Beautiful Bad by Annie Ward starts with a frantic call to 911 followed by a bloody crime scene. It totally pulled me into the book and intrigued me enough to want to keep reading!

We then go to ten weeks prior to the night of the murder and meet Maddie, our main character who primarily is telling her story. The book goes back and forth from present day to the early 2000’s where we follow Maddie and her best friend through the time in Eastern Europe. This is where we meet Ian, the love interest of both women who becomes Maddie’s husband. One of these characters was murdered, but we need to read on to find out who...and why.

This book started out great, but there were a lot of parts of the book that just felt really drawn out. I wanted to know more about the murder and less about the past. Yes it was necessary to know about the way the three main characters interacted to understand why Maddie and Jo were estranged, but there was way too much backstory that was not necessary to progress the book forward.

There were a few parts told from Ian’s point of view. It didn’t make sense to me to switch POV only for a handful of chapters.

I didn’t figure out the twist which does say a lot to me about a mystery thriller so I definitely give Ward credit for that. Once the book stays in the present day I thought it was really good. I liked the ending and was glad it kept me guessing.

Thank you NetGalley and Harlequin-Park Row Books for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.