Alice Feeney Audiobooks

The last chapter is the point. Alice Feeney, born in 1978, has built a career on endings that reorganise everything preceding them, and she does it often enough that her readers now listen defensively, watching for the trapdoor.

She came to fiction from journalism, having spent fifteen years at the BBC as a reporter and producer before Sometimes I Lie appeared in 2017 with an opening that has been quoted ever since. The novels have followed at a steady clip, I Know Who You Are, His & Hers, Rock Paper Scissors, Daisy Darker, and the screen options have followed the novels.

What holds all of it together is craft rather than shock. Feeney builds domestic set-ups that feel entirely ordinary, hands you a narrator you have no particular reason to distrust, and then quietly removes the floor. She also writes very short chapters, which is a large part of why the audiobooks work as well as they do.

My Husband’s Wife is the freshest arrival: an artist returns to a remote house called Spyglass and finds a stranger who looks a great deal like her, claiming to be married to her husband. Bel Powley leads a full-cast recording with sound design, and it is among the more ambitious productions in current crime audio.

Beautiful Ugly takes a different route, stranding a grieving novelist on a Scottish island where the locals are not remotely forthcoming, and it is read by Richard Armitage, whose voice has become a small industry of its own in this genre. Tens of thousands of listeners have rated them, which tells you something about the reach.

Either makes a sound entry point. Take Beautiful Ugly for atmosphere and My Husband’s Wife for the production. You will find them listed below.