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- [00:01]
Zibby Owens
Hi, this is Zibby Owens and you're listening to Totally Booked with Zibby, formerly Moms don't have Time to Read Books. In my daily show, I interview today's latest best selling buzziest or underrated authors and story creators whose work I think is worth your time. As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously podcaster, I get a comprehensive look at everything that's coming out and spend my time curating the best books so you don't have to stay in the know, get insider insights and connect with guests like I do every single day. For more information, go to zibbymedia.com and follow me on Instagram ibeowens Alice Feeney.
- [00:46]
Alice Feeney
Is the author of Beautiful A Novel.
- [00:48]
Zibby Owens
And by the way, this is my.
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Alice Feeney
Zivy's Book Club pick. I loved this book.
- [00:53]
Zibby Owens
I underlined like a thousand sentences.
- [00:55]
Alice Feeney
Plus the plot was great, but really the writing was amazing and so good. Beautiful Ugly Alice Feeney Alice Feeney is.
- [01:02]
Zibby Owens
The New York Times bestselling author of Sometimes I Lie, I Know who youo.
- [01:06]
Alice Feeney
Are, his and hers Rock Paper Scissors and Good Bad Girl. Her novels have been Translated into over.
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Zibby Owens
25 languages and have been optioned for major screen adaptations. Alice was a BBC journalist for 15 years and now lives in the Devon countryside with her family.
- [01:20]
Alice Feeney
Welcome Alice. Thank you so much for coming on. Moms don't have time to read books, discuss. Beautiful Ugly. Congratulations.
- [01:28]
Thank you so much for having me. It's lovely to be here.
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Alice. This book was so good I could not stop reading it. All the twists and turns, all the one line zingers that I started like numbering because there were so many of them. So good. I mean, so, so good. Congrats. It's so good.
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Thank you very much. Thank you.
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So why don't you start by telling everybody what the book is about?
- [01:52]
Well, Beautiful Ugly is about an author called Grady Green who is having the best, worst day of his life. And basically Grady's waiting to find out if his latest book might be a New York Times bestseller. And he really hopes that it will be because things have been a bit tough for him career wise. His marriage is not quite what it used to be and he's hoping if he has this moment of success, perhaps his wife's going to look at him the way she used to. He really wants her to be there for the call, but she's working late again, so he gets the call. He's New York Times bestseller, Everything's Wonderful. He calls his wife to tell her and then when they're on the phone together, he hears the sound of screeching brakes. He hears Abby get out of the car and walk away. And then he hears nothing. The car's not so far away from where they live, so he runs. He tries to find the car. He finds it, but the car door is open. The engine's still running. The windscreen wipers are still going. Her phone is still in the car. But his wife is missing. A whole year later, Grady is still devastated. He's going through grief. He's wondering what's happened to his wife. He can't sleep, he can't eat, he can't write. And his agent suggests he goes to a little tiny island in Scotland to try and get his life back on track, where the impossible happens. And he sees a woman who looks the spitting image of his missing wife. So that's the opening of the book, which has been such a fun book for me to write. And then we follow Grady's journey and we try and find out the truth about what really happened to his wife, Abby.
- [03:17]
Wow. Well, your imagination is amazing. The way you created this island community with no birds and why that even was the case, and the walkie talkies and all the interrelationships and the fairy that had sort of nebulous start and end times and the mail and all this cast of characters like, oh, my gosh, I don't know. This is such a feat of imagination. And then all the twists. Oh, my gosh. Anyway, and then how you have part of it from Abby's point of view and most of it from Grady's point of view, but that in some of the articles that Abby wrote, how did you just. Like, how did you even conceive of this whole book? How did you put it all together? What came first? Like, just tell me the whole story. I'm fascinated.
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I. I feel as though. Thank you. Being very lovely about my book.
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And I'm sorry, I was just like.
- [04:13]
The book's not out yet, so it's always a bit scary when the book isn't quite out yet. So it's lovely that you've read it and you've liked it, so thank you very much. That makes me happy. But a few of my books have started the same way, actually, in that they wake me up between 3 and 4. Is that a dog?
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Oh, yes, yes, that's my dog.
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I have a black Labrador. What's that?
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Oh, you do?
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Is that a black lab? I can see that.
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Zibby Owens
Black lab, yes.
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Alice Feeney
Her name is Nya.
- [04:35]
Yeah. Oh, mine's asleep. Just down there. So I'm not that we have the same dogs. I wish my bookcases looked as beautiful as yours behind you, but. Sorry, I'm waffling on. We were talking about serious things, where the book came from.
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I love your things behind you too. The penguin. Old fashioned penguin covers. Like those are so cool. Oh, my gosh.
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Yes. They have strange things on them. So one of them just has. Please leave by 9 and take your shoes off.
- [05:01]
Oh, I love that. I would. Wow. I love this. Okay.
- [05:06]
Anyway. Beautiful. Ugly. Sorry, back to. Back to the book. So a lot of my books have started in the same way in that they wake me up between 3 and 4 in the morning. That seems to be my witching hour. And that seems to be, you know, sometimes I lie. Happened that way. Beautiful. Ugly. Definitely happened that way too. And it happened in November 2020. So it's quite a long journey from having that initial idea at 3 o'clock one morning in 2020 to publication, which will be in most places, January 2025. But the books tend to lurk inside the back of my head for a long time before I write them. So I never just have the idea and start writing. I'm really jealous of authors who literally make things up as they go along. That feels like real magic to me. Whereas I tend to think and think and get to know the characters in my head and, you know, I'll go out for dinner with a friend and I'll accidentally order what the character would order instead of what I would order. Sometimes I order things I wouldn' like, but they might like. And so it exists.
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Zibby Owens
So you're ordering.
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Alice Feeney
You're ordering a lot of lamb.
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Yeah, exactly. Lots of lambs going on. And so it sort of starts like that. And then there reaches a point where just quite naturally I'll know that I know the characters well enough to be able to write this story. At which point I do a big board in the room where I write and plot it all out. So every character has their own cards, every chapter has their own cards. I mark where my twists are, I mark other certain points before I write a word of the book. And then when I wrote the book, it tends to often be quite well behaved. Not always. Daisy Darker took me five years to write his and hers was the best, best behaved book. That was three months, three drafts in three months. I didn't leave the house. I had birds nesting in my hair. But that was a really well behaved book, which is soon to be a TV show. So I love the journey for that Book. And with Beautiful Ugly, it was about a year of writing. And of course, with all plans, things can change. So some parts of the story, I knew, other parts would just pop into my head as I was writing. But I loved writing this one. I loved writing Beautiful Ugly. I loved the characters, I loved the thrill of me knowing the secrets and gently just planting those breadcrumbs, hopefully for readers to find and enjoy so that when they reach the end of this particular roller coaster, they've. They've had a fun time and we can all look back together and go, aha. Now I see. Now I see.
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Now I have to go back. I feel like I need to re read or like skim the whole thing to find out where I missed the clues, because I was so surprised. But anyway, I feel like I'm like the worst reader. I miss a lot of clues and thrillers and mysteries.
- [07:44]
Oh, no, me too, though. And I think that's the joy of it, isn't it? It's this puzzle that we're all trying to put together. I. I guess I love reading books with twists and I love watching TV shows and films with twists. And the thing I love most about those stories is. Is when I think I've guessed it. When I sit there feeling all smug, thinking, I know already, I know what it's going to be. How very disappointing that I already know and then I don't. And I love that. Having the rug pulled out for me and actually, things aren't quite what you thought. Things aren't quite what you seem. Because for me, that's real life. That's. That's every day. You know, we all judge people when we first meet them, even if we don't mean to wear. Make judgments based on their appearance or how they look or how they sound. And I like to play with that within the book and the characters in the books. And I want you to fall in love with certain characters and then perhaps realise that the person you were rooting for might actually be the person who's done all the things that perhaps you didn't quite approve of. So it was a really fun book for me to write. I enjoyed it.
- [08:46]
You do that with the character from the ferry when Grady's going to her house and you're like, well, this is quite a surprise. I didn't expect you to have this nice a house.
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What's going on here, then? Yes, I love that. I love that. I think we're all guilty of that from time to time. I can't help it. It's Human nature. It's human nature. You see someone and you make up a story about them in your head. And sometimes you can be very, very wrong.
- [09:12]
So I think what I love the most is that you intersperse these very wise one line zingers. And you clearly are writing about not only the act of writing itself in the publishing industry and all of that, but just the nature of grief and the nature of love and the sometimes the demise or the paths that marriage can take both parties. And yet in the midst of this, there's then this propulsive plot. So I was hoping I could just read a couple of the things, all of which I feel like could be, like, Instagram posts of their own. Can I read a couple of the lines?
- [09:50]
Zibby Owens
Okay.
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Alice Feeney
There are so many. Oh, well, this is a good one. I used to be so independent. Ambitions and a life of my own. But it feels as though I've been fading since I met my husband and falling, and I can no longer remember whether I jumped or was pushed. Love that. Then you said, you can only rearrange the furniture of your life a number of times before things look the same as they did. So good.
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Oh, I love that one, too. Thank you.
- [10:15]
Writing is like being beaten to death by your own dream. That's a really good one. Is a writer still a writer if they can no longer write? Parties are my idea of hell. I'm telling you, these could all be like pillows. Nobody wrote anything worth reading on an empty stomach. They were all magicians of words, and that was my favorite kind of magic. That's how you talked about authors. Oh, my gosh. Constantly lying to yourself requires a special variety of stamina. Oh, my God. I could go on and on. Am I giving too much away?
- [10:47]
No, no, it's lovely. Thank you. I keep thinking, who wrote these things? That's very nice.
- [10:52]
They're very nice. Here's one. He's chasing something he'll never find. But we're all guilty of that.
- [10:58]
It was strange for me because I remember when I handed in the book, my editor in America, lovely Christine, said, there's so much of you in this book. You know, well done, and thank you for going there. And I thought, what does she mean? Does she think just because it's about an author that it's about me? Of course it isn't about me. And it was only when we were recording the audiobook with Richard Armitage narrating Grady, there were a few things in there. I thought, oh, no, I do think that. Oh, no, I do say that. Oh, no, that has happened to me as an author. Oh, I see. I see now what perhaps she was getting. I. I see. But I think sometimes when you're so close to the book, when you're in the middle of writing it and editing it, you can't quite see it in the same way that other people are going to see the story. It's like, you know, with your children, you have your own view of perhaps of your children and other people might have a different view of them, but it's a sort of strange paradox in that way, I think. And it was, it was such a fun book to write. But I do go there, I do go into the author experience and I definitely did dip into one or two, you know, horrific moments of my own career, which Grady has shared with me because again, I think being, I think being an author is the best job in the world, actually. But there are moments when it's difficult and there are moments of heartbreak, as there are, I'm sure, with, with lots of other creative jobs. And I think it's always fun when I write about a troubled marriage because I'm actually very happily married. We're about to celebrate our 20th anniversary in December. And I always feel so sorry for my poor mother in law because she's one of my biggest fans and she rushes out on publication day and she buys the book and then I get the series of WhatsApp saying, is my son okay? Is everything all right? And you know, we. I did a book called Rock Paper Scissors which is about a couple who go to Scotland and they have a black Labrador. Every year my husband and I go to Scotland with our black Labrador. And of course this one is about a husband and wife who are both writers and they just. He goes to Scotland and there's another dog involved again in the story. So I do worry that sometimes people think, gosh, she must be very unhappily married because she's always writing about these troubled relationships. But I promise that part is all fiction.
- [13:14]
Well, I don't know if I can trust you because I don't know. I don't know. Columbo. Columbo wasn't a black lab though, was he?
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No, no, I'm thinking of the next book. I'm already head to the next one. No, Colombo is not a black Labrador. They're often black Labradors though. But I try and mix it up every now and again.
- [13:30]
Zibby Owens
Today's episode is sponsored by Acorns. Acorns makes it easy to start automatically saving and investing so your money has a chance to grow for you, your kids and your retirement. You don't need to be an expert. Acorns will recommend a diversified portfolio that fits you and your money goals. Acorns lets you invest with the spare money you've got right now. You can start with $5 or even just your spare change so you don't need to feel like financial wellness is impossible. Acorns gives you small, simple steps to get you and your money back on track and it's the New Year when we all make New Year's resolutions Last.
- [14:07]
Alice Feeney
Year I made a resolution to go.
- [14:09]
Zibby Owens
To the gym more often. I tried to say I would go once a week. Basically I think I've gone to the gym like three times in the whole last year. But I am not giving up on my resolutions. And saving money and making smart financial.
- [14:23]
Alice Feeney
Decisions is a resolution that Acorns makes it really easy to keep.
- [14:27]
Zibby Owens
By the way, I invested with Acorns in 2023 and in my portfolio I am up 20.24%, which is really awesome. So you should do it too. It's amazing. Head to acorns.com books or download the Acorns app to start saving and investing for your future Today. Paid client Endorsement compensation provides incentive to positively promote Acorns Tier 1 compensation provided investing involves risk. Acorn Advisors LLC and SEC registered investment advisor. View important disclosures@acorns.com Books Today's episode has been sponsored by Wayfair. I don't know about you, but I am so excited to get rid of all the holiday clutter and make room for spring refresh in my own home and office. I trust Wayfair more than any other brand and I'm probably their most frequent shopper because I decorated all of Zibby's Bookshop on Wayfair and then all of the Zibby Media offices in New York City on Wayfair. Plus my own home. I am obsessed. Wayfair has stuff for everyone and everything. Think carpets. Think comfy poofs for kids. Think couches and tables and office chairs and cute knickknacks and everything you could need to make your space feel refreshed and cozy and wonderful. Plus, it comes so fast and the prices are amazing. There's something for every style and every home and office. No matter your space or your budget. Wayfair will make it easy to tackle all your New Year's home goals with endless inspiration for every space and budget, whether you need a light refresh or an organization overhaul. So give your home the refresh it needs with wayfair. Head to wayfair.com right now. That's W A Y F A I R.com Wayfair Every style, every home.
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Alice Feeney
Wait, tell me a little bit about the next one. What's.
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Oh, I only just finished it, so I. I haven't even practiced talking about it in my own head yet. But it's very twisty. I really wanted to write something extra twisty. They write this thing on the books now, you know, the queen of twists, which is. I didn't come up with that and I remember when they did, my publishers came up with that and were very excited about it. I was worried and I called my agent and I said, what if one year I write a book with no twists? And he immediately said, that will be the twist. I do enjoy a good twist. So I've tried to make the next one extra twisty, but I think there are a few good twists in Beautiful Ugly. I hope there'll be a few surprises for my readers in there too.
- [17:15]
Yes, lots of twists. And even without the twists, it was really great. I mean, but then it's like jaw dropping. Oh my goodness. I don't. To be honest, I don't read that many books that are, I don't know, thriller, psychological thriller. Like how do you even categorize? I don't know, because I'm too anxious. Like I feel like I'm too anxious to be on the edge of my seat. But that is not what this felt like.
- [17:37]
This was a very different kind of journey. I do think this one's a bit different to my, to my others. But yes, I think you're right, it touches on lots of themes and hopefully I've done the various storylines justice in that. But I always want readers to almost see the book as a fun roller coaster ride, but also a mirror. Yes, I, I love it when I read a book and it's almost like holding a mirror up to my face and seeing things about myself that perhaps I didn't know or I didn't realize straight away. So yeah, I wanted it to be a lot of things to different people and fingers crossed it, it achieves that and makes people think about their own lives and their own opinions and their own views on the world in a slightly different way perhaps. And just re examine some of their own pre held views about others.
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Well, one group of people who will absolutely benefit from the book are those who are grieving or who have ever grieved. The way you write about loss and the physical effects of it and when we see Grady is just so hollowed out and all his thoughts of how do you go through the world when you're missing someone so much and loving someone and all of that, all of the way you write about grief is just so raw. I mean, I know you said you have a happy marriage, and that's great.
- [18:55]
Zibby Owens
I'm very happy for you.
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Alice Feeney
But you must have had some sort of grief, because this feels so real and so raw. Or maybe you're just, you know, the master at channeling emotions. Where does this all come from?
- [19:06]
I don't think I'm a master of anything, but thank you. I think we all experience grief. I think we've all been through our own dark times, and I think a lot of writers end up pouring that into their work in a way that is almost like therapy for them. You know, it's a way of processing those things that you've been through. But I think for me, grief is almost more difficult after a period of time has gone by. And I think that's why for Grady, I wanted it to be a year later. I wanted to come back and. And see what happens after everyone stops picking up the phone to see how you are. You know, you go through a phase where lose someone very important to you. People do. I hope, you know, for most people, they'll have some people who will be there for them. There'll be phone calls, there'll be emails, there'll be text messages. There might be a casserole. You know, how are you? They check in and then people forget. And the thing about grief is it never goes away. I don't think so. Not in my experience. You know, when you lose someone, there's a slight hole inside of you, a gap that wasn't there before, and it rarely gets filled. So I think it's something that we all go through at some point during our lives, but none of us really want to talk about it too much because it makes us feel so sad. Understandably so. I wanted this to be a book in that way that people can know that it's okay to not be okay a year later, two years later, 10 years later. When you lose someone you love, you lose a part of yourself, I think. And it's just learning how to deal with that and move on as this slightly different version of you. So true.
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You have a line that says, you know, someone says good grief, and you're like, why do people say that? It is grief is never good.
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Grief is never good.
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Grief is never good. Can I ask? And you don't have to answer. But who did you lose that you felt like you lost a piece of yourself?
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Oh, I've lost so many people. I'm sure we all have in various different ways. You know, the first time I saw a dead body was actually my grandmother because I'm half Irish. So it was an Irish funeral and she was there in her coffin in the, in the front room. It was very different to funerals I'd been to in England. So I think from quite a young age I understood what it is like to lose somebody that you care about and that. That feeling never goes away. But, you know, I can see your dog behind you. When I lost my dog a couple of years ago, it was actually awful. It was like losing a child. And I think sometimes people who don't have pets can't quite relate to that or understand the huge sense of loss when you lose a dog. So I think we'll go through loss in different ways, whether it's family, whether it's pets, whether it's friendships. You know, we sometimes grow apart in friendships as well. So I think it's something that everybody can relate to. Yeah, but seeing, seeing your dog as well, just in the way that you said sometimes you're not. You feel anxious reading thrillers. I always feel the need to say that, that it's a spoiler alert. But the dog will always be fine. In my books, I'm very much a dog person. So when people get very worried and anxious reading my books because there's a dog and maybe the dog is in danger, you really don't need to worry. The dog will always be fine. I can't say the same about the humans, but no need to worry about the dog too.
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Well, I'm, I'm sorry that my dog is so rudely sleeping through this interview. She is so not impressed by authors anymore. It doesn't matter who is on this podcast. She's like, whatever, I'm going to sleep through it. So sorry about that.
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This wasn't a black Labrador. She was like, keep it as black Labradors and from now on I'll pay attention.
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Yes, exactly.
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Zibby Owens
Maybe I'll turn over.
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Alice Feeney
But you also have things in here about sort of abuse to women. Right? Abuse of women and, you know, men as predator in a way, and taking advantage of young girls and women in general, whether it's, you know, in plot or articles or whatever. Talk about that a little bit.
- [22:54]
I didn't want it to become like a man bashing book and that wasn't the intention for it. At all. But I wanted it to be about this sense of people having had enough. I think we are living in very dark times at the moment. It feels darker to me than it's ever been before in some ways. And I was a journalist for 15 years before I became an author, so I was used to sitting in the middle of the world's biggest newsroom, and I was used to seeing terrible news and terrible stories all day long and having to process that. But I look at the world now, and I look at the news now, and I feel as though there's this movement in terms of people have just had enough. You know, we've sort of woken up to what is going on around us and we're not happy about it, and we want to take control of our own lives and the people that we care about back in some way. And so for me, it was about that. It was about some of the characters in this book. Without trying to give anything away too much, it was about some of the characters in this book had had enough and they wanted control of their own lives and they wanted to live in a way that they wanted to live where things were peaceful and they felt safe and could do whatever they wanted to do and spend time with their loved ones without any fear. So it was about that for me.
- [24:11]
Wow. So are you someone who reads a million other things and gets inspired when you're writing, or do you not read other things? Like, what is your relationship like with books and sort of contemporary versus old fiction or memoir? Like, what is your reading life like?
- [24:28]
I read a lot and I read quite a varied collection of books. I don't just read my genre, I read all kinds of books. But sometimes I find I get so busy with the writing that my reading definitely takes a hit. I remember last year someone asking me at an event on tour, do you read as much now that you're a published author? And I thought it was such an interesting question. I didn't even know the answer. And I think the honest answer is probably no, because if I spend all day at my desk, which I often do, so at the moment, I've just been finishing off the next book, which can mean starting at 4am, finishing at 10pm I don't just do a couple of hours. I will sit there all day when it gets to this stage where I'm about to hand in a new book. So that leaves very little time for reading. And this year, I think, you know, I've probably read less than normal. And I've also been reading my own books this year, which sounds strange, but I'm very lucky. I just came back from seeing his and hers being filmed for Netflix, which is incredible.
- [25:29]
Congratulations.
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So surreal seeing characters who've lived inside my head for years coming to life and walking and talking. And I cried a lot. It was very emotional. But on the way to see the filming, I wanted to read the book again because for me that was book three, which is several years ago. I was actually quite surprised by how dark some of it was. I remember just reading it on the way to. To seeing the show being filmed, thinking, who wrote this? Oh, I did. So it can be surprising sometimes even going back to your own previous work when it's been several years since you've seen it. But no, I try to read most evenings before bed is probably my routine. I find that switches my brain off rather than me lying awake thinking about my own books, trying to fix things in my head while I'm asleep. Yeah. And I probably wish I could read more than I did.
- [26:22]
So when you think about your sort of legacy, if you will, and I know that's sort of a lofty word, but in the book we're thinking a lot about Charles Whitaker's book Legacy, if you will, and Grady's and the collection of work and where does that leave someone and their whole reputation? If you could design what you want people to say, right, we had, like, where. What would you want them? Like what. What is your greatest hope with your work?
- [26:54]
Gosh, that's a good question. I think I always just want my readers to enjoy the ride. I want them to pick up the book and it's. For me, it's as though I've invited them on this roller coaster ride together and we're gonna go on this journey together. It's hopefully going to be quite fast, a bit twisty, it might get a little bit dark and scary at points. But by the end of that journey, I hope they've had a good time. I hope they've seen things from a slightly upside down view, that perhaps they didn't look at the world in that way before. But overall, I suppose I just want to offer them this escape, really. I think for me, I've always used reading and books as a form of escape. When the real world gets too loud, I read or I disappear inside a story. And I think at the moment the real world is very, very loud. So they want to offer them this form of escape which can take them away from whatever is worrying them in real life and give them this other journey to Go on this other twisty ride and this puzzle that, you know, we can all try and solve together and let's see if anyone gets it right.
- [28:00]
Amazing. And just last question. Do you need it to be as quiet as Grady did? Like, do you have to be alone? Yes, yes, yes.
- [28:09]
No, I. The. On the list of things I have in common with Grady Green, that is absolutely one of them. I don't understand these authors who can write in cafes. I think they must be an alien species, but I'm very jealous to be able to concentrate and invent worlds with all this noise and hubbub going on around them. I've never been able to understand that or do that. So I know I live in a very, very old 16th century, that cottage in the middle of nowhere. My only neighbors are sheep. Although in springtime they're quite loud, actually. But no, most of the time it's very, very peaceful here. It's very quiet. I'm surrounded by fields. They're over there. That's why I'm looking in that direction. And it's just me and the dog. And I can just stand, go to my desk and. Because I've been having some very early starts lately, I hear owls. We have a lot of owls here, so it's quite atmospheric. I'll be sitting at my desk at 4:00 in the morning and it's pitch black outside and owls are tweeting away. But no, I need quiet. It was a very short answer to this question. I'm trying to make it sound more interesting than it is, I think. No, I have to have everything being very silent in order to go down the rabbit hole. Inside the book, inside the story.
- [29:23]
Wow. Well, congratulations. This is amazing. I really loved it.
- [29:28]
And thank you so much. Thank you.
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Well done.
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Thank you. It's really, really lovely to talk to you.
- [29:33]
You too. Okay. All right, take care. Okay, bye. Bye.
- [29:37]
Zibby Owens
Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibi, formerly Moms don't have time to read books. If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review. Follow me on Instagram, ippyowens and Spread the word. Thanks so much. Oh, and buy the books.