a while and came back to it! This is a rare audiobook that caused me to pause and take a few notes. I love audiobooks, but I am a visual person and was beginning to get confused with four separate points of view. Once I had a few notes written on each character, I was all set! This would have been a GREAT candidate for an ensemble cast of four rather than two similar voices.

Watch for this book to be released in late August! Thank you, sincerely, to MacMillan Audio and NetGalley for early access!

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this audio ARC. This book had so much potentially, but it just didn't work for me. There were way too many points of views that I found myself confused on who was who in the book. I don't want to have to take notes when I am reading fiction.

Holy moly! This book was so unexpected. It had so many twists I’m feeling whiplashed. I thoroughly enjoyed every piece of this book and loved that I never knew what was coming next!

Alice’s books just get better with each one that I read. This book was very different from her other books that I have read. I loved the different characters and watching how their personal narratives wove together. Even the characters I didn’t initially like grew on me over time. This was an audiobook I didn’t want to put down and kept me engaged and look guessing to the end. Thank you netgalley and Macmillan Audio for the ARC of this book.

Alice Feeney is an incredible writer. I have loved all of her books and this one is no exception. This book was a bit of a slow burn but it was just so good in the end. I loved the character development among the main characters and the story just tied together so well. I thought I knew where the story was going, and I was so wrong.

The book follows the lives of 4 women Frankie, Patience, Edith, and Clio. Each chapter comes from their perspectives.

Frankie works in a prison and her daughter recently ran away from home. Patience is a worker in a care facility taking care of Edith, and Edith is Clio's mom. Edith thinks Clio left her there to get rid of her.

When residents of the care facility turn up dead, Edith vows to escape, but not before the murder of another victim.

Although the story starts off a little slow, the way everything comes together and the final twist has kept me thinking of this book for days.

What another great Feeney novel! Devoured this in a day! Literally the only negative thing to say, I was a bit confused from all the characters. But I think that’s mostly from listening to it, and not having it in physical form. Other than that, the twists (multiple) and plot…. Amazing!

I absolutely love Alice Feeney books, but this one took it to a whole different level. The twists and turns were not what I was expecting at all! Wonderful book and wonderfully written.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for this ARC! This was a really twisty and surprisingly sad story. I love Alice’s books and this might be up there with my favorite of hers. Good Bad Girl is a psychological drama told through multiple POVS. I enjoyed the narrators, but I did have to keep notes to keep up with the characters.

I would recommend reading physically if you find multiple POVS hard to follow. All and all, this was a great book and I highly recommend to fans of Feeney’s other books.

Alice Feeney always writes some wild twists into her stories and this one was no different. While there were some parts of the storyline that I caught onto very early, I was not expecting how the entire story unfolded.

Giving this four stars because of adoption. I look forward to the day when really good books can be written and adoption does not have to be part of the story. As a first mother, I could relate to parts of 16 year old Chloe’s experience. There were some cringing adoption language parts in this. And for adopted individuals reading, they could be triggered by some of the scenes.

This is still a great book and I was eager to read it, which lead to completing it in one sitting.

Thank you so much netgalley for this early release audiobook! Unfortunately this was not my favorite Alice Feeney book. It missed the wow factor this others seemed to have

Feeney’s books are always suspenseful. Good Bad Girl gives us short chapters that end in a cliffhanger, so that it’s impossible to stop reading. This is the story of four women (and a very, very nasty man). They are all at a different stage of their lives and hiding monumental secrets. The clues are revealed little by little, slotting into place perfectly. They have all committed terrible acts, but were they doing bad things for the right reasons or good things for the wrong ones? The novel explores motivations and how someone who may seem evil may actually be a good person. I kept rooting for one character only to hate her after the next reveal, changing my mind again and again throughout the story. The two really bad people here are maybe a little stereotypical, but I liked the rest of the supporting characters, including a prison inmate and the detective who becomes involved in the case. Extra points for adding Dickens, an adorable, elderly pooch. Katherine Press and Stephanie Racine are so good at creating a full cast of characters, all with their own recognizable voices, that I was convinced that there was a whole team of narrators, instead of just two excellent performers. The plot sometimes requires a little suspension of disbelief, since some of the coincidences strain credulity, but I was so invested in the story that I didn’t mind. I loved the ending.
I chose to listen to this audiobook and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, #NetGalley/# Macmillan Audio!

Mystery, murder, and Mother’s Day take the main stage in Alice Feeney’s latest, Good Bad Girl. The book raises the question, “What can make a good person do bad things?”

Strap in for family drama, the unraveling of a twenty-year-old kidnapping case, and flashbacks and clues peppered along the way. Feeney delivers four points-of-view here, leaving the reader to decipher which narrators are reliable and which are serving their own agenda, which are bad girls that do good things and which are good girls that have done bad things.

I listened to the audiobook version, and the narration by Katherine Press and Stephanie Racine had me hooked. I devoured this book in one day at 2x speed. I did not want to put it down.

And, as typically happens for me with an Alice Feeney book, I wanted to start it all over again at the conclusion to see how she weaves the crumbs and clues into the story while knowing how it ends.

I received an advance copy of the audiobook from Macmillan Audio and NetGalley. All review opinions are my own.

"Sometimes bad things happen to good people, so good people have to do bad things."

"Good Bad Girl" is a thrilling mystery about mothers and daughters. On Mother's Day twenty years ago, a baby was taken. In the present day, it's Mother's Day again. Frankie hasn't heard from her daughter since she ran away one year ago and is struggling. Meanwhile, Edith was tricked into moving into a care home by her daughter, Clio, and is plotting her escape. Edith befriends Patience, a young woman who works at the care home. When someone is murdered at the care home, the four women's lives are intertwined. They must solve a mystery with three suspects, two murders, and one victim. If they do, they might find out what happened to the baby twenty years ago, the mother who lost her, and the connections that bind them.

This was my first Alice Feeney novel, and I absolutely devoured it! I listened to the entire audiobook in less than a day. There were so many twists and turns that I never knew what was going to happen next. While a few twists were predictable, some made me audibly gasp. This story is told from the POVs of the four women, Frankie, Edith, Clio, and Patience. I really enjoyed the narration by Stephanie Racine and Katherine Press, who did a great job distinguishing the four main characters. Overall, a captivating mystery with intriguing mother-daughter drama that I highly recommend. I am excited to read more from Alice Feeney!

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ALC in exchange for an honest review.

I feel like Alice Feeney's books are hit or miss and this one was a miss for me. The beginning was hard to follow and confusing before you get to know the characters. Once everything is established, the book kind of drags on and is all over the place. I didn't really see what the whole point of the story was. Everything seemed pretty predictable from the start so there was no shock for me at the end.

3.5 stars

Fans of Feeney and newer folks to her works will be mostly happy with this recent effort, but they may also predict exactly where it's going earlier than they'd like. If you're the kind of person who really thrives on getting tricked and misguided in a thriller/mystery, well, you may have to trick yourself this time.

There are a lot of characters at play, and they all have complicated relationships. They also all present a very basic dichotomy: being bad and good at different stages and in different ways. While some of their motives are positive, this is not quite a universal trait. Because of the way information gets disseminated, readers may find themselves mildly confused at the start, but that uncertainty will resolve too quickly. There are a couple of clues/details that are just so obvious, and I wished for a stronger red pen (or at least a COMMENT IN CAPS!) on those. This noted, the pacing kept me relatively engaged, and the audio is compelling enough.

Are die-hard fans going to rave that this is their favorite of Feeney's? Maybe not, but most who come to this gathering of *good bad girls* will be glad they attended (and that they got to do so from the outside).

The first chapter hooked me in, but the ending did not payoff. There were too many POVS, the twists were predictable, and the story dragged. The narration was good, but only one of the POVs had a different voice. It would have been easier to follow if the voices were more distinct. I also didn't like how the trauma involving motherhood was handled. Even though the story was long, the way everything was wrapped up at the end felt rushed and unearned. I think thriller lovers will enjoy this book, but it didn't work for me.

It was good but just very predictable. I think this book confirmed my dislike of Alice Feeney's books. I've never really been a person who likes these family domestic thrillers so I don't know why I put myself through this stuff when I know I don't really like them.


I did however like the writing and set up of the book.

Easy easy easy 5 stars!

🐞Ahh that was the most fun I've had reading a book in a long time! Every single sentence was worth reading slowly and every detail mattered. I took more notes while reading this book than any fiction book ever!

🐞I really took my time to understand what was going on and still finished in less than 3 (very busy) days.

🪨📃✂️Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney is one of my favorite thrillers of all time and this one either tied with it or topped it!

🐞There's not much I can say without spoilers, but you should definitely go in blind and trust the process on this one!

🙈Also, I saw a ladybug on my wall while reading this (first time all year) and once you read it, you'll understand how crazy that is! 🐞

👌I'm so glad Alice just posted that she finished book 7 to be released in 2024 because I already have no patience (inside joke here, iykyk) for it.

The narration is absolute perfection! Stephanie Racine reads most of Alice Feeney's books and I loved the addition of Katherine Press, they are both beyond talented and easy to listen to!

📆This one will be released on August 29, 2023!

🥰Thank you so much to Macmillan Audio for the gifted audiobook!

Well done Alice Feeney! This book wonderfully narrated by Katherine Press and Stephanie Racine is full of twists and turns and keeps you guessing all the way through. No one is who you think they really are and as the story goes between present day -real time and 18 years prior you think you know how it will unfold... but you've probably got it all wrong. Well worth the time spent listening. Thank you to Net Galley and MacMillan Audio for this ARC.