Here are 100 books that Beautiful Ugly fans have personally recommended if you like
Beautiful Ugly.
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I’m the author of 26 twisty psychological thrillers, many of which are Amazon bestsellers. I’ve sold over three-quarters of a million books and particularly enjoy writing about dysfunctional families and unpleasant neighbours! Several of my novels touch upon the theme of creepy obsessions, including Violets Are Blue, Deserve To Die, and The Godchild, to name just three. In case you’re wondering I have drawn upon some creepy obsessions I’ve experienced in real life... I’m a full-time author and I’m also an avid reader of thrillers and enjoy nothing more than reading a book with an ending that makes me gasp!
I loved this book because it pulled me straight into its sun-soaked, dangerous world.
I could almost feel the heat of southern Spain with the tension rising off the pages. I do love a story with flawed characters that make desperate choices, and both main characters kept me guessing.
This was fast and twisty with some unpleasant characters, which is just how I like it.
THE SUMMER THRILLER OF THE YEAR Don't miss the pulse-pounding thriller from the NUMBER ONE bestselling author of The Girl in Seat 2A! If you love Freida McFadden and Lisa Jewell, you will love The Girl on the Balcony!
A fresh start
A dangerous obsession
And a past that won't stay buried
Jade's new life in Spain is unravelling. Broke, scared and haunted by the past, she is forced to rent out her apartment.
Her tenant is living the life she always dreamed of. Not a care in the world, lounging on the balcony, watching the world go by.
I’m the author of 26 twisty psychological thrillers, many of which are Amazon bestsellers. I’ve sold over three-quarters of a million books and particularly enjoy writing about dysfunctional families and unpleasant neighbours! Several of my novels touch upon the theme of creepy obsessions, including Violets Are Blue, Deserve To Die, and The Godchild, to name just three. In case you’re wondering I have drawn upon some creepy obsessions I’ve experienced in real life... I’m a full-time author and I’m also an avid reader of thrillers and enjoy nothing more than reading a book with an ending that makes me gasp!
I was completely hooked by this book—it’s the kind of story that crawls under your skin and refuses to leave.
I love when a thriller explores the fine line between love, guilt, and obsession, and this one does it brilliantly. Sloan isn’t a typical heroine; she makes one impulsive mistake and suddenly her entire world tilts off balance. I found myself torn between rooting for her and shouting at her, which is my favorite kind of reading experience.
Nelle Lamarr’s writing is sharp, funny, and full of energy, but beneath the humor lurks something darker—an obsession that spirals in the very best way.
From Nelle Lamarr, the Amazon All-Star bestselling author of The Family Guest and The Night Nanny, comes an unputdownable new thriller with a jaw-dropping ending.
“A witty and gripping read, All My Lies is Nelle Lamarr's best to date. I couldn't put it down.” Nicola Sanders, Bestselling Author of Don't Let Her Stay.
Someone knows my secret...
All I ever wanted was to write a bestseller. And now, finally, I've done it. People ask me how, where did I get my inspiration?
But I can never tell them – because I have a secret.
I’m the author of 26 twisty psychological thrillers, many of which are Amazon bestsellers. I’ve sold over three-quarters of a million books and particularly enjoy writing about dysfunctional families and unpleasant neighbours! Several of my novels touch upon the theme of creepy obsessions, including Violets Are Blue, Deserve To Die, and The Godchild, to name just three. In case you’re wondering I have drawn upon some creepy obsessions I’ve experienced in real life... I’m a full-time author and I’m also an avid reader of thrillers and enjoy nothing more than reading a book with an ending that makes me gasp!
I raced through this one since I love books about obsession and control, and this book captures both with chilling precision.
Watching Naomi’s perfect new life unravel as Summer pushes her way in was equal parts addictive and unsettling. I was desperate to see how far Summer would go and how far Naomi would be pushed to protect her children.
It’s tense, fast-paced, and deliciously creepy in all the right ways.
The brand new psychological thriller from the bestselling author of The Perfect Home! Perfect for fans of Freida McFadden and Lisa Jewell 💥'Tense, unsettling, and brilliantly executed... One of my favourite reads of the year.' Keri Beevis
She lives in my old home, she looks like me, she dresses like me... And now she wants my life 🩸
Naomi is devastated when the sale of the apartment falls through, her dreams of moving to an amazing 'forever home' nearby with her family are momentarily dashed.
But then a sweet-natured single mother named Summer appears, announcing her intention to buy Naomi's…
I’m the author of 26 twisty psychological thrillers, many of which are Amazon bestsellers. I’ve sold over three-quarters of a million books and particularly enjoy writing about dysfunctional families and unpleasant neighbours! Several of my novels touch upon the theme of creepy obsessions, including Violets Are Blue, Deserve To Die, and The Godchild, to name just three. In case you’re wondering I have drawn upon some creepy obsessions I’ve experienced in real life... I’m a full-time author and I’m also an avid reader of thrillers and enjoy nothing more than reading a book with an ending that makes me gasp!
I love stories about obsession, and this one delivers in spades: the way the past refuses to stay buried, how the ex’s presence twists every interaction, and the creeping sense that nothing is safe.
The setting in the Scottish Highlands in a storm is described beautifully and dramatically heightens the tension. I adore books that pull me in so deeply I forget the world around me, and this one did exactly that.
Even when the twists veered into the unexpected, I didn’t care—I was too busy racing through the pages, desperate to see how it would all unfold.
‘Thank you for inviting me,' says the woman at the door. I've never seen her before, but she pushes past me and throws her arms around my husband's neck. I'm frozen in shock. Who is she?
When I hear her name, the world begins to spin around me. Alice – my husband's ex. The one who broke his heart. Butmy husband swears he didn't ask her to join us in our remote cottage in the Highlands, so why is she here?
One of them is lying to me. Shivers run up my spine as I think about my two little…
I started keeping a daily journal when I received one for my ninth birthday, and, as they say, the rest is history. Into my twenties, there was nothing I loved more than sitting down to write and write`. It was a way to understand my feelings, and it was also a way to make sense of the world in all its beauty and bewilderment. There seemed to be magic and attempted connection everywhere! And so I became a lover of writing that focused on humans playing out their lives in a world at once surreal and real in an attempt to make sense of the extraordinary.
This short, dark novel hooked me from the beginning. Its beginning is, in fact, its ending when it is revealed that the protagonist, a young woman named Janet, has just been murdered. The story then jumps back in time to when Janet is born. I was drawn to the sharp, wry narrative voice and the gothic, stormy setting of northern mid-20th century Scottland.
The rest of the novel is an account of Janet’s coming-of-age instead of a typical and dull whodunit, which I loved because it felt fresh, true, and real to me—a revelation, in fact. I was so happy to encounter a young female protagonist who was odd, bookish, intelligent, grumpy, lonely, and highly unpopular.
In the tradition of Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, a darkly humorous modern classic of Scottish literature about a doomed adolescent growing up in the mid-19th century—featuring a new introduction by Maggie O’Farrell, award-winning author of Hamnet.
Janet lies murdered beneath the castle stairs, attired in her mother’s black lace wedding dress, lamented only by her pet jackdaw…
Author Elspeth Barker masterfully evokes the harsh climate of Scotland in this atmospheric gothic tale that has been compared to the works of the Brontës, Edgar Allan Poe, and Edward Gorey. Immersed in a world of isolation and…
I used to get in trouble (nightly) for eating with my book propped against my plate. Yet with all the books I devoured, there was never one about a kid that looked like me with a family like mine. The single anomaly was Blubber, which absolutely thrilled me to see a supporting character named Tracy Wu. And while the YA world has thankfully become more diverse, BIPOC authors and protagonists are still the exception in adult literature. I’m excited to share this list of badass female AAPI authors who write equally strong protagonists because, though we’ve come a long way since Tracy Wu, we still have further to go.
I started this book on a plane, continued to read in my seat after the plane landed, and was seriously annoyed at the flight attendant when forced to deplane. This is one of those books with a simple twist on the fantasy genre I wish I’d thought of—a race of beings who subsist on eating books.
Dean’s world building is superb, the protagonist is a badass, and the portrayal of the fractured relationships among characters—especially with her son—complicated and relatable. I finished it (in a chair at the airport) in one sitting, and it was worth it.
THE NO. 2 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
'I devoured this' V.E. Schwab
'A vampire-themed Handmaid's Tale, with effective thrills that are intensified by social commentary' Guardian
A gorgeous new fantasy horror - a book about stories and fairy tales with family and love at its dark heart...
A gorgeous new fantasy horror - a book about stories and fairy tales with family and love at its dark heart...
Hidden across England and Scotland live six old Book Eater families.
The last of their lines, they exist on the fringes of society and subsist on a diet of stories and legends.
My graduating class in high school once designated me as “the most likely to start a feminist revolution.” That was a lot to live up to, but I’ve made a very small stab at it by writing about women who have changed our world. I love to bring awareness about the contributions great women have made in history, but I also want modern women to see themselves in these struggles. I always say that Historical Fiction is an exercise of empathy, and I hope my work encourages women today to get involved and make a difference in the world, too.
I loved this tale about the extraordinary Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughter, Mary Shelley.
Thoroughly researched, this novel delves deep into the complex relationship of a daughter who never knew her infamous, trailblazing, rule-breaking, feminist mother and how that same daughter breaks the mold in her own way by inventing the science fiction genre in writing Frankenstein.
From A Vindication of the Rights of Woman to Frankenstein, a tale of two literary legends—a mother and daughter—discovering each other and finding themselves along the way, from USA Today bestselling author Stephanie Marie Thornton.
1792. As a child, Mary Wollstonecraft longed to disappear during her father’s violent rages. Instead, she transforms herself into the radical author of the landmark volume A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, in which she dares to propose that women are equal to men. From conservative England to the blood-drenched streets of revolutionary France, Mary refuses to bow to society’s conventions and instead supports…
Starting at age ten, I loved everything about Superman. I loved his origin story—who wouldn’t root for an alien baby arriving on Earth with superpowers that are eventually used to fight evil? Superman comics were a place for me to escape for entertainment and to dream about becoming something more…maybe something super. I hope kids today will dream about superheroes and, in the end, realize they have superpowers they can use to make their lives and the world a better place. This explains why I connect with the following five books.
I’m a huge Alan Gratz fan, and this book did not disappoint. Like the creators of Superman, Siegel and Schuster, in Heroes, we have a tween writer, Frank, and a tween artist, Stanley, who talk non-stop about superhero comics as they set out to write their own. But this day is December 7, 1947, and the Japanese military attacks the boys’ Pearl Harbor home.
Gratz brings history to life with the stories of life-like characters. Frank was already riddled with fears, even fear of flip flops (you’ll have to read the book), and now the situation is beyond his worst fears. Not many of us will be tested as these boys are tested, but Gratz has the power in his writing to put us in perilous situations in order to examine our own lives.
I have long been fascinated by how personal and singular the experience of grief is. There is something soothing and relatable about reading others’ experiences—the more strange, nonsensical, or even supernatural the better. My own novel, The Secret Garden of Yanagi Inn, is a retelling of The Secret Garden, but with an adult protagonist moving through grief over the death of her complicated mother, striving to see a bright ray of hope on the other side. Each of the books on my list about unusual manifestations of grief tackles this same concept in new and surprising ways, and I hope they touch you as they have touched me.
Rouge is at its heart an exploration of a daughter’s grief for her troubled mother and the bizarre turns that grief can take.
Rouge tells the story of a young woman obsessed with cult-like beauty culture. When her mother mysteriously dies, she is forced to return home and confront the complicated relationship she had with her also beauty-obsessed mother. Fairy tale surreal and viscerally disturbing, Rouge delves into obsession, grief, and the dangers of beauty culture taken to the extreme.
Like all of Awad’s books, this is a story that will stick with me a very long time.
From the critically acclaimed author of Bunny comes a horror-tinted, gothic fairy tale about a lonely dress shop clerk whose mother's unexpected death sends her down a treacherous path in pursuit of youth and beauty.
Can she escape her mother's fate and find a connection that is more than skin deep?
A Most Anticipated Book of 2023 in The Guardian, i newspaper, The New York Times, Time, Globe and Mail, Bustle, The Millions, LitHub, TOR, Good Housekeeping, Our Culture Mag, and more!
'You think, "She's not going to go there...yes, she is.' Margaret Atwood
'The trancelike, rhapsodic language and deepening…
Only in my recent life as a reader did I realize that my favorite novels often follow a precise pattern: either the author or the main character is a woman. Or both. So, why this sort of bias from a male reader? I found a plausible answer in my belief that female protagonists, more than male ones, serve as the ideal lever for compelling plot twists—the deae ex machina of contemporary storytelling. No wonder the protagonist of the first novel I wrote is a woman. No wonder she’s gifted (or, rather, cursed) with supernatural powers. As for my choice of topic, could it possibly have turned out differently?
This is one of the very few novels that managed to conquer me in every aspect—the plot, the characters, the settings, and the writing. All credits go to the author, of course. But—as I now see her as a living person rather than a fictional character—I think I owe a special tribute to Big Ammachi, the female protagonist of this family saga.
She grabs the scene on page one, and although there comes a moment when she leaves (the story spans some eighty years), her profound sense of humanity keeps lingering throughout the book. More than that—she continues to linger now, even two months after I finished reading. And I suspect she will stay with me forever.
OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • SUBJECT OF A SIX-PART SUPER SOUL PODCAST SERIES HOSTED BY OPRAH WINFREY
From the New York Times-bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret
“One of the best books I’ve read in my entire life. It’s epic. It’s transportive . . . It was unputdownable!”—Oprah Winfrey, OprahDaily.com
The Covenant of Water is the long-awaited new novel by Abraham Verghese, the author of…
