Publication Date: March 5th, 2019
Annie Ward
Publication Date: March 5th, 2019
Annie Ward
Nominated for BEST DEBUT NOVEL
- 11th Annual Strand Magazine Critics Awards 2019
"Annie Ward explores a battle-scarred marriage on the brink of disaster in this deft debut. As touching and thought-provoking as it is terrifying, BEAUTIFUL BAD will leave readers spellbound. A buzzworthy read!"
— Mary Kubica, New York Times bestselling author of THE GOOD GIRL and WHEN THE LIGHTS GO OUT
“BEAUTIFUL BAD is beautifully written, beautifully twisty – and beautifully twisted. A dark thriller with real psychological depth.“
— JP Delaney, New York Times bestselling author of THE GIRL BEFORE
“You won’t be able to tear yourself away from the page. With fascinating characters that chill and horrify, the ending will leave you staggered.”
— Liv Constantine, author of the national bestseller THE LAST MRS. PARRISH
“As imaginatively constructed as it is compelling. Filled with unexpected twists, BEAUTIFUL BAD is a riveting read.”
— Sarah Pekkanen, New York Times bestselling author of THE WIFE BETWEEN US
“I loved this book! The various settings were really evocative, and the narrators kept me guessing all the way along. I love how she used broad strokes to show relationships so that you weren't quite sure who to sympathise with. The book is a total page turner; it’s dark and disturbing, and the ending will have readers gasping. I’ve not a doubt it’s going to be a hit worldwide.“
— Melanie Golding, whose debut title, LITTLE DARLINGS (HQ Harper Collins) will be released 1st quarter 2019
international Covers
"When Joanna and I first met, it was as if we both contained a seed of anarchy inside us lying dormant, waiting to be watered by the other. We’d had ten good years. Lovers. Adventures. Success. Devotion. Chaos. And then that thing inside us that had made us gravitate to one another changed its course. We became two helpless skittering magnets, and Ian a dark heavy block of iron."
- BEAUTIFUL BAD
Beautiful Bad
In the most explosive and twisted psychological thriller since The Woman in the Window, a beautiful marriage turns beautifully bad.
Things that make me scared: When Charlie cries. Hospitals and lakes. When Ian drinks vodka in the basement. ISIS. When Ian gets angry… That something is really, really wrong with me.
Maddie and Ian’s romance began with a chance encounter at a party overseas; he was serving in the British army and she was a travel writer visiting her best friend, Jo. Now almost two decades later, married with a beautiful son, Charlie, they are living the perfect suburban life in Middle America. But when a camping accident leaves Maddie badly scarred, she begins attending writing therapy, where she gradually reveals her fears about Ian’s PTSD; her concerns for the safety of their young son, Charlie; and the couple’s tangled and tumultuous past with Jo.
From the Balkans to England, Iraq to Manhattan, and finally to an ordinary family home in Kansas, sixteen years of love and fear, adventure and suspicion culminate in The Day of the Killing, when a frantic 911 call summons the police to the scene of a shocking crime.