Blood Orange by Harriet Tyce @harriet_tyce BLOG TOUR @Wildfirebks @jenniferleech1 #RandomThingsTours #BloodOrange

AN ELECTRIFYING DEBUT THRILLER FOR FANS OF APPLE TREE YARD AND ANATOMY OF A SCANDAL - INTRODUCING A STUNNING NEW VOICE IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SUSPENSE

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....

Blood Orange by Harriet Tyce was published by Wildfire Books on 21 February 2019. As part of the #RandomThingsTours Blog Tour, I'm delighted to welcome the author here today.
She's talking about the books that are special to her in My Life In Books.

My Life in Books - Harriet Tyce

Milly Molly Mandy Stories by Joyce Lankester Brisley - the first book I read by myself from start to finish when I was around 5 (no early reader, me). I loved her and the idea that she could chop and cook onions on her own without adult supervision. I was fascinated by cooking from that point on.


The Diddakoi by Rumer Godden - a powerful indictment on bullying and racism from the perspective of a young Romany girl. This has stayed with me ever since I read it when I was 12.


The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkein – this is probably the trilogy I reread most often. I remember the sheer terror I felt the first time I read about the Nazgul as they hunted Frodo through the Shire in The Fellowship of the Ring, and it still has the same effect now.


And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie – my first Agatha Christie, at the age of 11. Oh my, it terrified me. And then I couldn’t get enough of them. I may not have read every single Agatha Christie, but I’ve certainly given it my best shot.

Arabella by Georgette Heyer – this is one of the best Georgette Heyer books, but then there are so many others that I could name (These Old Shades, Devil’s Cub, Frederica…). I return to them year on year for comfort and consolation when the days are bleak.


Poetry by Philip Larkin, Louis MacNeice, Sylvia Plath and ee cumming - though there are many other poets I should include, these are the first that come to mind in terms of helping me fall in love with language.


Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin – the first of the Rebus series which I borrowed from Central Library in Edinbugh, the only police procedural series I’ve bought and read religiously each year since the start. The other two detective series I follow religiously are the Matt Scudder series by Lawrence Block and the Bernie Gunther series by Philip Kerr.


Clarissa by Samuel Richardson – I read English Literature at university and I wanted to do a dissertation on lesbian detective fiction in 1994. Oxford was not ready for such a thing at the time, so in the end I wrote a dissertation on Clarissa, the epistolatory novel about virtue and consent that’s so long you could use it to club someone to death. This was not wasted as I referred to it in a dissertation I wrote on crime fiction when doing my Creative Writing MA a couple of years ago.

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murukami – I know it would be cooler to cite one of the magical realist works such as A Wind Up Bird Chronicle or A Wild Sheep Chase, but I loved this when I read it, and I still love it. A coming of age story with a doomed love affair and a woman who brings smell and colour into the protagonist’s life – just beautiful.


Out by Natsuo Kirino – female centred and truly dark account of four women’s attempts to cover up a murder and how the situation spirals from there out of control. One of the first feminist revenge fantasies I ever read, I think of it almost every time I shower and watch the water go down the drain.


2666 by Roberto Bolaño - another lethal weapon of a book due to its heft, this epic five part novel veers from a German novelist to a series of murders of women in a Mexican city based on the real life murders in Ciudad Juárez, it has one of the greatest points of story reconciliation I’ve ever read, where all the disparate strands come together in one big moment of ‘ah’. Hugely satisfying.


In A Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes – I’ve been obsessed with this book since I read it on my MA course. Whilst written from the point of view of a male serial killer, it’s a gleeful subversion on the trope of the femme fatale, and for once, female characters are given proper agency.

Harriet Tyce - March 2019 

Praise for Blood Orange

'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

'Gripping' Daily Mail

'Sizzlingly addictive' Heat

'Glittering and fierce . . . a glorious bonfire of a marriage thriller' Irish Times

'A smash hit' Best

'A very impressive debut' Observer

'Complex and compelling' Clare Mackintosh

'Dark and disturbing' Louise Jensen

'A superb, compulsive read' Tess Gerritsen

'Gloriously twisted' Emma Flint

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.

Website: www.harriettyceauthor.com

Twitter : @harriet_tyce