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!