Along the Indigo

by Elsie Chapman

The town of Glory is famous for two things: businesses that front for seedy, if not illegal, enterprises and the suicides that happen along the Indigo River. Marsden is desperate to escape the “bed-and-breakfast” where her mother works as a prostitute—and where her own fate has been decided—and she wants to give her little sister a better life. But escape means money, which leads Mars to skimming the bodies that show up along the Indigo River. It’s there that she runs into Jude, who has secrets of his own and whose brother’s suicide may be linked to Mars’s own sordid family history. As they grow closer, the two unearth secrets that could allow them to move forward . . . or chain them to the Indigo forever.

• ISBN13: 9781419725319
• Publish Date: 20 March 2018
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Abrams
• Imprint: Amulet Books
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 392
• Language: English
• URL: https://abramsandchronicle.co.uk/book/9781419725319-along-the-indigo/

Reviews

[shannonmiz]

You can find the full review and all the fancy and/or randomness that accompanies it at It Starts at Midnight

This is another book with some elements that were definitely hits, and some that weren't. This one also deals with a young woman who is searching to uncover some answers about her town's past (and her family's past!) all while trying to protect her little sister and not become a "working girl".

Some Things I Liked:

• Marsden and her sister Wynn have such a lovely bond. Seriously, I am a sucker for a close sibling relationship, and I adored these two. But Marsden was honest about the toll that caring for Wynn sometimes took, and I liked that just as much. Plus, Wynn is adorable, and an uplifting character in an otherwise dark book.



• The ship is really great. It's no surprise that Marsden starts to get feelings for Jude, but I liked Jude a lot. Maybe more than Marsden actually. He just seemed like such a good dude, and he was missing his brother so much, and dealing with his own personal hell. I was just rooting for these two because frankly, they earned some happiness.



• The mystery element worked well. While I wasn't surprised at all the twists, there were definitely some things I didn't see coming, and it was fun to play detective with Marsden!

Some Things That are Neutral That Are Worth Mentioning:

• So, I didn't like or dislike this, it is just part of the story that I felt the need to address.  The adults, especially Marsden's mom, are kind of messes. Marsden's mom is a prostitute, which fine, it's her life. But when she tries to lure Mars into the business... yuck. It's vile, honestly, because whose parents are trying to recruit them to whoredom? Plus, this girl is only sixteen and the brothel owner lady wanted her to start "working" too, which... wrong on so many levels.



• Okay, this bugged me even though maybe it shouldn't, but... the book is called Along the Indigo, but it talks basically non-stop about this "covert" that Marsden's family owns and apparently makes people kill themselves. And the Indigo really only has one thing to do with the story so... maybe it should have been called something about "The Covert"? Again, this is just me. And it didn't really have any bearing on my enjoyment of the book, but I must have questioned it 20 times while reading, so there you have it.

Some Things I Didn't Love:

• I didn't realize this was set in the past until about halfway through. And that isn't good- if a book is going to be set in the 1980s, I should feel and know it's in the 80s, right? I was suspicious about why Mars didn't have a cell phone and such, but she was quite poor and I figured she just didn't have access. Later, there is the mention of a year and I finally knew. Later there is talk of looking up articles in the library microfiche, but had that stuff not been included, I might never have known.



• It started out rather slowly. To the point where I was pretty bored, and contemplated DNFing for a minute or two, before I remembered how terrible I am at DNFing.

Bottom Line: Not without flaws, but definitely enjoyable- especially the second half!

**Copy provided for review