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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I received an advanced copy of this book. This was a great book that had great twists and turns that you didn’t see coming until the end. I highly enjoyed this one and the different countries that were involved. In this book, Maddie is visiting her best friend Jo, when she meets Ian. Then eventually fall in love and get married and have a child. Over the years they have an interesting relationship, when one day, it ends in a 911 call. Is it a perfect marriage that ends in an accident, or is it murder? This is an awesome book, that I had a hard time down!
After being badly scarred during an accident she can’t recall, Maddie begins to question the actions of her husband, Ian, who suffers from PTSD after serving in the British army. Would he hurt her or her 3 year old son, Charlie? Should she be worried about their safety?
Alternating between Maddie’s point of view, the “Day of the Killing,” and Ian’s point of view, Beautiful Bad will make you question everything and everyone. Are any of the narrators reliable? Who died and why? And, lastly, why hasn’t Maddie talked to her best friend, Joanna, for four years?
This definitely wasn’t your typical, fast-paced thriller, and I certainly was not expecting such a long and serious backstory. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand what Maddie saw in Ian and why she pined over him for sooooo many years. The ending was somewhat of a surprise, but overall, this story was too dark, disturbing, and depressing for me and made my stomach hurt.
Trigger warning: Drowning
Location: Kansas (Meadowlark – 1.5 hours south of Kansas City), Bulgaria, Macedonia, NYC, Colorado (Estes Park), and Nicaragua (Las Pampas)
I received a copy from a BookishFirst giveaway. All opinions are my own.
3* Psycho Selfish Stars
The story begins in the present where a murder has taken place in Kansas. You are immediately hooked as the first chapter describes what the police officer is seeing upon her arrival. The book then alternates between the past, where you meet the main characters and get an insight into their personalities and how they met and the murder scene and how the investigation proceeds.
I liked the story of Maddie, Ian and Jo but did not love it as much as I hoped.
My main issue with the story, which was interesting and had a twist or two, was that after the first gripping chapter it dragged on with too much detail, which I found unnecessary to enjoy the storyline.
I found the characters unlikeable and selfish and the drama they created amongst each other was childish and exhausting.
Many thanks to Quercus and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this book.
Review on BookTrib.com
Maddie and Jo are best friends and are both working overseas. They both find handsome Ian charming. When Maddie starts dating Ian, her and Jo’s relationship hits rocky ground. Years later Maddie and Ian are married and living in Kansas with their little boy Charlie. Maddie, Ian, and Charlie are camping when Maddie has a terrible fall. But was it a fall? Did Ian hurt Maddie? Months later when 911 receives a call from Maddie and Ian’s house what happened? This is a super fast thriller of a book that keeps you reading until the very last page. I received an advanced readers copy from NetGalley and Harlequin Park Row.
Debut psychological triller. Story is told in 3 timelines….countdown to the killing, the killing itself, and Maddie/Ian/Jo relationship. Maddie is teaching English in Bulgaria and goes to visit her bff, Jo, in Macedonia. They are young, single and fearless. They meet Ian, soldier/bodyguard. Both are attracted to Ian. Relationship between the three is messy and complicated, and ultimately leads to death. This book will keep you guessing as all characters are flawed, twisted. Book delves into TBI, PTSD. Ending left me feeling uneasy and concerned! Thoroughly enjoyed this thriller….hard to read at times, but harder to put down!
Thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for this ARC. Opinion is mine alone!
Beautiful Bad starts the reader off immediately with a murder, but we aren’t given much information, rather Ward weaved us through time with each chapter, going back to the beginning, and then various parts of the relative present. Our main characters, Maddie, Jo, and Ian are well-written. I loved Maddie and Jo’s lifestyle of living and working abroad, even if it does get them into some sketchy situations. Ian suffers from PTSD and I appreciated that the author incorporated that into the book. His suffering plays a large part into how he treats Maddie, and I’m slightly amazed that Maddie puts up with as much as she does from him because I don’t think we can attribute all of his flaws to PTSD.
I thought the writing and storytelling were great if I was let down by anything it was that what I felt should have been the ending lent way to more of a rabbit hole. Which could lead the readers to believe there’s always room to add a book 2. Overall it’s a compelling story that grabs you from the get-go and keeps you reading well into the night.
She was a beautiful young lady in a foreign country writing travel magazines. There was nothing that made sense of them being together, but they got under each others skin. This was a dysfunctional relationship with all kinds of alarms and reasons for it to go no further. Everyone saw it. The signs were everywhere. I haven’t read this author before and I have to say it’s a really good read that is very well written. Nothing is what it seems. The back and forth with glimpse from the opening being the 911 call to the end being the emails. This author feeds us the story through a questionable source. The characters and imagery are well played and make you really see it through their view. This could easily be a 5 star read by the author providing a little less, as it took away from the suspense heightened angst, in my opinion. It doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good read it just made it a little slow in some spots. But I have to say the end is well done and yeah throughout the book you’re wondering and changing until it’s done. Great read.
I anticipate highly mixed reviews on this book and recommend it for book clubs everywhere. The subtleties that Ward has left behind for the readers is genius. It will have you contemplating facets of the story days after you’ve put the book down. I still don’t know if I love or hate the characters and who, if any of them, I should feel bad for. It has taken me days after finishing the book to realize that the irony of the story is that Ward has not really given us the whole story. She has left so much open for interpretation and it is spectacular. I love books that challenge an explanation and force us to think beyond what is simply laid out in the words before us.
Ian and Maddie meet overseas in war-torn Eastern Europe just as it is on the brink of civil war and just prior to the fall-out of 9/11. The setting is enigmatic and their meeting is simply by chance. Ian, who grew up with little schooling and proceeded to the English military, now works as a bodyguard to high profile officials. Maddie, a well-studied, multilingual American, works as a travel journalist. The time they spend together in the Balkans is brief. But the feelings they developed while they are there are genuine and hard to ignore. The book takes us through the story of their lives and also that of Maddie’s best friend, Jo. We are led through the journey of Maddie and Ian finding their way back to one another after spending years apart. But as the story toggles from present day to past, we get glimpses of the dark and somewhat crazy side of all of these characters and when the day of the murder happens, it will have you questioning absolutely everything.
Any author can lay out a plot with your typical protagonist/antagonist scenario but it takes someone truly gifted to keep the reader from identifying either of them. Ward keeps us guessing who’s who and gives us a thought-provoking story about love, lies, and betrayal…with a little side of crazy thrown in….5 stars
You won’t be able to tear yourself away.
Beautiful Bad is beautifully written, beautifully twisty-and beautifully twisted. A dark thriller with real psychological depth.
Filled with unexpected twists, Beautiful Bad is a riveting read.
Excellent – usually I can figure out how a story will end somewhere along the way, but not this time – quite a surprise
While the book starts on a hysterical note due to a 911 call the book however is more conversational and medical. Author throws poetic words like PTSD and Ian is a challenging character. For most of the book the past and present is put together slowly and methodically.
What did I like? You can tell early on that this is a broken marriage and I’m not quite sure how they made it so many years. Her friendship with Joanna seems important and it also feels like they are both fighting over the same man. The ending was so not a surprise.
Would I recommend or buy? Blurb sounded great but actually piecing the story together was a long road. If you like thriller type books then you may enjoy this one. Three stars!
I received a complimentary copy from bookishfirsts and voluntarily left a review
Great twist of a story at the end.
Um…wow.
This book opens with a 911 call featuring a frantic woman begging for help and a terrified child shrieking in the background. Police are dispatched and there is blood, a lot of it, all over the kitchen. Who does all of that blood belong to and who is the killer?
This story takes place in three time periods, the present, 10 weeks ago and 20 years ago and is told from multiple points of view. We visit Kansas, the Balkans and Iraq and we learn that all of the characters, Maddie, Ian and Maddie’s friend, Jo have seen some stuff. All are well-written, as is the detective, Diane.
The twisty psychological piece is not learning until the very end who’s blood was spilled and why.
3.5 stars.
“Here’s this extraordinary flower growing up through a crack in my concrete nightmare. What am I supposed to do?”
There’s a broken, anxious, and newly disfigured wife. A PTSD suffering alcoholic husband. A confusing marriage. A killing. A cop who wants answers.
I honestly don’t even know how to review this book without spoiling anything. I’ve started and stopped what I’d planned to write a few times, so in the end I’m just going to stay away from the plot and advise you to read the blurb. What I CAN say is that this book jumps around in time and POV a bit. That makes the start of the story a bit confusing. We get bits of each time/POV and it starts to feel like none of these bits make sense together. But they eventually do. I can’t say that this is one of those stories that you will be able to figure out by the clues, but if you pay close enough attention you can come up with what’s happened on your own. The thing is… it’s hard to trust this story. The POV’s are all different, and don’t always align the same way. You’ll notice inconsistencies and you won’t be so sure why they are there.
None the less after I got past the first 25% I got into the groove of the story. I was turning pages nonstop, because I HAD to know what had happened. You don’t know who has been hurt/killed. You don’t know who has done the hurting and the killing. It’s just. A mess, and you don’t have answers as the reader. It’s just. A crazy story that will have you shaking your head. Yelling at the characters, and also so darn confused for them. I felt bad for them, but I also didn’t know if I could even trust them.
If you like psychological thrillers, and are fine with time and POV changes, then you will enjoy Beautiful Bad. It is a mess of a rollercoaster ride, that will have you gripping your seat until the bitter end.
I’m usually great at predicting the end of a story but not with this story. I had a very long list in my head of all the possibilities of who killed who and who could have been involved in the murder and etc. I honestly had no clue how it would end and I loved that. Also, the last four chapters literally blew my mind. I couldn’t believe what I was reading, especially during the last chapter.
The writing is gorgeous and the story will haunt me for a long time…chills!!
Loved this book!!