Beautiful Bad (Ward)

Beautiful Bad
Annie Ward, 2019
Park Row
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780778369103 


Summary
In the tradition of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train comes the psychological thriller everyone is talking about, a twisted novel about a devoted wife, a loving husband, and a chilling crime that will stun even the cleverest readers.

There are two sides to every story… And every person.

Maddie and Ian’s love story began with a chance encounter at a party overseas, while 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; her concerns for the safety of their young son; 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. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—state of Kansas, USA
• Education—B.A., Uiversity of California, Los Angeles; M.F.A., American Film Institute
• Awards—(see below: for a screenplay)
• Currently—lives in Kansas


Annie Ward is a novelist with two psychological thrillers under her belt: her debut, The Making of June (2002) and Beautiful Bad (2019). Born and raised in Kansas, Ward received a B.A. in English literature from University of California-Los Angeles and an M.F.A. in film writing from the American Film Institute (AFI).

While still a student at AFI, Ward sold her sold a short screenplay, "Strange Habit" to MTV/ BFCS. It starred Adam Scott and went on to become a Grand Jury Award Winner at the Aspen Film Festival and a Sundance Festival Official Selection.

After film school, Ward followed a man to Bulgaria, where she found work as a journalist and travel writer for Fodors, as well as a script doctor for an Israeli-American film company. During her five years there, she also won a Fulbright Scholarship, "left the man, found a best friend" (a CIA agent out of Skopje, unbeknownst to Ward), wrote her first novel, and met her husband, a private military contractor.

As Ward told Publishers Weekly, she writes about what she knows, and both of her books are based on her time in Bulgaria. Her latest, Beautiful Bad, in fact, started out as a memoir before becoming a novel.

Following a stint in New York, she and her husband now live in Kansas with their children. (Adapted from the publisher various online sources.)

Book Reviews
★ [H]arrowing…. Ward takes her time revealing what tragedy transpired in the present, heightening suspense and maximizing her devastating conclusion’s emotional impact.… [An] intricate, intelligent plot, which shocks and chills.
Publishers Weekly


[This] well-constructed thriller… brilliantly conceived and presented conclusion would do Patricia Highsmith proud.… [T]his debut novel is being advertised as 2019’s The Woman in the Window.
Booklist


In this post–Gone Girl and –Girl on the Train world, any savvy reader knows that no narrator is ever remotely trustworthy, and no narrative that moves around in time is ever offering the whole story. Instead, the truth will be slowly dropped…. Shamelessly manipulative.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, please use our GENERIC MYSTERY QUESTIONS to start a discussion for BEAUTIFUL BAD … then take off on your own:

GENERIC DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Mystery / Crime / Suspense Thrillers

1. Talk about the characters, both good and bad. Describe their personalities and motivations. Are they fully developed and emotionally complex? Or are they flat, one-dimensional heroes and villains?

2. What do you know...and when do you know it? At what point in the book do you begin to piece together what happened?

3. Good crime writers embed hidden clues in plain sight, slipping them in casually, almost in passing. Did you pick them out, or were you...clueless? Once you've finished the book, go back to locate the clues hidden in plain sight. How skillful was the author in burying them?

4. Good crime writers also tease us with red-herrings—false clues—to purposely lead readers astray? Does your author try to throw you off track? If so, were you tripped up?

5. Talk about the twists & turns—those surprising plot developments that throw everything you think you've figured out into disarray.

1. Do they enhance the story, add complexity, and build suspense?
2. Are they plausible or implausible?
3. Do they feel forced and gratuitous—inserted merely to extend the story?

6. Does the author ratchet up the suspense? Did you find yourself anxious—quickly turning pages to learn what happened? A what point does the suspense start to build? Where does it climax...then perhaps start rising again?

7. A good ending is essential in any mystery or crime thriller: it should ease up on tension, answer questions, and tidy up loose ends. Does the ending accomplish those goals?

1. Is the conclusion probable or believable?
2. Is it organic, growing out of clues previously laid out by the author (see Question 3)?
3. Or does the ending come out of the blue, feeling forced or tacked-on?
4. Perhaps it's too predictable.
5. Can you envision a different or better ending?

8. Are there certain passages in the book—ideas, descriptions, or dialogue—that you found interesting or revealing...or that somehow struck you? What lines, if any, made you stop and think?

9. Overall, does the book satisfy? Does it live up to the standards of a good crime story or suspense thriller? Why or why not?

(Generic Mystery Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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