All Her Little Secrets

Ellice Littlejohn’s Atlanta corporate-lawyer wardrobe of Louboutins and luxury dresses hides a background in down-and-out Chillicothe, GA, with her addict mother and the mother’s sleazy boyfriend. Also a secret is Ellice’s affair with married lawyer Michael at Houghton, the fancy firm where she’s almost the only Black employee. As this fast-moving novel opens, Ellice shows up to work early for a meeting with Michael, only to find him dead, a discovery that becomes her newest secret. Houghton’s boss likes to refer to the company as a family, but after Ellice is promoted to Michael’s job, racism, always an undercurrent among the pompous colleagues, becomes overt, and it grows obvious that the board is up to no good. As Ellice investigates both her lover’s death and goings on at Houghton, yet more secrets are revealed to readers, both about Ellice’s past and about the cutthroat world she endures. Debut author Morris, herself a corporate lawyer, masterfully layers family struggles, racism, and corporate greed to create an exciting legal thriller that’s tempered by a hint of romance.