‘Shocking, addictive, dark domestic noir’ SARAH PINBOROUGH
‘Breathes new life into the domestic noir genre and grips until the final page’ DAILY EXPRESS
‘What a twist at the end!’ LISA JEWELL
AN ELECTRIFYING DEBUT THRILLER FOR FANS OF APPLE TREE YARD AND ANATOMY OF A SCANDAL – INTRODUCING A STUNNING NEW VOICE IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SUSPENSE
About the Book: Alison has it all. A doting husband, adorable daughter, and a career on the rise – she’s just been given her first murder case to defend. But all is never as it seems…
Just one more night. Then I’ll end it.
Alison drinks too much. She’s neglecting her family. And she’s having an affair with a colleague whose taste for pushing boundaries may be more than she can handle.
I did it. I killed him. I should be locked up.
Alison’s client doesn’t deny that she stabbed her husband – she wants to plead guilty. And yet something about her story is deeply amiss. Saving this woman may be the first step to Alison saving herself.
I’m watching you. I know what you’re doing.
But someone knows Alison’s secrets. Someone who wants to make her pay for what she’s done, and who won’t stop until she’s lost everything….
About the Author: Harriet Tyce was born and grew up in Edinburgh. She graduated from the University of Oxford in 1994 with a degree in English Literature before gaining legal qualifications. She worked as a criminal barrister for ten years, leaving after the birth of her first child. She completed an MA in Creative Writing – Crime Fiction at UEA where she wrote Blood Orange, which is her first novel.
My Review. Aaaaahhhhhhhhhh I don’t know how to write this review so it will make sense. There were so many things about this book that I really didn’t enjoy and yet so many things about this book that I was utterly gripped by and couldn’t actually turn the pages fast enough. So, I shall try to break it down and start at the beginning.
Our main protagonist is Alison – a 40-something successful female barrister with a stay-at-home husband and cute 6 year old daughter Tilly, and what appears initially to be the “perfect” life. However it is soon apparent that Allie has problems, big, ugly, inexcusable problems including excessive drinking, having a sordid affair with a colleague and completely neglecting her husband and daughter. I’m not even going to pretend to like Allie or say I could relate to her because I absolutely could NOT – she made me very angry and very disappointed and at no time could I feel an iota of sympathy or excuse her behaviour.
Then there is Patrick – her manipulative colleague and often brutal lover – another revolting character that made my skin crawl – what the hell does Allie see in this pig? He made me want to have a shower in bleach every time he touched her.
Blood Orange‘s main story starts when Patrick assigns Allie her first Murder case to defend. A woman has been caught red-handed having stabbed her husband 15 times with a knife in their bedroom. However this is a twisted, dark psychological story so nothing is as it seems and the reader is led in multiple directions trying to follow the case and watch Allie try to salvage her personal and professional life.
I can think of 2 high profile books I’ve read in the past few years where I absolutely HATED the main characters but loved the books, the writing style, the pace, the storyline and BLOOD ORANGE falls into that category too. In my opinion, any author who can make the reader feels so much emotion (good or bad, disgust or admiration) towards a fictional character is one to look out for and follow her career closely. As much as I really disliked all the main characters I literally COULD NOT PUT THIS BOOK DOWN.
Definitely a MARMITE book, but as I love marmite I’m happy to recommend this. Car Crash fiction writing at it’s best!
