Beautiful Ugly

Novelist Grady Greene can’t wait to share his good news with his wife, Abby: he’s just made the New York Times bestseller list. He calls her, she’s driving home and not far from their house, only to hear her slam on the brakes, telling him that someone is lying on the road. Then silence. Grady heads out to find her and discovers that the car is empty, the door wide open, her cellphone abandoned, and Abby gone. So begins Grady’s year of mourning for his disappeared wife. To break his melancholia, and kick-start his work on his next book, his agent offers a little cabin on a barely habited Scottish isle. Grady takes her up on the offer, only to discover that there is, you guessed it, no way off the island—what ferry schedule?—and the two dozen or so female-only residents are a bit beyond odd. But oddest of all? The quick glimpses he has of a woman who is the spitting image of his wife. The creepiness, the occasional bursts of humor, the horrendous history, and of course the inevitable twists, all of which layer over one another, make for one terrifying ride.