Sugarcane Saint: The First Book of Ruth is a hard-hitting family story set in early twentieth-century Georgia. It follows young Ruth Shurlington as she grows up under the shadow of Stone Mountain, in a house full of siblings, chores, church talk, war news, and quiet fear. In another county, we also see Leonidas Brantley, a machinist with pride, shame, and a cruel streak that spills into his small home. The book lays out how war, poverty, religion, and everyday racism shape these families and tighten around the girls in them. By the time the author’s opening note and the prologue click together, it is clear this is the “seduction” phase of a bigger cycle of abuse, and the first part of a planned trilogy about hurt that runs through three generations.

I felt the writing was vivid and sensory. The author has a knack for small details. The sagging porch, the smell of lamp oil, the ash that looks like strange white snow, the way chickens move when a child scatters feed. The dialogue is thick with Southern rhythm and slang, but it is easy to follow, and it gives each person a clear voice. I liked how scenes jump from quiet domestic work to sharp danger in just a line or two. One moment Ruth is playing in the hen run. The next she is walking through a burned town that used to feel safe. The Bible verses at the start of each section set the mood without feeling like a lecture, and they fit the way these families actually talk and think. The prose is controlled, but it still feels authentic.

The opening scenes of violence and the picture of a mother holding her own daughter down are sickening. They are also written with a cool, steady eye that refuses to look away. I could feel the author wrestling with the question she states up front. How can a woman be gentle and loving and still help terrible things happen in her home. The pacing leans into that slow dread. We see the fire in the town, the boys treated like little men, the girls pushed back to the edge of the room, the casual racism in everyday talk, the constant reach for God as if He is the only safety net around. That build-up made the heavy scenes hit even harder, because by then I cared about Ruth, her brothers, her cousins, even the flawed adults who are already bent by their own history.

What stayed with me most was the book’s idea of how harm grows inside a family and inside a culture. The story keeps tying the private wounds in the house to bigger forces outside. Old men still raging about the Civil War. Lost land. New wars that pull sons away. A system that tells white men they should rule everything and everyone. A church world that talks about mercy while kids hide from belts and fists. The book does not excuse any of the abuse. It also does not flatten people into simple monsters or saints. A father can work himself to the bone for his farm and still break his children. A mother can pray and bake birthday cakes and still turn her face away when her daughter begs for help. I appreciated that the author is open about building this from family stories and from research, and about her own need to understand rather than just to punish. That gives the whole thing a searching, haunted feel instead of a neat, moralizing tone.

I would recommend Sugarcane Saint to readers who want historical fiction that looks straight at family violence, racism, and faith without soft focus. It is a good fit if you like long family stories, rich settings, and morally messy people, and if you can handle graphic scenes of abuse and emotional distress. This first book feels like the start of a brave and painful journey, and it left me wanting to follow Ruth’s story through the rest of the trilogy and see what kind of healing, if any, can come after so much harm.

Pages: 410 | ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0F94MTK18