c.w. murder, divorce, rape, suicide, graphic unconventional sex, attempted rape.
Harriet Tyce’s debut novel Blood Orange has divided people. If you look at reviews, you will find either love or hate for this book, but here you will find both. I usually like the books I am reviewing because I find it very hard to finish a book that I didn’t like. I nearly put this book down, half-finished, about a dozen times, but not because I didn’t like the writing style or the plot. No, Tyce excels, particularly for a first novel, at plotting a pacy, surprising novel and I never found myself bored or sick of her writing style. What frustrated me so much about this novel were the characters. Now, I am usually immune to characters who are meant to be terrible or annoying or immoral people but, with my interest in social justice flaring, I was near to tears with frustration at points in this novel.
As a quick rundown of the plot, Blood Orange is about Alison, a thirty-something London lawyer with a loving house-husband Carl and daughter Matilda (Tilly). Dashing solicitor, Patrick Saunders, catches her eye one night and they begin an affair. When the novel opens, Alison and Patrick are working Alison’s first murder case, where a young, pale woman named Madeline is accused of killing her husband, Edwin. But as the case progresses, she begins to see a disturbing parallels between her perfect life and the circumstances that she believes drove Madeline to kill Edwin and with Patrick’s name brought into disrepute, she is left to handle the case alone.
Every fifty pages or so, I let out an ‘ooh, that was good’. Tyce writes plot twists very well because they are sudden but not ridiculous, although a lot of what drives the controversy over this book is whether the ending is believable. I loved it and it changed my feeling towards the whole novel. Very few authors that early in their career and in this type of book would go there, but I am glad that Tyce did.
But her characters. My god. I know they are meant to be like this, but honestly, Carl is what makes every young woman have that flicker of doubt over marriage. He is hugely critical of Alison, contrary in what he wants of her, holds a massive double standard, uses their daughter against her and pulls the classic ‘you always do this’ but waits until it’s actually happened and not tried to stop it so he can have a go. And that’s all before we get to the truly sinister aspects of his character.
There are three main men in this book, and they are all presented as chauvinistic, immoral, selfish idiots. Don’t read this if you are looking for well-rounded male characters. Patrick, Alison’s superior and lover, is your stereotypical London lawyer, going after his law students and not taking ‘no’ for an answer. Murdered Edwin is no better and I found myself wondering if he deserved what he got. I came to the conclusion that he did.
In fact, the accused murderer is the nicest and most genuine character in the novel. As much as I abhorred Carl’s treatment of her, Alison is far from perfect and finds herself coping with her breaking-down relationship with drink and excessive work to the point of forgetting to collect her daughter from school. That being said, Alison’s conflict provides a really interesting point. She finds herself questioning sexual assault victims when someone close to her is accused by multiple women and finds herself questioning whether Carl is right about her. Even the reader finds it hard to find the line with Carl, as Alison often priorities her work and her drinking over her daughter and husband. It comforts me that the ending arrived at a final conclusion as to who was the bad guy in their relationship, but I think an ambiguous ending might have complimented real life better. That being said, I cheered at the ending. Maybe that says something about me.
Wow, I had stronger feelings about this book than I thought. I really enjoyed it and would recommend it to any fans of legal dramas (as long as you like romance and outside relationships thrown in). A list of content warnings are at the top as this book is graphic in places and deals with some pretty heavy things. Happy reading!
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