Did you read Good Bad Girl by Alice Feeney and need a plot summary? Confused about the characters? Need an audiobook guide for Good Bad Girl because you’re listening and need some help? Want to discuss the ending? Join my Spoiler Discussion of Good Bad Girl!
I have done a Spoiler Discussion post for Sometimes I Lie, a Spoiler Review for HIs & Hers, a Spoiler Discussion Post for Rock Paper Scissors AND a Spoiler Discussion Post for Daisy Darker, so check those out if you haven’t already!
Spoiler Discussion for Good Bad Girl by Alice Feeney
Table of Contents:
Character List for Good Bad Girl
Plot Summary for Good Bad Girl
What Was the Ending of Good Bad Girl?
Spoiler Discussion for Good Bad Girl
Character List for Good Bad Girl
I have tried to keep major spoilers out of the list but it is a spoiler post…
- Frankie Fletcher (38) : head librarian at the HMP Crossroads women’s prison.
- Patience Liddell (18): works at the Windsor Care Home. Does artistic paper cuttings.
- Joy Bonetta (50s): manager of the care home.
- Edith Elliot (80s): resident of the Windsor Care Home. Retired store detective.
- Clio (50s): Edith’s daughter.
- Charlotte Chapman: Detective Chief Inspector assigned to Joy’s murder
- May (Chapman): resident of the Windsor Care Home.
- Mr. Henderson: Windsor Care Home resident
- Jude Kennedy: Clio’s brother, Edith’s son.
- Dickens: Edith’s dog
Plot Summary for Good Bad Girl
The End (the past): Mother’s Day
A mother admits to making mistakes. She sometimes thinks terrible things like, “I wish my daughter would disappear.” She’s with her baby daughter at the supermarket. She turns her back to talk to an old colleague, and suddenly the baby stroller is empty. She says she knows who stole the baby and why.
Another Mother’s Day, twenty years later (Meet the Characters)
There are four main female characters: Frankie, Patience, Edith and Clio
Frankie, whose daughter went missing as a teenager, leaves the prison library where she works. She’s a “good bad girl,” someone who made the best of her bad life and tried to do something good with it.
Patience is eighteen and works in a London care home. She goes to see Edith, one of the residents and they discuss the death of May, Edith’s neighbor. Edith thinks May was murdered and tells Patience she is hiring a lawyer to help get her out of the care home.
Clio, Edith’s daughter, knocks on her door. She’s come to visit Edith for Mother’s Day and has brought Edith a bronze statue that Edith was given for a retirement present. Edith seems upset about this. Clio tells Edith that she’s running out of money to pay for the care home. Edith asks if she can live with Clio in the pink house.
Clio leaves Edith’s room and goes to talk to Joy, the care home manager. Joy says that there is nothing she can do to help Clio.
Patience goes into Mr. Henderson’s room and he is verbally abusive to her. As she is stealing money from him, Joy comes in and fires her.
Frankie is headed to a pink house. Clio opens the door. She is a therapist and Frankie says she’s there because of her daughter. Clio tells Frankie that she has an emergency and will be right back. Frankie notices paper cuttings at Clio’s that she thinks were made by her missing daughter.
Clio takes a cab to the care home. Edith is missing. Clio finds a letter from a law firm indicating that her mother changed her will.
Patience, Edith, and Edith’s dog Dickens are headed to Patience’s flat, which is above an art gallery. While Patience runs some errands, she leaves Dickens and Edith in St. Paul’s church.
Clio is accosted at the care home by DCI Charlotte Chapman, who informs Clio that a witness saw her arguing with the care home manager, Joy, who is now dead. She also tells Clio that a visitor signed in pretending to be Clio.
Stressed out, Clio tries to call some man that she’s known for years but he doesn’t answer. She finally leaves a message for the man, saying that things have not gone according to plan.
Patience asks Edith what happened between her and her daughter. Edith says that her daughter got pregnant as a teenager and left the family. “My daughter is the villain in my life, I am the villain in hers.”
Frankie, who lives on a houseboat, hears a noise on the deck. It’s DCI Chapman, who wants to know why Frankie was at the care home yesterday. Frankie denies ever being there but the detective shows her a photo taken in the care home a few months ago that has May and Frankie in it.
Chapman asks if Frankie knows Clio, and Frankie says no. But the detective says that Clio says they were together around the time the murder took place.
The End – Mother’s Day, Twenty Years ago
The police officer asks the woman about her baby. He seems skeptical that there was a baby at all. He asks if there was anyone who might have wanted to take the baby. The woman lies and says no.
The Present
Patience’s landlord, Jude Kennedy, arrives early the next morning. Patience reflects that her mother always had secrets. That she’d promised to tell Patience who her father was and then didn’t. She kept her secrets in a Japanese tea tin and when Patience looked there at age eighteen, she found a roll of cash and Jude’s business card.
But Jude is gay and not Patience’s father. Patience pays him rent in paper cuts, which he sells. Jude asked her to spy on someone at Windsor Care home. (Presumably Edith.)
Frankie goes to the Kennedy Gallery with the framed papercut she stole from the pink house. She says it was made by her daughter, Nellie Fletcher. Jude denies knowing Nellie.
Clio also shows up at the gallery to discuss the fact that Edith is missing with her brother Jude. The gallery is a family business owned by Edith, Clio and Jude. Clio tells him that Edith left everything to Patience Liddell, and Jude says that he knows where Patience is.
Patience is getting ready to leave her art gallery flat when she’s confronted by Clio and Jude, who ask her how she tricked Edith into changing her will. Patience tries to flee but is stopped by DCI Chapman.
Edith is outside walking Dickens. She heads to St Paul’s Church, where she has hidden the bronze statue that Clio brought her, which Edith needs to get rid of.
Frankie is in her camper van outside the Kennedy gallery. She goes to a cafe to eat breakfast and doesn’t see Patience being led away by the police. She gets a text that says Help Me Mum.
Clio chides Jude for calling the police. She asks him why Patience was living here. He is vague but tells her about Frankie, who showed up with the framed papercut that Jude gave Clio for Christmas. She tells him that her client stole it. Jude thinks that Patience was arrested for stealing from Edith but Clio tells Jude that Joy, the care home manager, was murdered.
Patience, who is being taken to the police station, gets a text back saying “if you keep quiet I will help you.” DCI Chapman tells Patience that Edith’s children are accusing her of coercing Edith to change her will, and of stealing Edith’s money. Patience denies killing Joy.
Frankie tries to call her daughter Nellie but gets no response. She picks the lock of the gallery and goes up to the flat. She finds her Japanese tea tin and her daughter’s artwork.
Frankie watches Clio cry in front of the grave of an Eleanor Kennedy. Then Frankie drives to the prison, smuggling her cell phone inside, which is agains the rules. She asks Liberty, a prisoner, to help her trace a number.
Patience is taken to HMP Crossroads, the prison where Frankie works. She meets her new cellmate, Liberty, who is shocked that Patience was accused of murder. Patience says that someone in the care home set her up.
Clio thinks about her lost baby. She also has 500 pairs of sneakers. She looks at pictures of herself with her daughter, who is wrapped in a ladybug blanket, and thinks that a trip to the supermarket ruined her life.
Edith is lost and can’t find her old house. Clio appears and they argue over Clio selling the house. Clio says that she and Jude were paying Patience to keep an eye on her. Edith defends Patience.
Frankie has a message on the answering machine from her daughter saying she’s been arrested and taken to the Covent Garden police station. Frankie heads to the station.
Clio and Edith take the bus to the pink house. When Clio tells Edith that Patience was arrested, Edith insists on going to the police station.
The End (Twenty Years Earlier)
Two police officers take the person who reported the missing baby back to the pink house.
SURPRISE: that person isn’t Clio, who is in bed with postpartum depression. It’s Edith, the baby’s grandmother, who wished her daughter Clio would disappear so she could raise the baby. Clio throws her out of the house.
Edith has bad memories of the pink house. It’s where Clio was living when the baby disappeared, and she lived there briefly when she was unable to live on her own. The baby had freckles.
Patience has freckles (but so does Liberty.) Then Patience (who is Nellie) recalls that when she was eighteen, her mother broke her promise that she could see her birth certificate. Nellie did research, found out Nellie wasn’t her real name, she ran away. Clio was the one Patience texted when she got arrested, the one who told her to keep quiet.
Edith heads to the police station to confess, but Detective Chapman isn’t there. Edith says she knows who murdered Joy.
Frankie recalls that she went to the care home to see Edith, but Joy made her sign in. So Frankie signed Clio’s name. Then Joy said Frankie wasn’t Clio and that she’d call the police. Frankie started to leave, but when the elevator came, Joy’s body was in it.
Frankie heads to the pink house, a house she hates. The door of the house is ajar and someone screams.
Clio hears a noise downstairs and finds someone sitting in her chair. She screams.
Edith is meeting with DCI Chapman, who has come into the station. Chapman asks about her difficult relationship with Clio. Edith tells her that “the other one” took Clio’s baby on Mother’s Day. And then Chapman arrested the baby.
Edith says that after the baby disappeared, Clio’s husband forced her to have a funeral. She also says that May, her neighbor at the care home, thought that someone at the home was killing people’s relatives for pay. Maybe it was Joy.
Frankie confesses to Clio that she stole her baby. Clio thinks Frankie is lying. Frankie shows Clio a picture of Patience and Clio says that’s not her daughter. DCI Chapman calls to tell Clio that Edith showed up at the police station and is now at the hospital.
Frankie offers to drive Clio to the hospital. Clio still doesn’t believe that Frankie stole the baby. Frankie gives Clio an envelope of “proof.” Clio tries unsuccessfully to reach Jude. The doctor comes out to say Edith won’t recover and gives Clio a chance to say goodbye.
Patience wakes up in jail. Liberty says she’s going to the library. Patience asks to come because her mother works there.
Clio goes to get coffee. She opens the envelope Frankie gave her and finds a ladybug ring. Jude shows up and seems glad that Edith will die so they can get her new will contested. Jude reminds Clio that she ran away from home at sixteen because she got pregnant.
DCI Chapman shows up and says that there were two victims at the care home: May Chapman and then Joy. May was Chapman’s grandmother. She was the detective on the case of Clio’s missing baby. Chapman arrests Jude for conspiracy to murder.
The End (Twenty Years Earlier)
DCI May Chapman is questioning Clio and seems to suggest that she stole her own baby.
The Present
Frankie sees DCI Chapman coming and then Jude being escorted out in handcuffs. She asks the nurse about Edith. Liberty calls and says she knows where Frankie’s daughter is.
Clio is asked by DCI Chapman why she set up a spy camera in the care home. Clio says she wanted to make sure her mother was safe. The camera shows Edith killing Joy.
Clio is at Edith’s bedside, and Edith wakes up. She tells Clio she changed her will so that Clio would find her daughter. Clio asks about the ladybug ring and Edith says there were three: one for each of them. She apologizes for not being a better mother, and then dies.
Frankie drives her camper van back to the prison. When she gets there, she finds Clio hiding inside the van. Clio tells Frankie Edith is dead and asks Frankie why she stole her baby. Frankie says every baby deserves to be loved. Clio asks why Frankie left her a ten pound note and Frankie says “that is how much her mother paid.” Liberty tells Frankie that Patience was released.
Patience sees the camper van outside the prison and rushes to talk to her mother. But Clio is there instead. When Frankie heads to her van, it’s gone.
Clio offers Patience a ride home and Patience directs her to Frankie’s houseboat. Clio tells her that Edith is dead and Patience calls Clio a terrible daughter.
What is the Ending of Good Bad Girl?
Frankie looks for Patience everywhere and finally heads to the houseboat, where she’s shocked to find her. Frankie tells Patience that she is not her mother. Frankie and Patience are sisters.
Clio goes home and finds a letter from Edith saying she was wrong to tell Clio to give up Frankie, Clio’s first child.
Years later, when baby Eleanor was born, Frankie, Clio’s first daughter, showed up on the doorstep. Edith told Frankie that Clio had a new baby. Edith gives Frankie ten pounds and asks Frankie how much it would cost to have both Frankie and Eleanor disappear.
Patience, two days earlier
Joy fires Patience for stealing. As she’s leaving, Patience sees Joy trying to smother Edith with a pillow. Patience rushes in and Joy knocks her down. Clio grabs Joy around the neck and Patience hits her on the head with Edith’s status.
Edith says she and May knew that Joy was trouble.
Clio and Patience put Joy’s body in the elevator and Clio offers to pay Patience to hide Edith.
The Beginning, one year later:
Patience gives Frankie a papercut card for mother’s day. Frankie has a new job in a bookstore. Clio shows up with Dickens.
Jude went to prison and Clio turned the gallery into a bookshop. Clio doesn’t contest the will and Patience splits the money three ways with Clio and Frankie.
Nellie got into art school. Clio and Patience don’t tell her what happened to Joy.
How are the characters is Good Bad Girl related?
- Frankie is Clio’s first child, the granddaughter of Edith and half-sister of Patience (Nellie). Raised Nellie as her own child.
- Patience /Eleanor/Nellie : second daughter of Clio, granddaughter of Edith.
- Edith: Mother of Jude and Clio. Grandmother of Patience and Frankie.
- Clio: Edith’s daughter. Mother of Frankie and Nellie/Patience
- Charlotte Chapman: Detective Chief Inspector assigned to Joy’s murder
- May (Chapman): Grandmother of DCI Chapman.
Who Killed May? Who Killed Joy?
Joy was trying to kill Edith (possibly paid to do so by Jude). Then Clio and Patience teamed up to save Edith and killed Joy in the process.
I’m guessing that Joy killed May to keep her quiet, because May thought someone was making deals with relatives of residents to kill them for inheritance money. Then May ended up dead.
What was the meaning of the ladybug theme?
Edith calls Patience “ladybug.” Frankie has a ladybug ring and Edith also gives one to Patience.
Patience makes a papercut of ladybugs and signs all her work with a drawing of a ladybug.
In the end, Edith says that she got three rings: one for Edith, one for Clio and one for Frankie
The book quotes that old ladybug nursery rhyme:
Ladybug, ladybug fly away home. Your house is on fire, your children are gone. All except one, her name is Anne. She hid under the baking pan.
The book also mentions that ladybugs are lucky, but their spots represent joy and sorrow. Ladybugs often give birth to pregnant ladybugs, representing generations of mothers just like in the story.
What did you think of Good Bad Girl?
Do you have a preference between Alice Feeney’s domestic books like His & Hers and Rock Paper Scissors OR her new dysfunctional family books like Daisy Darker and this one?
I like that these newer books are a little less dark and gruesome, but at times I found this one a little slow-paced.
So sorry! I thought I did not spoil anything that is not obvious from the first few chapters (though the entire post is a Spoiler Post) but I will take another look. If you want to let me know what you think is a spoiler, please do!
Who is Patience father? It can’t be Jude because he is Cleo‘s sister and Cleo is patient’s mother.
Hi Sheryl!
Clio had two daughters, one when she was sixteen whom she gave up for adoption (the one who comes to the house looking for her). That’s Frankie.
Then she had Eleanor/Nellie (Patience) the baby who got stolen by Frankie.
The father of Patience was Clio’s then-husband, who left her and moved away after Eleanor/Patience got kidnapped.