The Blue Is Where God Lives, Sharon Sochil Washington
The Blue Is Where God Lives, Sharon Sochil Washington
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The Blue Is Where God Lives

Author: Sharon Sochil Washington

Narrator: Shayna Small

Unabridged: 8 hr 15 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 06/27/2023


Synopsis

A mesmerizing, powerful work of Afro-magic realism that reclaims the promise of a family's destiny through the bending of time

Blue’s daughter, Tsitra, is dying a violent and horrific death while, thousands of miles away, Blue feels the slowing of time and hears voices, followed by a stillness that befalls her for eighteen months.

More than a century before, Blue’s grandparents Amanda and Palmer attend a salon party in New Orleans. It’s a veritable who’s-who within pre–Civil War social circles. Conversations get heated quickly as Ismay, the hostess who hails from French royalty—and who is the daughter of one of the most ruthless
and wealthy slaveholders—antagonizes Palmer, a landowner and slaveholder himself whose parents had been sold into slavery and who’s there to seek revenge, and Amanda, a shape-shifter and puzzle maker who had been enslaved until this very gathering.

There, Amanda learns of a cosmic plot that will doom a line of her and Palmer’s family to poverty, so she devises her own counter-plot to undo the damage.Back in the present, Blue comes out of her stillness, broke and devoid of inspiration. In profound grief and consumed by guilt, Blue travels to The Ranch,
where the voices grow louder and she has visions of two women from the distant past. There, Blue feels the spark of a power and creative energy she has only glimpsed … but can it change her future?

A time-bending novel of invention grounded in the real, The Blue Is Where GodLives obliterates the space between past and present and asks whether belief, magic, and intention can forge new realities. With lush, captivating prose, intricate plotting, and unforgettable characters, The Blue Is Where God Lives is a
transcendent, electrifying debut of undeniable beauty and possibility that heralds the arrival of a major new voice in fiction.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Lydia on March 18, 2023

Sharon Sochil Washington I really enjoyed this book. The book is a hopeful testimony to God’s grace: Moore’s difficult beginnings don’t stop her from hearing the call to ministry, which she answered by teaching and writing. Still, behind the scenes, she felt a sense of darkness and self-destruction.......more

Goodreads review by Olivia on September 16, 2023

I liked this book way more than I thought it would be. I thought at first within the first few chapters I got stuck in some weird Christian novel. But I'm never one to back down, no matter how weird. As I read on soon, I was pleasantly surprised when God was just vibing with a whole wizard. From the......more

Goodreads review by Katie on October 29, 2023

I should start by saying that this is a book that doesn't look quite the way I expect a novel to look. My impression is that the author is drawing on traditions that are not the white american literary tradition I'm most familiar with. Because I tend to dislike books that aren't what I expect and am......more

Goodreads review by Winston on December 15, 2023

Slavery is bad. I don’t think this is supposed to be contentious but I can feel how that sentence would ignite or inflame the internet. I could put pineapple on pizza with less reaction than saying owning another person as property is not a good idea. History can be harsh. Unvarnished realities of th......more

Goodreads review by Bradley on September 03, 2024

This book was kind of wild. Overall, it is more of a book about ideas and concepts, theory made into life. There is excitement, violence, magic, lust. At times, the story is hard to follow. But is the story what matters here? Ultimately, the book is about the horrors of the Middle Passage, the bruta......more