Along the Indigo by Elsie Chapman

🌟🌟 out of 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Synopsis:

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.

*This ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review*

I feel like this book took a while to get started. It seemed like the main character kept repeating how terrible their town was, that suicides happened frequently, and that she wanted to keep her sister innocent. It got old really fast and I just wanted something to happen else to take place in the book so that it would stop. This book was more of a slow burn so the things that I just mentioned do continue throughout the book. I did think that the premise of this book was really interesting. I don't think that there are any other books out now that have a main character that lives in a brothel. I thought that that element of story was fascinating.  I actually wanted to know more about the women that worked there because I found that they were mysteries I wanted to solve.  I wanted to know more about what brought each of them to the town and why they chose/needed to work there. 

I found it hard to connect with the characters in this book. I found them to be bland which was surprising because each of their backstories were very interesting.  I could appreciate their struggles that they were each dealing with and the sacrifices they each made but it wasn't enough to offset the lack of connection. Their emotions didn't leap out at me from the pages of this book and it may have been due to the writing. I think that the author focused more on the mystery of the suicides rather than the affects of them on the characters. It is easy to tell that Jude and Marsden are upset about the deaths but the book seems to glance over that.