Beautiful Ugly

Beautiful Ugly is an adult psychological thriller novel by British author Alice Feeney, published in January 2025 by Flatiron Books. Written from the protagonist Grady Green’s and his wife Abby Goldman’s first-person points of view, the novel is primarily set on the fictional Isle of Amberly. A year after Abby disappears on her ride home from work one night, Grady can’t eat, sleep, or write. His literary agent and Abby’s godmother, Kitty Goldman, invites him to stay at the late author Charles Whittaker’s cabin in the Scottish Highlands. Excited about a second chance, Grady travels to Amberly to restart his writing career. However, the island proves to be sinister and haunted by Abby’s ghost. The longer Grady stays, the more confused and paranoid he becomes. The novel explores themes including the Psychological Effects of Isolation, the Interplay Between Reality and Fiction, and The Line Between Love and Obsession.

This guide refers to the 2025 Flatiron Books hardcover edition of the novel.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide contain depictions of graphic violence, substance use, emotional abuse, child sexual abuse, child death, and death by suicide.

Plot Summary

Beautiful Ugly is told from the first-person perspectives of Grady Green and Abby Goldman. Grady’s chapters follow his life in the year after Abby’s disappearance, while Abby’s chapters focus on one therapy session that she had a week before her disappearance.

The novel opens in London, England, where protagonist and author Grady Green lives with his wife Abby Goldman. Grady sits at home one night awaiting a call from his agent Kitty Goldman. When Kitty calls to announce that Grady’s latest publication has made him a New York Times bestselling author, he wishes Abby were home from work to celebrate with him. He calls her to see where she is, and she reveals that she’s close. Then she stops the car on the cliff road, telling Grady there’s a body in the street. She gets out of the car to check on the person, leaving the call connected. Grady stops hearing Abby’s voice, runs outside, and calls her name, but Abby is gone.

A year later, Grady is still reeling from Abby’s unresolved disappearance. He visits Kitty at her office because he’s failed to produce a new book since losing his wife. Kitty suggests that he use a cabin she inherited from the late author Charles Whittaker. Charles used to live and write on the Isle of Amberly in the Scottish Highlands, and Kitty thinks the setting might inspire Grady. Grady eagerly accepts.

At the Scottish port, the ferrywoman Sandy MacIntyre informs Grady he can’t bring his car onto the island. He boards the boat with nothing but a few bags and his dog. When he arrives, Sandy offers him a ride to the cabin. On the drive, Grady sees a woman who resembles Abby walking through town, but the woman isn’t her.

Sandy leaves Grady at the cabin and invites him to dinner with her and her sister, Midge MacIntyre, the following night. Inside, Grady settles into the cozy space. He pours himself several drinks and then discovers an unpublished manuscript by Charles. Grady spends the entire night reading it. The next day, he writes Kitty a book proposal, stealing Charles’s manuscript idea. After mailing the letter, he wanders through town and collects provisions. The people treat him strangely, but he tries to ignore them.

That evening, Sandy and Midge tell Grady about island life. Midge reveals a series of odd crimes on the island in recent years, which unnerves Grady. He goes home and tries to start working on his draft to clear his head. He hears strange noises and finds mysterious envelopes slipped under his door containing old newspaper articles from early in Abby’s journalistic career. He ignores these happenings and returns to his writing.

Over the following weeks, Grady continues to dismiss the strange happenings on the island to focus on his book. He stays in the cabin, doing nothing but drinking and writing. He can’t sleep, despite the bog myrtle tea the local shop owner Cora Christie gave him for his insomnia. Sandy gives him access to a car, but when he does leave the cabin, he continues seeing women who look like Abby. He dismisses the sightings, convinced he’s just tired.

One day, Grady finally finishes editing his draft. Convinced he’s turned Charles’s book into his own, he mails it to Kitty and takes himself out for a pint to celebrate. To Grady’s horror, the pub keeper informs him that Charles and Sandy were good friends, and Charles let Sandy read all his drafts. Grady drives out to Darkside Cave to find Sandy, where she’s meditating on her daughter Isla’s death years prior. She confirms that she read all of Charles’s work, including the unpublished manuscript for Book Ten, which Grady had stolen.

Panicking, Grady drives away from the cave. He is distracted on the road and hits a woman who looks just like Abby. When he talks to her, he discovers the woman is his missing wife. However, Abby doesn’t remember him and introduces herself as Aubrey Fairlight. Grady soon discovers that she is married to a woman named Travers Fairlight and has a baby daughter named Holly. Grady realizes that Abby has a history on the island she never told him about. He can’t make sense of her lies and decides he must leave the island at once.

After packing his things, Grady runs into Sandy, Abby, and Kitty in town. The women confront Grady, insisting he can’t leave the island. Abby reveals that she knows she is Abby and that she grew up on the island. She returned there after Grady tried to kill her. On the night of her disappearance, Grady pretended to be a dead person in the street. When Abby went to check on him, he threw her over a cliff. She survived and fled to Amberly. She was pregnant at the time and planned to tell Grady she was leaving him that night. She’d felt alone in their marriage for some time and wanted to have children—a desire Grady always dismissed. She secretly started IVF treatments and got pregnant so she could live her own life.

When Grady hears the truth, he reiterates his love for Abby. Kitty cuts in, insisting that Grady must stay on the island forever to atone for his crimes. He will become the resident author, donating all the proceeds from his books to the island trust so that they don’t have to open the place to tourists. Grady agrees to the arrangement.

A year later, Grady is living a happy life on the island. He feels proud of himself for remaking his life. He goes to bed one night, thinking of Abby and feeling loved by her. Then he wakes up and discovers he’s inside a coffin. The islanders have buried him alive. He gradually feels the oxygen leaving the coffin.