A devoted wife, a loving husband and a chilling murder that no one saw coming.Things that make me scared: When Charlie cries. Hospitals and lakes. When Ian drinks vodka in the basement. ISIS. When Ian gets angry… That something is really, really wrong with me.Maddie and Ian’s love story began with a chance encounter at a party overseas; he was serving in the British army and she was a travel … in the British army and she was a travel writer visiting her best friend, Jo. Now almost two decades later, married with a beautiful son, Charlie, they are living the perfect suburban life in Middle America. But when a camping accident leaves Maddie badly scarred, she begins attending writing therapy, where she gradually reveals her fears about Ian’s PTSD; her concerns for the safety of their young son; and the couple’s tangled and tumultuous past with Jo.
From the Balkans to England, Iraq to Manhattan, and finally to an ordinary family home in Kansas, sixteen years of love and fear, adventure and suspicion culminate in The Day of the Killing, when a frantic 911 call summons the police to the scene of a shocking crime.
Don’t miss Annie Ward’s explosive new novel, The Lying Club, a story of revenge, murder and shocking secrets!
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Wow! The ending was quite a surprise!
Maddie and Ian met in Europe when they were both young, carefree and starting out on their working lives. They are strongly attracted to each other and maintain contact on and off over the years until they eventually get married and settle down in Kansas, near Maddie’s parents. They have a little boy, Charlie, and life is good. Sort of. Ian has some serious issues with his drinking and PTSD from his various work assignments as a bodyguard in the Middle East and Africa.
I don’t want to reveal anything else, but I will say that this book was wonderful and utterly absorbing. I strongly recommend it.
Thank you to Netgalley, the author Annie Ward, and the publisher Harlequin, for a free ARC which I thoroughly enjoyed, and which I am giving my honest opinion on.
First, I would like to thank Park Row (Harlequin) Publishing and Netgalley for providing me with a free Kindle ARC in exchange for my honest review.
Annie Ward’s Beautiful Bad transports the reader between third-world war-stricken countries and the small town of Meadowlark, Kansas as it follows multiple timelines. Maddie lives a life of thrills and living on the edge of danger as an instructor and travel writer in her twenties, where she meets Ian, a British bodyguard with a dark allure. Twenty-six years later, we find Maddie in the present, in which she is now married to Ian in Kansas, where they live with their young son Charlie despite Maddie’s worldly nature. We also find Diane, a patrol cop, entering an active crime scene at the couple’s home where an ominous pool of blood confirms that someone inside that house is dead.
Ms. Ward does a fantastic job of making the jumps between timelines fluid for the reader. Nothing is more aggravating than struggling to orient oneself from chapter to chapter, but Ms. Ward bridges the transitions expertly. In order to gain context for how we have come to the point where someone has been murdered, we must understand each character’s past. The reader accompanies Maddie as she visits her eccentric psychologist, who is determined to establish that Maddie has suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) at the hands of her husband, despite Maddie’s insistence that she fell. The reader follows Ian through his numerous jobs in the military and in security, where he suffers near-death and otherwise traumatizing experiences that have led to the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Both Maddie and Ian live in paranoia and tend to catastrophize world events, imagining those dangers coming to their small town and destroying the ones they love.
Overall, I was completely engrossed in this book, finding myself with the urge to read at stoplights (which I avoided, painfully). Everything leading up to the end was a fantastic experience; it is just the end itself that left me feeling at a loss. Perhaps I do not agree with the author’s choice of direction, but I also feel that this was the least developed part of the book. I can see how she came to the decision to end it in the way she did, but I do not feel she expresses those reasons adequately for the reader, especially if the reader has no prior understanding of TBI or PTSD. For this reason, I feel that a near-perfect book was cheated of the perfect rating it deserved, and I feel that 4.5 stars is appropriate.
I would recommend this book for anyone interested in psychological suspense and domestic thrillers.
#beautifulbad #netgalley
Good thriller with an unpredictable ending!
I love psychological thrillers. The author used multiple narrators and multiple time periods to tell the story. The opening grabs the reader right away. Police respond to a 911 call in a small town in Kansas. There is blood everywhere. They discover the dead homeowner Ian dead in the basement, blood everywhere in the kitchen, and Ian’s wife, Maddie, little son Charlie, and Maddie’s friend, Joanna hiding upstairs.
I had a love/hate relationship with this book (3.5 stars). I enjoyed the investigation chapters, days before the murder, and after the murder. I do think too much time was spent on Ian and Maddie’s story about when they met . I liked the twist and the ultimate twist at the end of the book. Thank you NetGalley and Harlequin for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Twisty and dark, this stellar debut will keep you guessing until the end.
This book is one that you have to pay attention to whilst reading it due to the time jumps, it’s not my favourite way of telling a story but when done well it really works and can be enjoyable to read. For the most part I think this author is able to write these jumps in time quite well, but it still makes it difficult to follow if you are not paying attention. I like how the characters seem like everyday people, they have flaws, they make good choices and bad choices. The plot is very interesting and takes place all over the world over a time span of about 20 years, in that time a lot can happen to a person and a family. If you are looking for a good book to read with lots of twists and turns, then you have found it in this one.
WOW !!! An absolute WINNER !!!!!!!!!
Beautiful Bad is a psychological thriller that will keep you turning pages until the surprising end. Every time I thought that I had something figured out, I would find out in a few pages that I was totally wrong so the ending was a huge surprise but one that made total sense based on the clues that were scattered throughout. The book starts out with a murder – a bloody and gruesome murder and a 911 call to the police – but we don’t learn who was murdered until much later in the book and we don’t know WHY they were murdered until the very end.
Maddie and Ian meet overseas in a war torn area of the world. Maddie was teaching and writing a travel book and Ian was a body guard at the British Embassy. They met by chance at a party that Maddie went to with her best friend Jo who was an aid worker. Ten years later, Maddie and Ian are married and have a young son and live in America. Maddie and Jo are no longer friends. Maddie had fallen on a camping trip several weeks before the murder and the fall may have caused some brain damage so she is working with a psychologist using writing therapy. As Maddie tries to piece her life together and remember the fall, there are clues that it wasn’t really a fall but that Ian had hurt her and the reader begins to wonder how happy their marriage really is. Ian is gone overseas all the time and Maddie is left in the States to take care of their son and and their home. Was she happy with her life? Was Ian happy? How happy was their marriage? All these questions will be answered by the end of this fantastic book.
This is the story of a marriage and a tumultuous relationship. The reader knows from the beginning that someone dies since there is a chapter entitled “The Day of the Killing.” However, it is not until much later that you find out who dies and how and when. The plot unfolds with multiple points of view and various settings, including the Balkans, a location that is rarely found in modern fiction. Maddie and Ian are married and have a wonderful son named Charlie and a good friend named Jo. It is obvious from the beginning of the book that one of them is a victim, but the essential elements of the story are revealed slowly, like a hidden picture mystery. There is indeed a hidden secret in this psychological thriller, and the secret is not easily guessed and is shocking when it is revealed. Since the story is told in reverse chronological order, it was a little hard for me to follow at times. It was also slow-moving sometimes’; I just wanted the big reveal to happen so I could know what was really happening in the story. The tale of Maddie and Ian was well done, a tangled one with a lot of very deep issues. I enjoyed the story once I really got into it and started understanding who played what role. This is not a story that is easy to forget but it is not one that is easy to read either. The perfect family has terrible secrets and a sinister occurrence that will leave the reader reeling and wondering how you missed the clues about what was really going on. This is a book for fans of thrillers and dark mysteries.
Disclaimer
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 “Guides Concerning the Use of Testimonials and Endorsements in Advertising.”
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 is a love story. It is also about friendship .. and loyalty … and love … and secrets and lies.
Maddie and her friend, Jo, are working overseas. Ian is serving in the British Army and he is instantly attracted to Maddie .. but then he’s also attracted to Maddie. Maddie falls head over heels almost immediately. Many years pass with Maddie and Jo out of touch and Maddie and Ian also out of touch.
Nineteen years later, Maddie and Ian are married and the parents of a young boy, Charlie.. the light of Maddie’s life. Ian is still working sporadically overseas, and when he comes home, he’s different … changed. Ian is is huge Vodka drinker which doesn’t help the situation. He’s not physically abusive, but he yells a lot, calls her names, questions the things she does.
But when a camping accident leaves Maddie with short term amnesia and badly scarred, she begins attending writing therapy, where she gradually reveals her fears about Ian’s PTSD; her concerns for the safety of their young son; and the couple’s tangled and tumultuous past with Jo.
The story runs the gamut of places from the Balkans to England, Iraq to Manhattan, and finally to an ordinary family home in Kansas. The chapters are mainly told by Maddie intermingled with Ian’s voice. There’s a lot of back and forth leading to an explosive ending with a twist that I never saw coming.
This is a well written Psychological Thriller with credible characters that are finely drawn. The dynamics among the main character is what kept me glued to the pages. I think I read this one in record time … just couldn’t seem to put it down. Secondary characters, such as the writing therapist and the female detective held the suspense from start to finish.
Many thanks to the author / Harlequin Books / Park Row / Netgalley / Edelweiss for the advance digital copy of this Psychological Thriller. Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.
What did I just read? Beautiful Bad is the first book by Annie Ward that I have read, so I didn’t know what to expect. The blurb of the book grabbed my attention, and I did have a good feeling about this book. However, little did I know that I would be… Totally. Blown. Away.
Beautiful Bad is well written. This book takes us from Bulgaria to Macedonia to Iraq and then to a quiet little town in Kansas. The author does an excellent job of setting the scene for all these places, which in my opinion make for a better story. The story is mostly told from Maddie’s perspective and jumps between three different timelines. We also hear from Ian, and that part of the story is written in the third person point of view. Jo, Maddie’s best friend, is weaved into this twisted tale as well. The relationship between Maddie and Ian is filled with drama and agonizing intensity. These characters are damaged, peculiar and devious and I found myself liking them and disliking them at the same time.
Now on to the story, I feel that I can’t say too much about the story without giving away its twisted nature. What I can say is that it kept me reading well into the night. The author has a cunning way of building and building the story – she will have you thinking one thing and then twist it around to where you haven’t a clue as to what is going on or whose story we are to believe. The only thing I would have liked to see a bit more of was the criminal angle of this book. Overall, Beautiful Bad is a tense psychological thriller that will keep you guessing till all is revealed.
***I kindly received this galley by way of NetGalley/publisher/author. I was not contacted, asked or required to leave a review. I received no compensation, financial or otherwise. I have voluntarily read this book, and this review is my honest opinion .***
This book started out great for me. It held my interest from the call to 911 and I looked forward to finding out what happens, but about halfway through it just started feeling like something was missing. I love books that are told from several views and different timelines. I learn a lot from those but I lost interest for a long period. To me the thriller aspect fell short. I think the author did a great job as far as descriptives and going back and forth with characters and times. I like some of the characters. There was just something that fell short. That is the only way I know to describe it.
Thank you to NetGalley for this copy in exchange for my honest review.
I give it 3.5 stars and will try this author again. I also recommend others try it for themselves. It just was not what I expected.
Awesome read, couldn’t put it down!
Not the typical thriller, but definitely an interesting and entertaining read with a surprise ending. I had to immediately purchase another great book by the author and was super impressed. I will be certainly be following this author’s future works.
Maddie and Ian’s love story began with a chance encounter at a party overseas. Maddie was a travel writer visiting her best friend, Jo. Ian, a former member of the military, worked as a private security consultant, traveling around the world to provide his services. His work was dangerous and secretive, but after he started his own company with his brother, extremely lucrative.
Maddie and Ian’s paths cross at various times as the years pass. Eventually, he comes to New York to visit her. His erratic behavior should have provided Maddie insight into his psyche. Did she choose to ignore the warning signs?
Now it is almost two decades later. Maddie and Ian have married and relocated to Maddie’s Kansas hometown, along with their beautiful son, Charlie. By all appearances, they are enjoying a perfect suburban life until Maddie sustains a disfiguring injury during a camping trip. Was it an accident? Or did something sinister occur?
Unable to focus or concentrate, Maddie’s parents help her care for Charlie, and she begins undergoign writing therapy. Through the writing assignments her therapist assigns her, she reveals her fears about Ian, concern for Charlie’s safety, and their tumultuous past with Jo, from whom she has been estranged for years. However, she misses Jo and wants to reconcile with her.
As the story opens, there has been a killing. The police respond to a residence and discover blood, a knife, and a small, frightened child hiding upstairs. The narrative alternates time periods — from the present-day as the police explore the residence to determine what has transpired to Maddie’s revelation of the details of her relationship with Ian, as well as the dissolution of her friendship with Jo.
Author Annie Ward has devised a complex mystery, told from various viewpoints and time frames, that gradually reveals the volatile nature of Maddie and Ian’s relationship, but does not prepare readers for the shocking conclusion to the story. The crime that the the police are called to investigate is shocking, but even as the identity of the victim is revealed, Ward has much more in store for her readers.
The story is fast-paced, intriguing, and full of surprising twists and turns. Ward cleverly compels the story forward with expertly-timed clues as to whether Maddie is a reliable narrator, as well as whether Ian is truly the man he appears to be based upon Maddie’s explanation of their history. But the conclusion will leave readers stunned. Ward succeeds at delivering on the book’s premise: “There are two sides to every story. . . . And every person.”
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader’s Copy of the book.
#NetGalley #Beautiful Bad # Harlequin-Park Row
The story is told in multiple times lines and points of view and starts off with a frantic call to 911.
Maddie wants travel the world. The excitement of working and living in Eastern Europe, is so much better than life in Kansas with her parents. Her best friend and travel companion Joanna lives nearby, only a border crossing away.
While visiting Joanna in Macedonia they meet Ian a member of the British military and his friends and then the fun really begins. This story is well written and draws you in from page one. Plenty of twists and turns and a ending that I was not expecting. I look forward to reading more from Annie Ward.
Annie Ward writes an amazing book! I couldn’t put this book down and couldn’t quit telling people about it. Definitely read this book!!
Beautiful Bad by Annie Ward is a tale of friendship, love and marriage told in a twisted tale where one would believe any of those would mean happiness, but for our characters it leads to a 911 call. Told from various point of views and spanning years, we meet Maddie, her friend Jo and the man she eventually marries, Ian. What ties them together and what tears them apart?
This is truly Maddie’s story and as a narrator, she quickly draws readers into her journey as we discover the journey that leads to the 911 call. Taken back and forth in time, we learn what has transpired over the years between the relationships around Maddie and her fears. This story was twisted and full of surprises!
Happy reading!
What an incredible book! I was captured into its pages by the first chapter which starts with a frantic 911 call. Maddie and Jo are best friends. They are both working in war torn countries when they meet Ian. These three people are the main characters in this book. They are very complex and well drawn characters. The book alternates between past and present which works well. It is filled with unbelievable twists and turns. The explosive ending blew my mind! I did not even see it coming! You will be on the edge of your seat, holding your breath. This book is so well written. If you like psychological suspense you will love Beautiful Bad! Absolutely amazing storyteller! I can’t wait for the next book by this author. Yes, it is that good! You don’t want to miss this one!! My review simply can’t do this book justice. You need to grab this book. It will devour you!! Highly, highly recommend!!