Books Read: Blood Orange by Harriet Tyce

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....

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I'd like to thank Anne Cater from Random Things Tours for inviting me to be a part of this blog tour and Georgina at Wildfire Books for my proof copy of Blood Orange to review.

Blood Orange is one of those books that will frustrate and delight you in equal measures.  The characters are all extremely flawed, especially our main protagonist Alison, but yet at the same time you want to get to know everything about them.  To see what makes them tick and do the sometimes unsavoury things they do.

On the surface it looks like Alison has the perfect life, a loving husband and daughter at home and a successful law career but yet she seems to be willing to be reckless and risk it all.  But scratch beneath the surface and you will see that appearances can be deceptive and not everything is as it seems and my opinion of her did change throughout as I was reading.  The more that was revealed, the more I began to understand her.

If Harriet Tyce's objective was to write a domestic noir/thriller that will have you hating the characters, apart from young Matilda, but yet intrigued enough to want to keep turning the pages to discover what the hell is going on then she's certainly achieved her aim.  I really didn't particularly like or warm to Alison at all but yet I knew at the back of my head that there had to be a lot more going on than I initially thought so I had to keep on reading to discover what her/the real story was. Almost like an orange you need to peel back the layers to see what's underneath.

I can't really say much more about what is going on with Alison or the story itself without running the risk of giving away a spoiler or two! All I can say is that I was constantly thinking one thing only for it all to be flipped on its head and turn out to be something very different to what I had first thought. The prologue had immediately piqued my interest wondering who the narrator was but then it almost slipped out of my mind as I was reading but it's only when you reach the conclusion that all the pieces slip into place and it all begins to make sense.  Very clever writing indeed.

As a debut novel Blood Orange was an impressive first book.  It was a compelling, yet uncomfortable, read at times featuring some very topical themes at its core but also one that will certainly make you think long after you turn the final page.