Publisher's Weekly Review
In Wright's uneven sequel to 2021's The Darkest Flower, Allison Barton, a Charlottesville, Va., criminal defense attorney and single mother, takes on a former law school roommate, Jane Knudsen, as a client. Jane fears she may be arrested for killing her nasty, vindictive boss, whose body she discovered in his office. As Allison admits, they "were never quite friends," and she was jealous of the stunningly beautiful Jane, believing rumors that Jane's excellent grades were because Jane slept with her professors, which Jane never denied. After Jane is charged with murder, Allison struggles during the trial to build a defense while also trying to uncover the secrets her client would rather go to prison to protect. A brisk pace and a couple of clever twists elevate the story, but too often the plot veers into soap opera territory as Wright checks off such familiar tropes as the harried single mother, a precocious child, and a toxic workplace. Frequent mentions of Jane's beauty and others' reactions to it grow tiresome. Wright can entertain, but she breaks no new ground. Agent: Sharon Pelletier, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret. (Apr.)
Kirkus Review
A civil attorney fearful of standing trial for killing her detestable boss sees her only hope in hiring a defense lawyer whose life is nearly as chaotic as her own. Once the funeral is over, no one in the Charlottesville office of Blackwood, Payne & Vivant, the "unmarked Honda Accord of law firms," has a nice word to spare for Raymond V. Corrigan Jr., who was shot to death in his office sometime after midnight. When impossibly beautiful Jane Knudsen, a Blackwood associate hungry for a partnership, finds Ray's body upon her customary pre-dawn arrival, her first reaction is relief at not having to deal with him anymore. That's swiftly followed by certainty that the police will consider her a prime suspect whether or not she notifies them of her discovery, since everyone at the firm, from managing partner Greg Dombrowski to fellow associates Josh Gardner and Amir Burhan to longtime administrator Irene Robinson, will know better if Jane says she wasn't there at 6 a.m. Helpless to avoid the glare of suspicion, Jane asks her old UVA law school roommate Allison Barton, who made quite a splash in The Darkest Flower (2021), to defend her. The two were never friends, and their salt-and-pepper relationship is the main attraction in Allie's second case. But Wright, presenting her story again in alternating chapters, narrated by Allison and her client, also piles on complications, from a poisonous widow to importunate and unwelcome romantic pursuits of both Allison and Jane, from sexual harassment to domestic abuse, from a hidden past to child pornography, until even the most hard-bitten readers will beg, like Jane, for release. Overplotted and overwrought but as immersive as a serious addiction. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.