Indigo Hill

When Alma Johansson learns she’s dying, she takes the news surprisingly well—much better than her two grown daughters, Louisa and Michelle. And when Alma starts hinting at a long-kept secret, they are even more caught off guard. Their mother's life was an open book, so what could she possibly have kept from them?

After Alma’s will is read revealing the secret, her last words take on new meaning. They also bring back decades-old memories of a terrible fire on Indigo Hill—a fiery explosion that killed five of their friends. For Louisa, the eldest daughter, those scars are still with her.

Now, with their mother's past out in the open, Louisa and Michelle must confront their own secrets in the present to have any chance at a meaningful future.

Indigo Hill is a darkly funny, bittersweet novel about guilt, love, family, and memory.

Liz Rosenberg is the author of more than thirty books, including the critically acclaimed, bestselling novels The Moonlight Palace, The Laws of Gravity, and Home Repair. She is also a prize-winning poet and children’s book author. For over twenty years, she was a book review columnist at the Boston Globe. She teaches creative writing and English at Binghamton University. She has also guest-taught at Bennington College, Colgate University, Sarah Lawrence College, and Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She divides her time between Upstate New York, Florida, and Worcester, Massachusetts. She lives with her daughter, Lily, and their dog, Sophie. Her son, Eli, a comic and podcaster, lives in New York City. Visit Liz on Facebook for updates, extraordinary photos of ordinary beauty, and more information.

“Liz Rosenberg loves her characters and makes us love them, too. She knows what Faulkner knew, that the past isn’t dead; it isn’t even past. She knows, as well, that every story is many stories, and she handles the complex intersecting tales of unspeakable loss, astonishing secrets, familial chaos, and heartbreak, with intelligence, poise, and tenderness. Indigo Hill is a heartfelt, redemptive, and irresistible novel. Read it now and thank me later.” —John Dufresne, author of I Don’t Like Where This Is Going

“Ms. Rosenberg reminds us, page by smart page, that the tales we tell ourselves are at once necessary and dangerous. Here is a book that rouses and refreshes, each chapter a step closer to the long-suppressed truths peculiar to us as fallen angels. Ibsen is in these pages. As is Cheever at his most bittersweet. And Alice Munro with her quiet desperation. Not to mention the nuanced interiority of Woolf and Oates. Savor this book, friends. Take heart, especially from Ms. Rosenberg’s semisorrowful but always steadfast affection for the crooked kind we are.” —Lee K. Abbott, author of All Things, All at Once

“Indigo Hill is a beautifully written novel about the loss of one family member and the gain of another. The characters are richly drawn and multilayered, each of them coping with secrets from the past as they struggle to navigate the present. I was drawn in from the very start, and found myself smiling and nodding my head at the dynamics between mother and daughter, husband and wife, sisters, and longtime friends. Liz Rosenberg’s latest offering is a study in heartache and hope, tragedy and resilience, and the familial bonds that span oceans and ages.” —Janis Thomas, bestselling author of What Remains True

“Indigo Hill is an absorbing and poignant story, with lovingly drawn characters. It’s a love story and a mystery story too, with a family chock full of secrets and an intriguing stranger arriving from England. A great read!” —Bobbie Ann Mason, author of In Country and The Girl in the Blue Beret