Wanda M. Morris's fast-paced and thrilling debut, the aptly named All Her Little Secrets, reveals the many, many secrets collected over the years of one woman's life--and what happens when they eventually catch up to her.
Ellice Littlejohn shows the world the woman she wants them to see: "Smart. Tempered. Ellice Littlejohn, the consummate professional." What she hides behind that façade, though, is far more complicated--and potentially dangerous: a childhood spent in poverty in Chillicothe, Ga., with an alcoholic mother and abusive cop for a stepfather. An unlikely scholarship to a prestigious boarding school, and a brother left behind on her departure. A misguided affair with her married boss, executive v-p and general counsel of Houghton Transportation Company, which has only a handful of female employees and even fewer employees of color. These secrets feel entirely disconnected from Ellice's reality as the only Black employee in the legal department--until she finds her boss dead in his office before the crack of dawn one weekday morning.
This brutal discovery falls at the very start of All Her Little Secrets, and Ellice continues that fast-paced run from her past for as long as she can. Her desperation to keep that personal history hidden boxes her and her younger brother into an increasingly impossible corner. Morris's debut will prove perfect for readers looking for thrillers that reveal dark secrets and twisted webs of lies alongside hard truths about racism and sexism in corporate America. --Kerry McHugh, blogger at Entomology of a Bookworm