Book Review - My Husband's Wife by Alice Feeney

Title: My Husband’s Wife
Author: Alice Feeney
Genre: Mystery
Published: 2026
 
Description: Eden Fox, an artist on the brink of her big break, sets off for a run before her first exhibition. When she returns to the home she recently movied into, Spyglass, an enchanting old house in Hope Falls, nothing is as it should be. Her key doesn’t fit. A woman, eerily similar to her, answers the door. And her husband insists that the stranger is his wife.
 
One house. One husband. Two women. Someone is lying.
 
Six months earlier, a reclusive Londoner called birdy, reeling from a life-changing diagnosis, inherits Spyglass. This unexpected gift from a long-lost grandmother brings her to the pretty seaside village of Hope Falls. But then Birdy stumbles upon a shadowy London clinic that claims to be able to predict a person’s date of death, including her own. Secrets start to unravel, and as the line between truth and lies blur, Birdy feels compelled to right some old wrongs.
 
Review: Alice Feeney’s books have become a hit or miss for me. I gave some five stars, I gave some two stars. “My Husband’s Wife” fall right in the middle.
 
Meet Eden Fox. She and her husband Harisson just moved to a seaside village called Hope Falls. When she returns from a run, Eden realizes her key doesn’t fit the lock. A strange woman opens the door, claiming she is Eden and lives there with her husband Harisson. This woman has taken over Eden’s life and her husband is in on it.
 
The premise really intrigued me, it’s a terrifying situation. Eden is being gaslit and her isolation in the village of Hope Falls is palpable and oppressive. There is also a separate storyline, set six month earlier, that follows a woman named Birdy who inherited Spyglas, the house that Eden is living in now. The first half of the book grabbed my by the throat, because the threat is so personal and psychological.
 
Where the book lost is for me is in its credibility. Feeney loves plot twists and she has done some of the best in previous books. But she goes overboard with them at a certain point. The conspiracy that is going on in this book is so complex and dependent on coincidence that it undermines the foundation of the story. The subplot surrounding the “Death Date” clinic also feels at times like a superfluous element from another genre, distracting from the core of the story.
 
The craftsmanship of the writing style and the page-turning quality are undeniable. It’s an entertaining roller coaster ride, provided you’re willing to suspend your logical mind for a while. The book is steeped in Feeney’s characteristic darkness and unreliable characters, which I loved. But the balance between a brilliant plot and total implausibility sometimes tips just the wrong way.
 
Rating: 3/ 5

Book Review - Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney

Title: Beautiful Ugly
Author: Alice Feeney
Genre: Thriller/ Mystery
Published: 2025
 
Description: Grady calls his wife to share some exciting news as she is driving home. He hears Abby slam on the brakes, get out of the car, then nothing. When he eventually finds her car by the edge cliff the headlights are on, the car door is open, her phone is still there… but his wife has disappeared.
 
A year later, Grady is still overcome with grief and 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.
 
Review: I was very excited to read Alice Feeney’s newest book. I was hoping that “Beautiful Ugly” was more like the books she wrote that introduced me to her. “His & Hers” and “Rock Paper Scissors” were those books and are both all-time favorite thrillers. Unfortunately, her new release didn’t meet that level.
 
Grady is an author, who is still grieving, a year after his wife Abby went missing. While he was on the phone with her, she went off the grid and no one has seen her since. It affects Grady’s life, but also his work. After his New York Times best seller, he has not written anything. His agent sends him to a cottage on a small Scottish island, so he has some peace and quiet and he can finds new inspiration. Grady believes this to be a good idea, but as soon as he sets foot on the island, strange things start to happen.
 
First of all, I love the setting. A small island setting, mysterious people, an unsolved mystery. That first chapter sucked me in. And at the start, I was really invested in the story. But towards the middle of the book, it started to feel repetitive and a  little dull. It was a slow book.
 
It did pick up eventually and I got back into it again. But then there was the twist. And this twist is what will make or break this book for you. It was a definite no for me. Because it made absolutely no sense. And looking back at that first chapter, that had me hooked right away, I feel cheated. There are so many issues and some of the actions of the characters just didn’t make sense either. Those final sentences of the book were really good though, but not enough to save it.
 
Rating: 2,5/ 5

Book Review - I Know Who You Are by Alice Feeney

Title: I Know Who You Are
Author: Alice Feeney
Genre: Thriller
Published: 2019
 
Description: Meet Aimee Sinclair: the actress everyone thingks they know but can’t remember where from. Except one person. Someone who knows Aimee very well – and what she’s done.
 
When Aimee comes home and discovers her husband is missing, she doesn’t seem to know what to do or how to act. The police think she’s hiding something and they’re right, she is – but perhaps not what they thought. Aimee has a secret she’s never shared, and yet, she suspects that someone knows. As she struggles to keep her career and sanity intact, her past comes back to haunt her in ways more dangerous than se could have ever imagined.
 
Review: Up and coming actress Aimee Sinclair loves to put herself in someone else’s shoes. For a moment forgetting who she is and where she came from. It feels like an escape from reality. When Aimee returns home after n argument with her husband Ben, he finds his wallet, phone and car keys, but Ben is nowhere to be found. She reports him missing, but the police question the actress. And Aimee does have secrets, but not the one the police expect.
 
Alice Feeney is one of my favorite thriller authors. She wrote “His & Hers” and “Rock Paper Scissors”, which are two of my all-time favorite thriller books. But Feeney did not convince with this book.
 
First, there are too many questions. Which are not a problem in general, but the answers to these question feel either unsatisfactory, unbelievable or are left unanswered. I found it interesting to learn about Aimee’s past and the mystery was engaging. But the final twist and reveal really ruined it for me. Where Feeney is usually known for her amazing plot twists, she really missed the mark here. I found it very difficult to believe and something at the very end of the story felt gross and just not okay. While it’s still a memorable ending, it’s for the wrong reasons. And I’m still left with a lot of questions at the end, some things just didn’t make sense.
 
Overall, the thriller is still engaging and I had a good time with it. But it was totally ruined by its ending. I’m glad I read other, better books by Feeney, because if this was my first, I would have been hesitant to pick up the rest.
 
Rating: 2,5/ 5

Book Review - Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeney

Title: Sometimes I Lie
Series: -
Author: Alice Feeney
 
Description: Amber wakes up in a hospital. She can’t move. She can’t speak. She can’t open her eyes. She can hear everyone around her, but they have no idea. Amber doesn’t remember what happened, but she has a suspicion her husband had something to do with it.
 
Review: Amber is in a coma with locked-in-syndrom. She hears everything, but can’t move, speak or open her eyes. She has no idea how she ended up in the hospital, but she thinks her husband has something to do with it.
 
“Sometimes I Lie” is Alice Feeney’s debut novel and an impressive one. The book is written from Amber’s perspective. We read about the present day, diary entries from her childhood years and the period leading up to the accident. Throughout the story, you get little pieces of information that will eventually fall into place. You have no idea who to trust, not even Amber, because she has no recollection of what happened. And Feeney manages to surprise us with some surprising twists and reveals. Something that she does in all the novels that I have read by her.
 
There are little clues throughout the book that eventually come together, but still the twists are very surprising. It’s a well-crafted story. Not all characters are as interesting, it’s mostly the connections between certain characters that make it such a good story.
 
Alive Feeney has now become an auto-buy author, I love her writing style, her twists, the way she sets up her stories and eventually surprises us with a surprising reveal.
 
Rating: 4/ 5

Book Review - Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney

Title:  Daisy Darker
Series: -
Author: Alice Feeney
 
Description: After years of avoiding each other, Daisy Darker’s entire family is assembling for Nana’s 80^th birthday party in Nana’s crumbling gothic house on a tidal island. Finally back together one last time, when the time comes in, they will be cut off from the rest of the world for eight hours.
 
The family arrives, each of them harboring secrets. Then at the stroke of midnight, as a storm rages, Nana is found dead. And an hour later, the next family member follows…
 
Trapped on an island where someone is killing them one by one, the Darkers must reckon with their present mystery as well as their past secrets, before the tide comes in and all is revealed.
 
Review: When you read a thriller by Alice Feeney, you know you can expect a surprising reveal or plot twist. Although this is different from previous books I read by her, that final reveal is again one that I did not see coming.
 
Daisy Darker was born with a broken heart. Literally. But after years of avoiding each other, her family comes together for the 80^th birthday of her grandmother, Nana. The venue is Seaglass, Nana’s gothic mansion on an island that can only be reached at a low tide.
 
When the family arrives, secrets surface one by one. And things get worse when they are cut off from the mainland for eight hours during the tide. Add to that a severe storm and the party is complete. Especially when at midnight, Nana is found dead. An hour later, so is the next family member. They are being murdered one by one. To find the culprit, they will have to face their secrets.
 
“Daisy Darker” was obviously inspired by “And Then There Were None” by Agatha Christie, which involves a group of strangers invited to a mansion by a mystery guest on a remote island and are also killed one by one. Here it’s a dysfunctional family. “Daisy Darker” is not as much of a page turner as “And Then There Were None” or Alice Feeney’s other books “His & Hers” and “Rock Paper Scissors”. And I felt kind of meh throughout the book. It was just fine, enjoyable, but nothing special. But then there is that reveal and the plot twists. And that’s what made this book so much better. It even makes you want to read it a second time, to see if you can spot the clues. Maybe the culprit could be predicted, but the shocking ending is way more complex and original. That bumped up my eventual rating of the book by a point.  
 
If I would recommend you an Alice Feeney book, I would probably not go with this one, but it’s still a book worth reading.
 
Rating: 3/ 5

Book Review - Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney

Title: Rock Paper Scissors
Series: -
Author: Alice Feeney
 
Description: Things have been wrong with Mr and Mrs Wright for a long time. When Adam and Amelia win a weekend away to Scotland, it might be just what their marriage needs. Self-confessed workaholic and screenwriter Adam has lived with face blindness his whole life. He can’t recognize friends or family, or even his own wife.
 
Every anniversary the couple exchange traditional gifts, and each year Adam’s wife writes him a letter that she never lets him read. Until now. They both know this weekend will make or break their marriage, but they didn’t randomly win this trip. One of them is lying, and someone doesn’t want them to live happily ever after.
 
Review: Misdirection is a trademark in Alice Feeney’s work. I learned that while reading “His & Her”. And she does it again for “Rock Paper Scissors”.
 
In “Rock Paper Scissors” we meet Adam and Amelia, who are on their way to spend a weekend in Scotland. Adam is a workaholic screenwriter who has suffered from face blindness his whole life, where he can’t recognize anyone’s face, not even his own wife’s. While on their trip, they realize that this won vacation, wasn’t just a random win. There are lies standing between them and someone does not want them to leave.
 
The book is built of short chapters, each one presenting one of thee points-of-vies: Adam, Amelia and someone called Robin. There are also chapters that are the letters to Adam written by his wife, commemorating several of their anniversaries. Multiple points of view are a feature in books I really love. And they work well, especially for thrillers. Every chapter brings new information from a different perspective. These revelations changes the way the reader views the characters. Feeney made them meaningful and impactful.
 
This book is a puzzle, where with each chapter a piece is placed. A very well-crafted thriller, that kept my attention at all times. I love Alice Feeney’s writing style and I would love to keep reading her books. There is still so many to dive into. When the level of excitement and thrill is continuous in her other books, Feeney might become a favorite of mine.
 
Rating: 5/ 5

Book Review - His & Hers by Alice Feeney

Title: His & Hers
Series: -
Author: Alice Feeney
 
Description: When a woman is murdered in Blackdown, a quintessentially British newsreader Anna Andrews is reluctant to cover the case. Detective Jack Harper is suspicious of her involvement, until he becomes a suspect of his own murder investigation. Someone isn’t telling the truth, and some secrets are worth killing to keep.
 
Review: There are at least two sides to every story: Yours and mine. Ours and theirs. His and hers. And that means someone is always lying.
 
In Blackdown, nothing really ever happens until a woman is murdered in a parking lot. Journalist Anna Andrews is reluctant when she has to report on this police investigation. Detective Jack Harper suspects Anna’s involvement in the case, but eventually becomes a suspect himself. One of them is not telling the truth, but who?  
 
This is the first time reading a book by Alice Sweeney, hearing a lot of great things about her. And “His & Hers” didn’t disappoint. Each chapter brings us something new about the characters and the case. They are told from three different perspectives: Him, detective Jack Harper, her, Anna Andrews, and the killer. I listened to the audiobook of this, which I can highly recommend. The killer's voice is distorted, so you will not know up until the end, who it is and whether the killer is a man or a woman.
 
Because the chapters are fairly short, it has cliffhangers at the end of each chapter and there is tension at all times, the book is a quick and easy read. As the story progresses a few things become clear, but mainly you get more and more questions. Piece by piece you can eventually fit all the pieces into the puzzle and the story stays exciting until the very end. And nothing is what it seems. Even at times you think you have figured it out, you haven’t.
 
Alice Feeney manages to captivate the reader from beginning to end. the suspense is continuous. And even when you think it’s finished, Feeney still manages to blow you away.
 
Even though this is not Feeney’s first book, it was my first of hers and I’m really excited to read more of her work. She is an incredibly good thriller writer and I’m curious what other stories she has up her sleeve. I loved “His & Hers”. Highly recommend.
 
Rating: 5/ 5