Book Review: Beyond the Indigo

Reviewed by Jaylynn Korrell

 A compelling story of love, loss, and how to pick up the pieces 

Romance lovers will find comfort in Tina Taylor Thomas’s Beyond the Indigo. This romantic love story has a little bit of everything: love, loss, steamy romance, betrayal, family ties, and plenty more. If you love love, this story will have you hooked.

Hank was lucky enough to find true love at a young age. As a teenager he married his childhood best friend and planned for a long life of happiness, but those plans were cut short when she died just a few months after their wedding. 

Now almost 20 years later, Hank gives love another shot, but it doesn’t go quite as he expects it to. While working hard to open up for the first time since his wife’s death, Hank finds himself in a few romantic situations that he hopes could be the answer to his prayers.

I swooned at moments in this story. Thomas creates an enviable romance between Hank and his childhood sweetheart that is both innocent and mature. Despite knowing early on that she isn’t part of his later life, readers will still read their love story and hope that they get the perfect life they both thought they’d share together.

It grips you and doesn’t let go, much in the same way it does for the main character. Hank’s journey of truly processing this loss and opening up about it will evoke sadness in anyone who has loved or dreamed of being loved in such a way. 

Of the three main love stories we get in this book, I feel most let down by the one that we leave with. We get a lot of detail with the first two love interests. By the time we get to his third I feel as a reader that I understand Hank’s process when it comes to love. But the developments slow in the final relationship so that we don’t get to along for the ride. As a result, we don’t really get to fall in love with her with Hank, which I kind of need out of my romances. 

I was also turned off by some of the actions of Hank later on in the book.

For a majority of the book I read Hank’s portions with an overwhelming amount of sympathy, but it comes to a screeching halt at one point. There are some entanglements and situations that arise that take away from any innocence we get from Hank and makes it hard to still consider Hank a good guy after awhile, despite Thomas’s best intentions. At the same time, these issues may help fill the novel with juicy aspects that could leave some readers with their mouths hanging wide open.

Despite a few hiccups, this romance is still well worth reading. Thomas’s writing style is the essence of a hopeless romantic, and romance lovers will find what they’re looking for in her pages.

Publisher: Outskirts Press

Genre: General Fiction / Romance

Print Length: 342 pages

ISBN: 978-1977244703

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