NOTE: This guide refers to the paperback copy of Queen Sugar, written by Natalie Baszile and published by Penguin Books, New York, USA, 2014.

Charley and her daughter Micah drive from Los Angeles to Louisiana to start a new life after Charley inherits a sugarcane farm from her father. They move in with Charley's grandmother and she gets down to the farm work right away. Charley is at a disadvantage; she knows nothing about farming in general, much less the specifics of sugarcane and her crop manager quit months before her arrival without telling her. Some of the other farmers in town expect her to sell, take the money, and run, but her father's trust does not leave that as an option. She must work the fields and make them profitable in order to create a stable legacy for herself and her daughter.

Charley's half-brother, Ralph Angel, also moves back to Louisiana and expects part of the inheritance. He refuses to do manual labor. Despite finding a number of jobs, including one working for Charley on the cane farm, he gets fired from each within a day. Miss Honey feels guilty for Ralph Angel's erratic work life. Because of her, his father did not marry his mother when she was pregnant. When Ralph Angel moved to live with Charley's family for a short time in California, his mother committed suicide back home.

Both Charley and Ralph Angel are also raising children as single parents. Miss Honey helps them with childcare. Micah wants to go back home; she is not accustomed to the cultural differences, namely the racism, of the south. Blue, Ralph Angel's son, becomes a brother figure to Micah.

Miss Honey's continued defense of Ralph Angel bothers her adult children, Violet and Uncle Brother. They warn her of his instability, his criminal ways, and of his violent nature, but she always looks the other way. After he shoots his cousin and takes off with Charley's expensive sculpture, she can no longer overlook his behavior. The policeman who pulls him over for speeding does not overlook his behavior. With the gun he shot his cousin with in the seat beside him, Ralph Angel refuses to get out of his car as instructed. The officer shoots and kills him.

With a lot of hard work and two very resourceful partners, Charley's sugarcane crop is a success despite the odds. She even adds a romantic interest to her life, a white farmer named Remy.