All Her Little Secrets by Wanda M Morris

Welcome Back, Booklovers! To close out October I decided to read one more thriller. All Her Little Secrets is a debut novel and I wasn't sure what to expect going in. 

Ellice Littlejohn is working as a corporate attorney for Houghton and sleeping with her married white boss. One morning when she goes to meet him at his office early she discovers his dead body and flees the scene as if it never happened. In the wake of Michael's murder the company needs to clean up their image. The next day she is promoted to the executive board which seem to be a good will move as the company is getting backlash for their lack of Black employees with protestors outside their doors chanting. Though Ellice feels uncomfortable among the white boy's club that is the executive board she's earned this promotion.

Then she finds out that her little brother Sam was hired by someone in her company to trail another employee who is now missing and is somehow involved in the murder of her boss. She's also receiving threatening notes.

There are interstitials throughout that flashback to life in Chillicothe, Georgia. Ellice tries hard to keep memories of her old life forgotten.  That life consisted of growing up in a poor rural town with an alcoholic mother and an abusive pedophile for a step-father. Ellice has separated herself from the past so much that even friends don't know she has a brother. She has the woman who raised her living in a nearby assisted living. As she tries to keep her past hidden she discovers more secrets and then all eyes are on her as a suspect for murder. 

All Her Little Secrets did what When No One is Watching, Ace of Spades, and The Other Black Girl failed to do for me. Which is actually be thrilling. If I'm going to read about a character's trauma I want to be engaged in the story. This book isn't filled with pages upon pages of mundane activity. Though there are racist white characters in this story this book never tries to appeal to the white gaze. Ellice admonishes herself for knowing what she knows about how these people operate and repeatedly letting her guard down but she didn't constantly explain what Black people already know about how racists operate. This book also had a clear direction and a twist I didn't see coming that was big enough to surprise me without feeling too unbelievable.