Stunning and haunting. i loved it.
Many thanks to Regal House Publishing and to Netgalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

Indigo Field is a debut novel that engages the reader in an emotional saga set in North Carolina, narrated by three grieving characters of different ages and cultures. The ambitious novel meshes their experiences and the setting, delving into the region’s history and attitudes, and unleashing “the sins of the past.” Says author Sue Monk Kidd, “Indigo Field brims with multigenerational drama, earthy spirituality, and deeply imagined characters you are unlikely to forget."

This is an engaging tale set in a small rural North Carolina town battling gentrification. Drama, trauma, and secrets are interwoven within the lives of an indigenous widowed mother struggling to mind her farm and raise a special needs child; a White retired military Colonel grieving the sudden and unexpected loss of his beautiful, dedicated wife; and an elderly, childless Black woman who seeks vengeance in the aftermath of the violent murder of her beloved grandniece whom she reared as a daughter. Race, age, gender are mentioned because the intersection of those aspects shape the characters’ life experiences and perspectives which provide character motivations and life-changing decisions with varying results.

This is a character-driven novel with each struggling with angst and sorrow - inwardly and outwardly with mixed results - some turn to God/religion, some turn away; others use alcohol as a balm, etc. In a climatic set of events, humanity emerges as the unifying bond that supersedes cultural and ideological differences. There are themes of resourcefulness and resilience evidenced via the environment’s example that demonstrates new beginnings are possible even in the worst of circumstances. Other themes offer meditations on forgiveness, atonement, and sacrifice; some contain aspects regarding rooted spirituality and catharsis via storytelling/verbalization.

This is a well-researched novel as evidenced in the events, social attitudes of past eras, flashbacks that reference obscure regional (North Carolina) history, and various aspects of indigenous folklore and traditions.

Thanks to Regal House Publishing and NetGalley for the opportunity to review in exchange for an honest review.

Many thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read this novel. I have a penchant for novels about the South, particularly those that happen to deal with nature and its surrounding in a fanciful, whimsical way.

Unfortunately this book did not live up to my expectations. First of all it seemed as if the book was written by two different authors. In the Colonel's story I felt the verse was clipped and rather trite. Is this what the author was going for? To me it read as pulp fiction.

In Miss Reba's story it was quite the opposite. Here I say the book showed whimsy and was even lyrical at times. However this just made this portion very confusing - what actually took place vs. the ruminations of an elderly woman. The tree monuments? were they gravestones, actual painted trees, totems or a combination of all three.

Sorry, but I can't find much positive to say about this book.

Genre: Literary Fiction
Publisher: Regal House/Mysticism
Pub. Date: March 14, 2023

Mini-Review

This multigenerational drama is ghost filled and written with Black and Native American spirituality in mind. In the rural South, three protagonists narrate the story—A retired colonel living in a posh home grieving from the abrupt passing of his younger wife. There is humor in his anger that he was supposed to go first. An elderly Black woman living on the opposite side of town is fiercely mourning her niece. Her niece was murdered by a white man giving good tension in her part of the tale. In addition, a widowed goat farmer lives between the other two. She has an autistic son written tenderly and with an understanding of the disability. There is an abandoned field between the three that has been the scene of atrocities for three centuries. The novel has all the makings of a captivating read, which it mostly is. My only gripe is the jumping around between the living and the dead can get confusing. The lengthy paragraphs about the black woman's mystical spiritualism particularly confused me. I had to read some passages again to be sure I understood them. Still, I recommend reading “Indigo Field.” How could I not? The book is fascinating.

Finished ✔️ Indigo Field by Marjorie Hudson

4.75 ⭐️’s
Kindle Unlimited: No
Brims with multigenerational drama
Earthy spirituality
Deeply imagined characters
Beautiful written & told
Brilliantly written & well told story
Enjoyed the characters
Yes, I’d recommend this book 📖

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This is one of those books I seem to have a love/hate relationship with. Parts of the book I really liked, and others not so much. When a pot of bones is discovered, archaeologists want to try to find more Native American relics in Indigo field. But more than just relics are waiting. Secret sins from the past are forced into the light. This book may be long, but worth the time it takes to read it. Southern fiction fans will be delighted. Thanks to author Marjorie Hudson, Regal House Publishing, and NetGalley. I received a complimentary copy of this ebook. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

Wow! This book was amazing. I’m at a loss of words right now. The characters, plot, and writing were executed perfectly. I wish I could rate this book higher than 5 stars. I highly recommend this book.

Indigo Field
by Marjorie Hudson
I liked the book. But, it was a slow one. Over 400 pages and the characters were mostly likable.I wanted to love the book, it was jumping more than I needed or wanted.

Mysteries of the past fill ‘Indigo Field’

“Indigo Field,’ by Marjorie Hudson. Regal House Publishing. 2023. 410 pp.

By Deirdre Parker Smith
The earth reveals much in Marjorie Hudson’s new novel, “Indigo Fields.” The North Carolina author weaves in the little-known history of the Tuscarora Indians with modern-day crimes and prejudices and the story of a man lost to himself and his family.
The story involves the retired colonel, Rand, his delightful wife, Anne, and the characters across the road from their comfortable house. Miss Reba is a force to be reckoned with, a tiny woman of mixed race who is known as a foster parent and a woman of strong beliefs.
Jolene is a farmer, raising goats and crops with her child-like teen son, Bobo.
Characters from the spirit world wield their eerie, ancient power.
“Indigo Field” the book is about the place, Indigo Field, and these disparate personalities. They’re trying to survive in a world that doesn’t make much sense anymore, and they’re about to face a challenge that literally turns that world upside down.
Rand doesn’t like the retirement community in Eastern North Carolina. It’s too cute; his wife, Anne, is too involved with the other residents and the community at large.
He wants something else – anything else but hasn’t figured out what it is.
Knowing he has a bad heart, he runs in the intense heat and humidity of summer, hoping to hasten his death, the only way he can think of to escape his dissatisfaction. He can never tell Anne how unhappy he is.
On his runs, he discovers Indigo Field, and the tiny farm Jolene tends. He feels a kinship to the land and the small house, having grown up on a hardscrabble farm in a family that defines dysfunctional.
In the woods of the field, across the road from the fancy Stonehaven community, the reader meets Miss Reba. She believes in spells and spirits and the wisdom of the natural world. Standing solemnly in her yard are three large, cedar statues that memorialize her sister and brother and the niece who was murdered by a whiteman.
From this point, the story belongs to Miss Reba. She is the strongest, most incredible character in the woods, the source of forgotten, but vital history, the stone that will be tossed, but not moved.
To bring this group into the same orbit, Hudson brings in the Tuscarora past, burials in clay jars, and an archaeological site where Rand’s tough-luck son, Jeff, finally connects to his own future.
You will see, at the novel’s end, how much reading and research Hudson did, from North Carolina’s history of indigenous peoples, especially the Tuscarora, but other tribes, as well. This may be fiction, but Hudson, who is also known for her book about Virginia Dare, grounds it all in fact.
Her excellent short story collection, “Accidental Birds of the Carolinas,” also resonates with authenticity. She manages the sections featuring Old Lucy and her Tuscarora lore so beautifully, while narrating the shocking violence that has brought Miss Reba and the others to this point. Lucy is, truly, the most fascinating character in the book.
Using the stories Miss Reba tells to the box of niece Danielle’s ashes, Hudson creates a world of prejudice and backwoods violence all too familiar to our history.
When Rand’s plans to die fail, tragedy drops in, leaving him alone and even more detached from life, including his children. He knows Jeff is a hopeless screw-up, and that daughter Carrie is too wrapped up in her own world to set foot in his.
At the same time, Miss Reba is asked to take in TJ, son of the whiteman who murdered her Danielle. This certainly stretches belief, but it sparks more challenges, more hurdles for Miss Reba and the others.
Trouble confronts everyone. Just as Jolene is trying to get ahead, she gets a notice of foreclosure on her farm, a tactic by a greedy banker who wants to force her to marry him to save her land.
Rand runs away to the mountain of North Carolina, to an odd tourist cabin with a sad and frightened boy bringing him meager supplies. Here, the reader learns Rand’s deep secret, another trigger for impending tragedy.
Sweet Bobo, Jolene’s son, loved Rand’s wife, who was kind to him, and he quickly befriends TJ, juvenile-delinquent-in-training, and the erstwhile Jeff, who falls in love with Jolene at first sight, even as they discover more about the jars of bones in the river’s cliffside.
As Miss Reba tells ever more disturbing stories to the late Danielle, Armageddon is brewing.
Bobo finds a gun; TJ, Jeff and Rand are in serious danger.
An unexpected hurricane will blow ill winds into the growing maelstrom of these lives – Rand running away, permanently, from his sorrow; TJ in trouble yet again; Miss Reba under suspicion of murder; Jolene about to lose her farm, her home, her safe place for Bobo.
The storm is relentless, destroying things once sacred to this place. It has to wipe out the evil that has taken residence, and it will test the minds and hearts of all.
Here Hudson uses her powers of description to narrate every terror of the storm, to describe the destruction of a tarnished Eden. It moves at a compelling speed that catches the reader up in the winds.
What will be the outcome of this disaster? Will it be redemption or destruction? Will it be the revenge of the Tuscarora?
Hudson skillfully weaves an ending full of surprises. The book is a bit long but stick with it; you’ll be rewarded.

Indigo Field, by Marjorie Hudson, is a multi-generational drama that’s both heartwretching and heartwarming, at the same time. While most of the book takes place in our time, it also highlights some important history about North Carolina. It's a wonderful story that's long on details about nature. I was confused by Miss Reba's seeming gullibility when her ward, TJ, was accused of crimes. It didn't feel believable that such a savvy lady would be content with no details about his involvement.
Retired Colonel Randoph Jefferson Lee is rather self absorbed man who's feeling incredibly put upon by living in the upscale retirement community that his beloved wife, Anne, adores. Then his life is turned completely upside down when Anne dies suddenly. Not too far away, the elder Miss Reba is also grieving. Her niece, that she raised from the age of ten, has recently been murdered.
Miss Reba is shocked when some social worker comes along and asks her to foster TJ, the son of the man who murdered her Danielle. The nerve! But the more she thinks on it, the more she knows that it's what Danielle would want her to do.
When the Colonel's children come for their mom's funeral, he really just wants to be left alone. But after his daughter goes back home, his son, Jeff, ends up staying. He's gotten an archeology job at a local field. What he finds reveals generations of shocking crimes.

I really struggled to get into this read, and it's ~400 pages, so it's a lot to push through. I was stuck for days and days, never moving much past 20/25%. I kept saying I was going to prioritize reading it, and kept avoiding it, so I wasn't reading much of anything at all. Finally, after 15-ish minute sessions for days, I made it to about the 65% mark. From there, the book moves a bit faster, and I read from 80% through to the end in one sitting.

My biggest complaint with the book, therefore, is the pacing, because Hudson structures it around following certain characters for a few dozen pages, and I could not care less about Randall. The author makes him so unlikable, almost to the point of being irredeemable, which is an odd choice, because we are supposed to feel pity for him. I felt disgust. His son, Jeff, I was mostly ambivalent about. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, and both of them ended up with more than they deserved, if I'm being honest.

However, I really enjoyed Reba and Jolene both as characters and their own plot lines. Reba is far and away the most interesting character due to her Sight and ability to commune with spirits. She is also the only character we get to really see change over time, because she shares memories of her childhood and early adulthood. I felt so deeply for Reba's plight, and wanted to do something to help her. Jolene I felt similarly about. She is obviously trying her absolute best and has been dealt a difficult hand — not a lot of money, a young widow and single mom to a child of special needs, and a lot of land to manage. I really enjoyed the chapters that centered on either of them, as I thought that had problems that seemed challenging and multifaceted, and they actually had to work and try to change their status, whereas Randall just stumbles around angrily and drunkenly and has everything go fine for him.

My second biggest complaint: Bobo's name. There is absolutely no reason to have a character with Down Syndrome be named Bobo when everyone else has normal names. Even just to change it to Bobby would be fine. It's almost like the author wanted to wave a multicolored flag that said "Don't forget, this is the character with a developmental disability and chromosomal abnormality! I named him a name that essentially sounds like 'Bozo' so you wouldn't forget he's not like the rest of us!"

I was drawn to Marjorie Hudson’s Indigo Field by the title, which intrigued me. The blurb struck my fancy as well. It is a debut novel, and the book’s synopsis conjured up images of a story that is part historical fiction, part Native and Black spirituality, a blending of generations and of cultures, things gone awry and things that could be reckoned with somehow if only folks would pay attention to one another.

The central characters are Reba, an elderly Black woman. She is angry, blames the white man for much. Reluctantly, she takes in a troubled young foster child, TJ, who is white. Reba is quite a character, let me tell you! She talks to spirits, mostly to Danielle, her murdered grandniece. TJ starts out as a real handful. He surprised me in many ways. Another character who surprised me in the end is the colonel, Rand. He’s got heart trouble and expects to die any time, but his wife dies sooner. He’s grieving, but he also has a guilty conscience. And he doesn’t get along with his son, Jeff; he doesn’t really know him. Jeff is a good guy, but he doesn’t seem to be able to stick to anything he starts. We see what a good heart he has, though.

Then there’s Jolene Blake and her young adult son Bobo, who has Down Syndrome. Jolene has a farm, and Bobo helps out. Jolene works hard, but then her land becomes the focus of an archeological dig when bones are found…

This is where the history comes in. We’re privy to Reba’s past. She has some deep, dark secrets from her childhood about a Tuscarora Indian named Lucy. It seems many of the Blacks in the area have Tuscarora blood, Reba, and her late sister Sheba among them. Lucy practiced many old Native customs, including burial customs. These are things of which Reba never speaks.

Reba’s path crosses Rand’s in a freak accident, but he never knows it until much later. The other characters all share connections in some way through Miss Reba, and it amazed me the way Bobo is accepted by all, especially TJ. Much of the plot felt like disjointed, separate stories, though, until trouble comes. Then it all starts to make sense and comes together in one horrific whirlwind of tumult, fear, and chaos. This was some excellent writing! I wanted to duck under that table with Rand and Miss Reba!

I did not find the spirituality or the setting quite as haunting or beautiful as I’d hoped; I did appreciate the history and the interracial struggles and cooperation that is pervasive throughout the story. Parts of the story dragged, but overall, it is a very readable novel.

My thanks to NetGalley, Regal House Publishing, and the author for this ARC in exchange for my honest review. My thoughts and opinions are my own.

4 stars

Incredible debut. Well written characters and descriptions. Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book