Mad Honey is a novel co-written by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan, two bestselling authors in their own right. Picoult’s work is widely known; characterized as women’s fiction or family saga, her writing often focuses on a moral or ethical dilemma that pits characters against each other. Picoult has covered a number of controversial topics, including abortion, death penalty, mercy killings, LGBTQ rights, race and privilege, religion and belief in God, school shootings, and assisted suicide (“Jodi Picoult Turns Tough Topics Into Best-Sellers”). She sometimes adopts a “procedural drama” format, in which most of the book focuses on the solving of a crime and the unfolding of a case in a court of law.

Mad Honey involves several of these characteristic Picoult elements: It tackles subjects of domestic violence and transgender rights, centers on a possible murder case and the trial that follows, and even brings back a recurring character from her previous books, defense attorney Jordan McAfee. Jordan previously appeared in The Pact (1998), which focused on assisted suicide; Salem Falls (2001), which discusses rape and incestuous sexual assault; and Nineteen Minutes (2007), which follows a school shooting. In Mad Honey,