Dark Side Of Love

Alice Feeney on her passion for Scotland, writing in secret and the characters who won't go away

- DAWN GEDDES

AUTHOR Alice Feeney has a knack for writing about dysfunctional relationships – and it’s never been more apparent than in her new novel, Beautiful Ugly, a deliciously dark story about marriage set on a remote Scottish island.

The former journalist says, “I always wanted to write books. I just didn’t have the confidence or the self-belief. I didn’t believe that someone like me could be an author, so I became a journalist instead. I did that for 15 years, working for the BBC and for 10 of those years I was a secret writer. I spent that time secretly writing books and collecting lots of rejection letters.

“Then I wrote a book called Sometimes I Lie. It was going to be my final attempt at a novel. Then when it got picked up, it changed my life. Nothing has ever really been the same for me since. I still feel lucky every single day – even when the books aren’t behaving themselves!”

Beautiful Ugly centres around author Grady Green, who is having the worst best day of his life. He calls his wife Abby as she’s driving home to share some exciting news but then hears her slam on the brakes, get out of the car... and then nothing. When he eventually finds her car by a cliff edge, the headlights are on, the driver door is open, her phone is still there... but his wife has disappeared.

A year later, Grady is still overcome with grief and is desperate to know what happened to Abby. He can’t sleep, and he can’t write, so he travels to a tiny Scottish island to try to get his life back on track. Then he sees the impossible: a woman who looks exactly like his missing wife.

“Beautiful Ugly started out life as an idea I had between three and four in the morning. I woke up and I knew that I was so in love with the idea I’d just had, that I had to write it down there and then.