All Her Little Secrets

DEBUT Fortysomething Atlanta corporate attorney Ellice Littlejohn has an impeccable résumé, but she laments her lack of wonderful husband or intelligent kids. She’s been having a years-long affair with her married boss, Michael—until the morning she finds him dead in the office, near a pool of blood and a gun. Ellice then does what she always does—she runs. The bloody scene gives her a flashback of being a poor Black girl growing up in rural Georgia, contending with an alcohol-addicted mother and a sexually abusive stepfather, a white police officer. Ellice and her aunt Vera eventually put an end to the trauma together—a secret she’d planned to take with her to the grave. Until now. The CEO promotes Ellice into Michael’s job, and it’s clear to her that she’s the corporate diversity token, “the lone Black person, expected to represent the success or failure of every Black woman who worked in corporate America.” When someone leaves her a note alluding to her childhood secret, she’s determined to stop the blackmail. Ellice uncovers not only murder but terrifying racism running amok.