This week Kail sits down with Alice Feeney on the launch day of her latest release Beautiful Ugly. She got insight into how she writes her iconic novels, what is the inspiration behind her dark and twisty stories AND we found out which of her books is coming to the big screen! Please support the show by checking out our sponsors! Rocket Money: Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to RocketMoney.com/FAMOUS today. Prose: Prose is SO confident that you’ll love your results this year that they’re offering an exclusive trial offer: FIFTY percent off your first haircare subscription order at Prose.com/famous. Hungry Root: For a limited time get 40% off your first box PLUS get a free item in every box for life. Go to Hungryroot.com/barelyfamous and use code barelyfamous. Hiya: We've worked out a special deal with Hiya for their best selling children's vitamin. Receive 50% off your first order. To claim this deal you must go to hiyahealth.com/FAMOUS. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What is Alice Feeney's latest book about?
Definitely. So we're here to talk about Beautiful Ugly, your new book. And... If you're going to get this on Amazon, you're going to have to pre-order it for the next launch because it's sold out.
Yes, sold out already. I can't believe it. It's launch day. Yes. One day in. What an amazing problem to have. What a lovely problem to have. How do you feel? I'm so excited. This book was so long in the making and I loved writing this one. You know, I've written seven. I've had seven books published now. I've written a few more that have not been published.
But for it to finally be out in the world just feels like magic. And I love that readers can finally...
enjoy this story about Grady Green honestly though the I even if I didn't have you here today I would have bought this book solely for the cover because the cover is stunning and it has like a little a little um shimmer to it I absolutely love it I love the little like rip through here I think it's so good.
They've done such a terrific job. I love it. And I love that this is the first time I have the same cover everywhere. So the same cover in America will be in England. It's in Australia. It's in India, everywhere. It's the same cover coming out.
So why do you know what the reasoning is for different covers in different countries?
I asked for it to be the same cover everywhere this time because I just fell in love with it. It was designed for the American cover and I thought it was so perfect for the book. So beautiful. So not ugly at all, actually, for a book called Beautiful Ugly, just beautiful. And I thought it'd be fun to have the same cover everywhere this time around.
And I love actually seeing all the different covers in different countries. We're in 40 countries now and it's so fun. You know, a box arrives at the house and I open it like a kid at Christmas going, oh my goodness,
which one is this but it's also really fun I think because so many readers now are on social media and they'll all say oh no I wish I could get this cover I wish I could get the other other cover or if only I could have the British version and this time everyone can enjoy the same one and we can all share and talk about the same book
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Chapter 2: What was Alice Feeney's journey to becoming an author?
Richard can be a 40-year-old man. Richard can be an East End pub landlord. And you think you're listening to – he's terrific. And it sounds like he's having fun when he's doing it. But there are a few bits when I was listening to the audiobook where I thought – Crikey. Yeah, that's very similar to things that have happened to me as an author. I wonder where I got that idea from.
So there are a few bits like that.
When you walked into the space to podcast, you said something along the lines of not having an Uber in your head, right? Like you just don't do Uber.
Oh, I don't do Uber, no.
There is no Uber on Amberley.
No, I think Amberley sounds like a perfect place. And unfortunately, it's just in my head, but it's this place where you're a little bit cut off, but in a nice way, I think. Not everybody in the book would agree with me.
Yeah, I mean, it probably sounds like my worst nightmare, not having Uber when I need it. I like the idea of the quiet, secluded place, but it also, the whole plot, or I guess the setting,
it's not too far off right like it doesn't sound so outlandish that it couldn't be true which is what I like about it and there are tiny islands in the Scottish Hebrides that are a little bit like Amberley where some of the ideas came from where there really is just a ferry twice a week and if you miss it or if there's a storm you're not getting on and off the island and the same with the doctor I remember reading about this tiny island where
The doctor only visits on Tuesdays. Imagine that you can only get ill on a Tuesday or you're going to be in big trouble. But I love these tiny places where there's this real sense of community.
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Chapter 3: How does Alice Feeney handle book adaptations?
Chapter 4: What are the themes in Alice Feeney's books?
And he said, let me talk to your publishers. We can push back the deadline. It's going to be fine. I said, no, no, no. The whole book is in my head. I just need to write it. I can do it in three months. And, um, I always do three drafts before anyone reads it. So I did three drafts in three months and I hit send, which is as terrifying now as it was then. And everyone loved the book.
And that book was his and hers, which is my best behaved book. What is best behaved? It just wrote itself.
I just sat in the shed with my dog I had no social life whatsoever for three months but I got the book done and I think those are my Grady Green moments when everything else just stops life stops the house turns into a giant mess my hair I've got naturally very curly hair in situations like that it grows sideways there'll be robins nesting in in the background um so I understand Grady's obsession with when you get a story in your head and you have to write it
So that was definitely his and hers for me. And the badly behaved book, the one I couldn't figure out how to fix, I came back to it maybe a year later and I could see what was wrong finally, but I didn't know how to fix it. So I wrote a book called Rock, Paper, Scissors. Then I came back to the naughty one again and I read it again and now I knew how to fix it.
And the solution was really actually very simple. I just needed to delete 80,000 words. Wow.
So simple, no big deal, just 90% of the book.
Yeah, I mean, my books tend to be about 85, so I had 5,000 left, so that felt quite positive.
Something to work with.
At least something, just the starting point was there. And I wrote the book again, same book, same story, same characters. This time it worked, and that was Daisy Darker. So all of the books have behaved differently, but sometimes... You do, I think, as an author, get a little bit obsessed with the story, the characters. I mean, I hear them in my head.
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Chapter 5: How does social media influence book popularity?
Chapter 6: What is the significance of the cover design for Beautiful Ugly?
which one is this but it's also really fun I think because so many readers now are on social media and they'll all say oh no I wish I could get this cover I wish I could get the other other cover or if only I could have the British version and this time everyone can enjoy the same one and we can all share and talk about the same book
There is something special too, though, about collecting the same book from different countries. I just never understood what the reasoning was. Or is there no rhyme or reason? They just do it.
I think people just do it. I think they fall in love with a story and they want every different edition of the same story. And why not? It is fun seeing them all on the shelf together.
I absolutely love that. And so do you get a say in how this gets... design because I've talked to other authors on the podcast and they say they have nothing to do with the cover. But you get you sort of got to say, right, like you were like, I want the same thing across the board.
I said I wanted the same thing this time. And I said, please, could we have foil? I think I'm secretly a magpie. I like shiny things. And not only did they give me foil, they gave me holographic foil.
I think it's the best thing ever I love my publishers um so it's so pretty and there are other pretty things inside as well um I drew a map when I handed the book in um every year I like to surprise them with something sometimes I have little illustrations this year I had a map and um even my editor was you know very nice on the phone but she said just to clarify you want a map at the start of a thriller um because normally you might find them in fantasy books I thought yeah
Yes, why not? I want everyone to picture the Isle of Amberley. So they said yes, but then they called me back and said, we'll do it, but we'll get a professional artist to do it.
Oh, okay. So it's not your map.
It's not my version. But that's okay. My version is not nearly as good as the beautiful version inside the book. So I think it was a good call.
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Chapter 7: What inspired Alice Feeney to become a writer?
And you're like, hold on, I have to type this really quick or it's going to be out of my brain. When you said that the badly behaved one, when you said then you wrote Rock, Paper, Scissors, I thought you were going to say that Rock, Paper, Scissors was the badly behaved one. Rock, Paper, Scissors is one of my favorite books.
thriller suspense novels because it is so different than any other one that I've read.
Thank you.
And it was what our book club of the month pick in I think November was last year was obsessed with the ending because I do not like
books that explain everything at the end and give you a play-by-play of what it is that happened it's like you're supposed to figure that out on your own like kind of deduce down what you want and so I some people love it and some people hate it I loved it I ate it up it was so good thank you it was it was another one where I submitted the book and this time I had little drawings at the top of the chapters do you remember yeah like the little sketches yes every character had their own little drawing at the top but again not normal for a
yeah no and i love i mean the same thing for this because you have the little map yeah and i love it i got the pr box from beautiful ugly and i about died because it has like the painting with the uh yes not the painting the pottery the pottery and the bog myrtle tea i love my team they come up with all these brilliant fun things it's like christmas they send me these gifts they sent me a um
a magic eight ball because that was in the book too I feel like I must add you know if there's something I want as a present I need to put it in the next book so that the lovely team will get it for you will make up something for a press kit and send me one yes that's so funny so for when you're describing the first book that you wrote did you ever come back to it and publish it the first book that you wrote did it ever get published or would you ever go back to it to try to publish no it's terrible is it I mean thank goodness it didn't get published um
I just think that's so funny, though. I was I talked to Frida McFadden a couple weeks ago, and she was telling me about how she had to redo an entire book she started. It was called Suicide Med. And then she changed it years and years and years and years later.
Now, I told you I've only listened to one podcast. That was the one that is the one.
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Chapter 8: What can readers expect from the Netflix adaptation?
Why Scotland? I think the honest truth is because I go there every year, I'm just obsessed with the place. I think if there's a more beautiful place in the world, I've yet to find it. It's so unspoilt. It's so rugged and beautiful and perfect. And you can walk for miles and miles for hours with your dog on it. I am so much like Grady.
Every time I say something to you about the book, I think, oh gosh, yes, we have that in common too. But yeah, I think it's just this magical, magical place for me. And I've had so many happy things happen to me in Scotland that I now feel like it's just linked to my writing. You know, I finished writing Sometimes I Lie in Scotland and then I finally got an agent.
I remember being up in Scotland in a terrible snowstorm. We really shouldn't have travelled. It was so unsafe. Nobody else was on the roads. We drove for eight hours from London up to Scotland. We... I ended up arriving at this very rural house that we'd rented that was honestly so creepy and in the middle of nowhere. We went inside the house. There was no water.
The pipes were frozen because of the storm. There was no power. There was nothing. We thought maybe we should get back in the car. The car by then was totally snowed in, couldn't leave. So we thought we'll make the most of it. You know, we'll light a fire. We'll open some wine.
This sounds like rock, paper, scissors.
Yes. And then just before bedtime, there was a face in the window. And I've never screamed so loud. We were nowhere near anyone. We were in the middle of a valley. And in real life, it was just a caretaker screaming.
who came to check that we were okay because everyone thought we were crazy still going to this house when there was a terrible storm but why did they go to the window why exactly because apparently apparently he said apparently he said oh I knocked on the door and you didn't hear me but I felt like I was in a horror film um But, you know, then my imagination turned it into rock, paper, scissors.
So again, Scotland delivered this amazing story for me. And I've had so many happy experiences like that. I feel like it inspires stories in my head. I feel like I get so much writing done when I'm there. It's like the speed increases by double. So now I'm just in love with the place. So if I sit for a year writing about it, it means I get to be there even when I'm not.
I think that's that's part of it, too.
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