Blood Orange
(Contains spoilers)
Blood Orange, a thriller, psychological fiction, and suspense novel by Harriet Tyce, was the second book that I bought from the sale I mentioned in my earlier review. It was published in 2019, and I actually have had my eye on it for a while, and was really excited to see it for more affordable price. Similarly to Monks Takhar’s Precious You, Blood Orange is also Tyce’s debut novel. Very impressive start from both of them! Tyce is a Scottish author and a lawyer who currently lives in north London with her family. I like how she utilized her legal knowledge on a creative project such as writing.
Blood Orange is written in a perspective of Alison, a defense attorney who has previously handled financial felonies and minor violent crimes, and now gets her fist murder case. Madeleine Smith is being charged with the murder of her husband, Edwin. Police found Edwin stabbed in bed, and Madeleine covered in blood on the floor of the bedroom visibly in shock. Their 14-year-old son, James, was already back to boarding school from the short visit home during the weekend. At first Madeleine stayed quiet about the event but later confessed that it was her who was guilty for the murder. While composing the defense for Madeleine, Alison comes across some attenuating circumstances, and the case isn’t as straightforward as it seemed.
Despite the successful career that Alison has, her personal life doesn’t seem as bright. She has long working hours and spends most of her evenings drinking in bars with her co-workers. She can’t get her drinking under control which creates a lot of difficulties in her marriage. Her husband Carl appears to be a perfect father to their daughter Matilda and a perfect husband to Alison which furthers the contrast between the two parents. Carl hosts group therapy sessions for sex addicts but since losing his full-time job, spends a lot of time home with Matilda. Alison’s work and drinking habits distance her from her family and on top of that, she’s also having an affair with her co-worker Patrick. The guilt of the affair is eating her alive but she can’t put an end to it. She starts receiving vile texts from someone who knows about the affair and is afraid that the sender might expose her double life.
The affair between Alison and Patrick started as physical but as time passed Patrick started to want something more. Patrick would portrait himself as caring and loving, send messages like “I miss you” and “Good nigh, honey”, and then suddenly act rude and demanding towards her. Their relationship was consensual until it wasn’t. There had already been few questionable sexual encounters where Alison seemed quite hesitant about going further, but one specific indecent stood out from the rest. Patrick and Alison were spending the night at Alison’s when Carl and Matilda were not home. After dining they moved to the living room where Patrick sexually assaulted her. She made it very clear that she was not in the mood for sex but Patrick didn’t care. Patrick’s excuse for the event was that she had never said “no” before and “liked it rough”. After she got him to stop, Alison came to the conclusion that she was just being “uptight” and apologized to him. This scene alone made me want to put the book down, it’s so wrong in so many levels.
I also want to mention the rape allegations towards Patrick. Even if the Caroline Napier case was exaggerated by the encouragement of Carl (which I don’t think it was), there was also another victim, Alexia, who came out with a similar experience with Patrick. Just by his sexual behavior, I don’t have a doubt on my mind that Patrick wasn’t guilty. He was just shocked that he got caught and that someone would say “no” to him, and he eventually chose the easy way out. Absolutely despised him!
I can understand where Carl’s frustration is coming from. Alison’s drinking and all the late nights that she would spend away from home might create the atmosphere that you’re the only parent, or at least the only responsible parent. I can even wrap my head around the sudden emotional turmoil that he experienced when Matilda went missing. I’ve read that it’s quite common for parents to blame each other in those situations. However, it wasn’t Alison’s fault and it could’ve happened to anyone. She was completely sober and just played hide and seek with her daughter. This incident, however, brought up a different side of Carl that we as readers, or Alison, haven’t experienced before. The shift in Carl’s personality was quite shocking since he had been presented to be understanding and patient before. We could gradually see the emerging similarities on Carl and Edwin. They were both under the impression that Madeline and Alison tried to turn their children against them. They both expressed anger towards their children when they showed normal affection towards their mother. They belittled and humiliated their wives and even showed some physical violence towards them.
Carl has to be some kind of psychopath. How else could he act like everything was fine for such a long time? He even tapped her phone and planted a camera to her suitcase. He in some cases encouraged Alison to drink more and it wouldn’t surprise me if he even drugged her in order to assault her more easily. We, like Alison, can just guess what his motives were and how he developed such a twisted mindset. There must have been always something wrong with him. He even gathered men with similar tendencies in his therapy group and encouraged them to act according to him. This book paints such a dangerous world for women, and the most heart-breaking thing is, that it’s not even farfetched. I found a quote on Instagram by Farida D. (2021) which was really fitting to Carl’s case:
“The issue is not that men do not have access to sex. The issue is that they want access to rape. The issue is not that men don’t understand consent. The issue is that they don’t want to. Because consent threatens their control.”
Since I’ve been reading reasonable amount of psychological thrillers and thrillers, I’m starting to notice that they all have the same exact characters, just wrapped in a slightly different demographics:
- Ava Collette in Shape of the Night,
- Lo Blacklock in The Woman in Cabin 10,
- Thea in The Lying Game,
- Katherine Ross in Precious You,
- and finally Alison in Blood Orange.
Most of the women are struggling or have struggled with substance abuse in the past, and usually in related to that suffer from a mental disorder. Many of them also have a troubling relationship with food. I understand that these are very real, serious issues that many deal with but I would still like to see some variety on the character development on that part. I can feel sympathetic towards a character even though they are mentally in a good place and have a healthy relationship with food and alcohol.
Blood Orange was nicely written book, which dealt with many dark subjects successfully. Besides the Déjà-vu in the main character, I have also noticed a pattern on the representation of male characters in thrillers. They almost always are simply bad people. In Blood Orange the only bearable males were 14-year-old James and Alison’s co-worker Robert who was just a minor side character, which in itself says enough. However, I can understand why people like Blood Orange but it just wasn’t right fit for me.
2½/5
References:
Farida, D. (7.2.2021). Thoughts. https://instagram.com/farida.d.author?igshid=1rsbjhto996m9
