This novel admittedly wasn’t for me—I found the story similar to others released in the same time frame—but I also wonder if it was the wrong book at the wrong time! The writing quality was excellent, so I know it was just the story for me. I will try again.

This was more of survival story than one of rebellion. I did enjoy the uniqueness of each character and how they stood on their own within the narrative. An enjoyable, thought-provoking first novel.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

This was a wonderful debut novel from Tracey Rose Peyton. It gave an intimate view into the lives of six enslaved women and the rebellion they secretly planned against their owners.

The Lucys plantation was struggling and in order to turn things around, they devised a plan to make the slave women bear children, so they hired a man to impregnate them. But the women were determined to protect themselves, and Nan provided them with cotton root clippings to chew on daily as a form of birth control. This risk was high, and if their secret was found out, the consequences would be severe.

I really enjoyed the character development in this story and getting some insight into their individual struggles while on the Lucy plantation. More than that, I loved their camaraderie, solidarity, and perseverance as a group, and had a lot of respect for their fight for body autonomy while also trying to survive during one of America’s gravest injustices.

*Thank you to NetGalley and the Ecco Press for providing a copy of this book to review.*

3.5

The synopsis will tell you this is a story of six enslaved women who gather together to protect themselves from the working conditions and from the man brought in to impregnate them. And while they did in a few ways, such as securing remedies to prevent pregnancy, it felt less like a group of women and more of a story of individual women. I liked the interactions and banter between the women, as grim as some of the topics were.
I wish we'd learned more about some of the women, and that the ending didn't weigh so heavily on the shoulders of one.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ecco Publishing for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I was really looking forward to reading Night Wherever We Go. It has been a bit since I have read any historical fiction, although I love it. From reading the synopsis, I was looking forward to a historical novel about strong Black women rebelling (and hopefully winning) against their enslaver.

Night Wherever We Go is the story of six women enslaved on a struggling Texas farm. Desperate to prop up the farm, their owner decides to hire a “stockman” to impregnate them as the women try to retain agency over their bodies and wombs.

I found the premise of Night Wherever We Go to be a compelling angle for a book of a time period often explored. I have read several historical fiction novels about American slavery, but I have not deeply explored women’s reproductive rights, or lack their of, during enslavement. A story about this intrigued me both for the fact it was something I did not know much about and the parallel to women’s current struggles to retain reproductive rights.

While the idea and inspiration behind the novel were solid, Night Wherever We Go failed in execution. As far as the story’s writing, the best way I can explain it is that Peyton threw narrative spaghetti at the wall to see what stuck. The narration shifted from first person to third person to letters written in someone’s mind and back. At times, it was completely unclear who was narrating the story. This unfocused, messy narration made the story feel choppy and disconnected.

In addition, I thought that the story frequently lacked sufficient details and descriptions. I am not a fan of verbose writing or purple prose, and typically, never complain about writing that is straight-forward. But as I was reading I was unable to form a clear picture of both the setting and actions taken.

Night Wherever We Go also failed to be very compelling. The rebellion promised in the synopsis is a quiet one. I would characterize it as more of on ongoing struggle, rather than a rebellion. I kept waiting for something to happen after the event mentioned in the synopsis. Alas, there was little that actually occurred outside the women’s daily struggles. I think I would have been fine with this had the synopsis not set up expectations of excitement and conflict.

Night Wherever We Go never dragged per se; however, it did feel slow. I think this is partially because of the aforementioned and partially due to the lack of character development. Although so much time was spent with the women, who were the main focus, they felt opaque. Their inner feelings and motivations were not explored nor their backgrounds. At times, I would forget who was who because they were not fleshed out enough to be distinct people. It was clear that the characters experienced pain and joy throughout the story, but it never permeated the pages.

The ending of Night Wherever We Go was the most interesting and climatic portion of the book. Yet, it was rushed and abrupt. The last few paragraphs served as what felt like an epilogue. However, readers were left without a clear idea how the character reached that point. It was maddening. In fact, detailing how the character arrived at those last few paragraphs would have been a much more interesting story than what was told.

Overall, I felt that Night Wherever We Go was a missed opportunity. I hate to tear apart a debut novel, but I feel like it was a disservice by the publisher to not further edit this novel as well as a waste of an intriguing premise. It is clear that Peyton has promise as a writer; however, Night Wherever We Go felt unfinished and failed to examine the important questions that the subject matter demanded. I would only recommend this book to individuals who love character-driven books without much plot.

In a Nutshell: Some hits, some misses. A good debut attempt, but didn’t click as well as I had wanted it to. Interesting content though.

Story synopsis:
1852, Texas. The Harlow family owns a struggling plantation. To turn their fortunes around, they decide to hire a “stockman” to impregnate their women slaves. The enslaved women get to know of this scheme and group up to figure a way around the problem. Each of them has a different opinion about the issue, but they know that if they have to survive, they need to work as a team, and without being discovered.
The story comes to us in a limited third person narration of various characters, but at times, it dips into an unidentified first person plural.

Where the book worked for me:
✔ As is to be expected in historical slave narratives, there are plenty of dark and gritty moments. The book offers a glimpse of the thoughts behind the women whose lives were not in their control and yet who tried so hard to maintain control over it in whatever limited ways they could. One of my favourite mutinous act by them was their habit of referring to the Harlows as ‘Lucys’, short for Lucifer, the reason being that their masters were ‘spawn of the devil’, lol.
✔ The camaraderie between the six enslaved women comes out quite well. Unlike many such books, this one doesn’t club them into a homogenous “African” mould but reminds us that slaves did come from different parts of the continent and treats them distinctly. It also shows their antagonistic sides rather than depicting them as being always in sync with each other. I loved this realism.
✔ The era seems to have been captured quite authentically, with the lifestyle of both master and slave coming out well. I never knew of a stockman, so to read about his role in increasing the slaves count was shocking.
✔ Of the six women slaves, Nan – the oldest- has the most compelling track. With her love for traditions and her knowledge about humankind, she makes for an interesting protagonist. The youngest of the slaves, Sarah, also gets a meaty track.
✔ Unlike most such books, the Harlows aren’t wealthy landowners but in great financial difficulties, trying their best to survive. This makes their track a somewhat novel one, as it goes much beyond the typical physical punishment routines that we see in this genre and shows us why they did what they did without justifying their actions. The writing shows us the human side of the Harlows without making them seem stereotypical.
✔ The title and cover are perfect for the book.

Where the book could have worked better for me:
❌ The blurb made the book sound like a story of rebellion. But it was more of a survival story, with only tiny acts of mutiny. The blurb also makes the ‘stockman’ sound like a vital part of the plot, but his angle is more of a catalyst to the other events than the main track itself. In other words, good story but misleading blurb.
❌ Except for Sarah and Nan, the other women don’t get much opportunity to reveal their personality. The remaining four women – Patience, Alice, Lulu and Junie – are somewhat similar in voice, with only tiny facts to distinguish across them. Some of their tracks come to an abrupt end midway, and other women slaves enter the picture. So we don’t even get to know all of them well.
❌ The narrative, while mostly in a third person focussing on the slaves, tends to slip into the first person plural many times. The blurb makes it clear that there were six women slaves, and even when slaves enter or exit the plot, they are all referred to by name. So who is this unnamed first person narrator who tells us the story using “we”? That was an odd writing choice. Even if it intended to make us feel closer to the slaves, it should still have identified the speaker.
❌ The writing is too detached. I understand how this might work for some readers, as it keeps the brutalities on the proceedings somewhat impersonal. But I expected to be more touched by such a traumatising story, but the writing style left me feeling nothing.
❌ (Somewhat mixed feelings about this point, but slightly tilted towards the negative side, hence including it in this section.) Religion and faith find a regular mention in the arcs of the enslaved women and their masters. I liked how some of the women were shown as believing in their traditional gods/deities as well as the God from the Bible. However, I found the latter somewhat unconvincing. The time period of the story and the character detailing indicates that the women remember their home country, miss their original rituals and beliefs, and still follow their own traditions regardless of what the masters have imposed on them. Would they still be so free and willing to believe blindly in the Christian God and refer to him even before their own gods? Not sure. I am not saying it is impossible, but I am not convinced as well.
❌ While the start captivated me, the story soon becomes stuck in a quagmire. The writing gets somewhat repetitive in between. At times, the plot is more like an episodic series of events than a cohesive overarching story. Towards the end, the story moves again, but I didn’t like the ending. It was too hurried and clumsy, as if it had to wrap up everything as quickly as possible. Moreover, there’s one subtrack towards the end that goes in a direction away from the core narrative.

All in all, this is a decent debut novel, taking a not-so-common angle of the historical slave story and trying to give it a rebellious twist. It may not have been entirely successful in my eyes, but it certainly wasn’t a bad attempt. Maybe if I hadn’t read so many slave stories, I might have enjoyed this more. All I know is that I expected to be emotionally devastated after reading this, but I came away feeling just minimally saddened.

3.25 stars.

My thanks to Ecco and NetGalley for the DRC of “Night Wherever We Go”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

Trigger warnings: It’s a slave narrative, so it obviously doesn’t make for easy reading. Plenty of triggers, mostly related to physical and sexual abuse.

Night Wherever We Go follows six enslaved women on a Texas plantation and their relationships with each other, the plantation owners, and other people around the plantation. Based on the description, I was nervous reading this book as I wasn't sure how graphic it was going to be. I'm really glad that I decided to read it anyway!

It has taken me a while to write this review because it took me a while to get my thoughts together on this book and to assign a star rating. I thought that the writing was beautiful and liked the group of women that the story focused on. It truly depicted the atrocities of plantation enslavement without a hope of escape or happiness. The book focused on survival and had a very tragic ending.

I can't say that I enjoyed this book because it was very upsetting to read. I also don't feel like I can recommend it to anyone else for that reason. It shows the brutal reality of enslavement without censure. I'm glad that I read it, and I very much recommend doing some self-reflection before reading this book.

I ended up giving this book 3.5 stars rounded down to 3 because while I can't say that I enjoyed it or that I recommend it, I thought the writing was beautiful and the story important. Thank you to Ecco and NetGalley for the electronic advanced reader's copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!

CW: Violence, physical assault, sexual assault, death of a child

I don't even know where to begin with this one so I'm gonna keep it short because I truly don't think I can do this book justice in my review but I hope the 5 stars will be enough to convince you to pick it up anyways. This book was astounding, horrifying, mesmerizing, gripping, devastating, and overall a journey. I think readers may find the beginning of the book with the third person narration slightly confusing but just trust me on this one, stick with it. All the stars to Tracey Rose Peyton. This book is a stunner, indeed.

Night Wherever We Go is brutal and beautiful and incisive. This is a book that might require you to brace yourself, but Tracey Rose Peyton makes the experience more than worthwhile. I will definitely be recommending this one to friends and fellow readers.

A compelling read. Enslaved women in Texas band together to survive while struggling to control one of the most valuable functions in life.
It’s gritty, unapologetic and unvarnished.
The author did a good job with portraying each woman and her emotions.

Night Wherever We Go by Tracey Rose Peyton is a powerful read — it is one of those books where you have to take a break between chapters to gather yourself. The strength of the story is in the core group of women: Nan, Serah, Lulu, Alice, Patience, and Junie. They were the heart of the book, and their relationships with each other and the side characters were by far the best part. Additionally, the raw exploration of our dark history is both emotional and informative and will stick with you for years to come. I also found the spirituality aspect of the story to be an interesting feature that gave the book a bit more depth. However, I didn’t always love the structure of the story. It felt like a collection of smaller anecdotes, and the shifting POV sometimes made it hard to determine the timeline and events. The absence of a main narrator definitely disrupted the flow of the story. Overall, I believe Night Wherever We Go should be a book that everyone adds to their TBR list.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 (3.5 stars)

I'm really struggling to put into words how I felt about Night Wherever We Go. This is such a powerful, illuminating story, a book about ugly things told in the most beautiful and affecting way.

The novel centers on the lives of six slave women on a struggling Texas plantation in the years leading up to the Civil War. Their owners, the Harlows, are poor and desperate, their failing farm causing a mountain of debt to accrue. In a last ditch effort to grow his workforce and improve his prospects, Harlow decides to breed the women, hiring a "stockman" to impregnate them like animals. The women have a plan to keep that from happening -- but should their rebellion be discovered, they will face severe consequences.

The book starts out in the voice of the collective "we" of the women, which continues throughout, but it mostly moves to the third person as we learn about the inner lives and histories of each of them. Through her thoughtful, vivid characterizations, Tracey Rose Peyton gives voice to an under-represented perspective, exploring America's most egregious injustices through the specific experiences of her characters. Peyton doesn't flinch away from the brutality these women experience, and it's dark and devastating. Her prose is gripping and straightforward and on the surface seems almost unemotional, unadorned -- but rather than making me feel emotionally disconnected, the no-nonsense telling of this story just made me feel more for these women. The horrific things they experienced, conveyed so plainly as just part of their daily routine, served to highlight just how barbaric this way of life actually was -- and it was incredibly effective.

But for all the ugliness of this story, there is so much beauty to be found in this book: in the way the women maintain their dignity and body autonomy; in their fellowship and their collective, subversive defiance; in the way they choose love in even the most hopeless circumstances. There is intimacy and longing and tenderness, faith and spirituality and grief and healing, all to be found amidst the tyranny and injustices of their everyday lives. Night Wherever We Go is an astounding, important work of literary historical fiction that I will be thinking about for a long time. Thank you to NetGalley and Ecco Press for the digital ARC.

4.5 Stars
One Liner: Hard-hitting and well-written
The plantation is struggling in the Texas weather. Six enslaved women gather in the nearby forest in secret to find a way to overcome their problems. The plantation owners, the Lucys, have decided to breed slaves by hiring a 'stockman' to impregnate them. The women are determined to prevent this.
A pregnancy will mean more such attempts until their bodies give up. However, being caught has deadly consequences, as slaves have no rights. Can the women win this uneven fight with the Lucys?
The story comes in the first-person plural and third-person POV.

My Thoughts:
It’s not always that I don’t know what to say about a book I’ve read. Night The premise says it is a tale of Black women enslaved, humiliated, tortured, and abused by their owners. However, it is so much more!
The narration is the highlight of the book. It’s a perfect mix of detached and personal. The reader is compelled to feel the pain but doesn’t get drowned by drama. In fact, there is no drama, even with the scope for it. I love how the narration is taut and a little meandering at the same time. This blend of contrasting styles somehow works to create the right impact on the reader.
Though there are six women slaves mentioned, not all have an equal role. A couple of them stand out, a couple of them walk in and out whenever necessary, and the others fade into the background. This works to keep the focus on the main plot and how it unravels as the story progresses.
As a reader, you know which character is doing something that could hurt them all. But you also know the reason for it and feel doubly sad. You want to know what happens at the end, but you also don’t want to know.
Another interesting aspect is the importance of their rituals. Some of them are Christians but still hold on to their pagan roots. Some blend and merge all rituals, trying to gain what little comfort they can from any God willing to listen.
Though the women are bound by common circumstances like slavery and abuse, they come from different backgrounds and experiences. Despite their shared sisterhood, they have arguments, fights, and secrets that bring the necessary action to advance the plot. They are a unit but with independent minds, thoughts, and ideas. This makes the characters more realistic and impactful.
With so much to love about this hard-hitting story, why did I round it down to 4 stars? The ending.
It is good and not good. I went in prepared for it. After all, there aren’t many options here. So, that part is good. However, there’s a split, which somehow left me feeling lost as the read the last page. I can’t explain without revealing spoilers, but a sudden new thread takes the reader out of the scene. Though it ties up with the plot, it removes the focus from the main characters. Though the POV shifts again, the momentum is lost.

To summarize, Night Wherever We Go is a wonderful book about the lives of slaves on plantations and their constant fight for freedom. Using a setting like Texas and a smaller plantation with a handful of slaves makes the book more personal and poignant. I look forward to reading more by the author.
Thank you, NetGalley and Ecco, for the eARC. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

******
Rounded up to 5 stars on Amazon.

I would not describe Night Wherever We Go as a “feel good” type of book but rather one that offers a rare raw and unflinching account of what life may have been like for an enslaved woman in 1852 Texas.

Night focuses on a small group of women living as slaves under a pair of “Lucys” whom are nicknamed by the girls after the Devil himself. The Lucys are struggling and believe that by “breeding” the group of women against their will can help them prosper. But the enslaved have other plans and fight fire with fire.

I absolutely tore through the first half of this book because it starts off strong. The story gets a little confusing at times and jumps around a bit. Also, I would have really liked to have seen better character development as there were not many differentiating personality traits between the characters. There was a lot of missed potential in that aspect.
My thanks to Netgalley and Ecco for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I would be happy to update this with a full review once Harper Collins meets the demands of its employees. I stand with the HC Union.

✨ Review ✨ Night Wherever We Go by Tracey Rose Peyton; Narrated by Karen Chilton

ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. I'm adding this to my favorite books of all time list! Incredible writing and such good historical research.

This book brings us into the world of six enslaved women on a struggling Texas plantation as the women struggle to carve out space for themselves and autonomy from the plantation owners. In one key struggle, the owner hires a "stockman" to get them pregnant, but the women cobble together strategies to prevent pregnancy from taking root.

Over the stretch of the book, we see a variety of ways in which enslaved women found autonomy -- collecting odds & ends, creating clothing for themselves, supplementing the meager rations they received, gathering in the woods at night for spiritual gatherings or frolics, etc. etc. In this way Tracey Rose Peyton uses historical sources impeccably, bringing this world to life. I especially loved how she also brought in Texas historical context, including the possibility of escaping south through Mexico.

While the audio narration was excellent, I actually appreciated reading this in print, so I could pay more careful attention to these women and their lives. (It was also difficult to figure out who was who in audio format with so many characters appearing early on).

This book is beautifully written and while heartbreaking in showing the traumatic hardships enslaved women faced, she so excellently shows the spaces in which women could resist (and the consequences they faced if caught). I do wish the end slowed down just a little as things peak -- it felt a little rushed, but that also showed the chaos and confusion that would surround events like these.

I'm a perma-fan now of Peyton -- I'll read whatever she writes forever more. This was an outstanding debut

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: historical fiction / literary fiction
Location: 1830s(?) Texas plantation
Reminds me of: Tiya Miles and Stephanie Camp's historical writing!
Pub Date: Out now! Jan 3, 2023

Read this if you like:
⭕️ historical fiction about the deep South
⭕️ enslaved women RESISTING
⭕️ incredible contextualization / use of historical sources

Thanks to EccoBooks, Bibliolifestyle, HarperAudio, and #netgalley for advanced copies of this book!

Reading about slaves is never easy and Night Wherever We Go is no different. This is an emotional read about a group of 6 female enslaved women. Their stories and their survival is brutal to read but so worth it. I loved this novel and it will live in my heart for a long time.

This is an African American historical fiction.
A gripping, radically intimate debut novel about a group of enslaved women staging a covert rebellion against their owners

On a struggling Texas plantation, six enslaved women slip from their sleeping quarters and gather in the woods under the cover of night. The Lucys—as they call the plantation owners, after Lucifer himself—have decided to turn around the farm’s bleak financial prospects by making the women bear children. They have hired a “stockman” to impregnate them. But the women are determined to protect themselves.

Now each of the six faces a choice. Nan, the doctoring woman, has brought a sack of cotton root clippings that can stave off children when chewed daily. If they all take part, the Lucys may give up and send the stockman away. But a pregnancy for any of them will only encourage the Lucys further. And should their plan be discovered, the consequences will be severe.

Visceral and arresting, Night Wherever We Go illuminates each woman’s individual trials and desires while painting a subversive portrait of collective defiance. Unflinching in her portrayal of America’s gravest injustices, while also deeply attentive to the transcendence, love, and solidarity of women whose interior lives have been underexplored, Tracey Rose Peyton creates a story of unforgettable power.

My review- I really enjoyed this story and going through each woman's story and seeing how each of them prevail and face the horrors incited upon them. Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read this in exchange for an honest review. This is a book I will recommend to co-workers, friends, and my followers. It is a story that should be heard.

Night Wherever We Go by Tracey Rose Peyton took my breath away and hardly gave it back to me after I finished the last word on the last page. This is a brilliant historical work of fictional and a MUST for every library!! Please pick this up in February!!

I don’t know where to start. Some of the most beautiful, rich writing I’ve read in months. The story of enslaved women - their roles and relationships with one another while trying to fight for any control and agency of their bodies as they could. It’s heartbreaking as the plot simmers along - the reader knowing it’s not going to end well - waiting waiting waiting for it to boil over. The enslaved characters are beautifully written and I had to put the book down several times to catch my breath at the depth of love and pain experienced. Brava to this (debut novel?) author. This is exceptional. I’m gobsmacked. What a gift this book is - thank you to Ecco Press.