This is a pretty book about an ugly situation -- one of those drifting, almost elegiac novels of a time and place long gone.

The residents of Shuffletown, North Carolina, are an isolated and tight-knit clan, mixed-race descendants of early Scots settlers, an Indian tribe whose Native American traditions and heritage has long been subsumed in the mix, and an occasional freed or escaped slave. They get buy on subsistence farming, the making of turpentine, and a total lack of interest in the Civil War that is raging through the south as it crawls to its bloody and broken conclusion.

Inevitably, the war comes to them, though mostly through the anti-Union sentiments of neighbors from nearby communities. And through all this, Rhoda Strong grows from a 15-year-old dreaming of marrying (although she's not sure to whom) and struggles, along with her family, to survive the coming violence.

There's an unexpectedly leisurely pace to this book, as much of it concerns itself with the nature of Scuffletown and its surrounding pine forest, sheltering and unconcerned, even as dreadful acts are being performed.

This is mostly a story of perseverance, of family loyalties, and of the lengths to which people will go when the society around them is trying to drive them to extinction.

Don't pick it up if you're looking for Gone With the Wind, or The Daring Adventures of Jesse James. Settle in, let it wash over and through you like the Lumbee River, and let the lives of these simple, honest people inhabit your soul for a while. ( )

This novel is set in Lumberton, NC, during and after the Civil War. The story centers on a place in Robeson County called Shuffletown that housed a mixture of Native Americans and their families. The story discusses the turpentine business in North Carolina and the beetles and war that destroyed this business. The story recounts the terrors and hardships of the war, and shows that the Robeson County inhabitants had to fight off both the Yankees and the Rebels. I felt the story difficult to follow with the multitude of characters. This is not a book that I enjoyed, and do not plan to read other books by this author. ( )

I watched the woman stand irresolutely in front of the bookcase, a frown on her face. She picked up a book, read the back, and put it down. She picked up another, and glared. I walked over. “Can I help you find something?” I asked. She turned to me with a dissatisfied expression. “I need something GOOD to read” she said. “I just tried to finish the last John Grisham and it was terrible! What happened to him?” Hmm..I said. How about the new Patricia Cornwell? She shook her head. Same thing she said- the early books were great, but I couldn’t even read the latest. I don’t think she is even trying.

I sympathized with her. It is always so exciting to find a new writer you really enjoy, and such a disappointment when their later books don’t seem up to their earlier standards. The woman agreed. “It’s like they are just resting on their laurels” she said. “Do you think their writing is getting worse? I asked, “Or are you just more educated as a reader?”
“They are worse” she said instantly, but then she paused. “Well, maybe a little of both, she amended. I think she was right. Highly successful writers like Cornwell or Clancy are always in danger of crossing the fine line between great story and a formulaic, predictable book. I personally think Cornwell crossed that line three books ago. No doubt, some of the blame rests on the publishers- who don’t like writers to mess with a good thing. Sooner or later the author finds themselves in a catch 22 situation: produce one new book each year and begin a slow descent in popularity as your plots and characters become recycled, or try to write something entirely different, at the risk of alienating your publisher and your entire readership. I turned the woman away from the book case and handed her the new novel by Josephine Humphreys: No Where Else on Earth.

One thing you can say about this writer, she doesn’t come out with a new book each year. In fact, fans like me have had to wait an average of 8 years for a new novel. But when they come, they are always a pure delight to read, and No Where Else on Earth is no exception.

It is set at the end of the Civil War, when residents of Robeson County, North Carolina lived in equal fear of marauding Union troops and their own desperate and cruel Home Guard. The Union was a distant inevitability, but the men of the Home Guard were a real and ever-present threat. A law unto themselves, they rounded up anyone without money or influence or the right kind of family connections for conscription into hard labor in the Confederate salt works. The chances of surviving battle were better.

Rhoda Strong is a strong willed teenage girl with neither money nor influence, from the absolute wrong kind of family. Her father was Scots, but her mother was a Lumbee Indian. Rhoda’s family lives in Scuffletown, a mysterious place that not even the postmaster can always find, hidden in the swamps of the Lumbee river. It is a refuge for outlaws and outcasts; runaway slaves, draft dodgers, and the Lumbee, a people so forgotten as to be nonexistent.

This is a coming of age story for a young girl and an old people. Amid the surrounding savagery, Rhoda falls in love with a local outlaw hero, and must reconcile her loyalty to her family with her lover’s crusade.

This astonishing novel by Josephine Humphreys is an epic historical saga that delves into the depths of human passion. It is an exploration into our desire for love, for family, and our connection to the landscape. In the end, the Confederacy is a memory, but tenuous community of Scuffletown remains- a place like nowhere else on earth.

Beautifully written. ( )