The Berry Pickers
A Novel
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4.5 • 206 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
WINNER 2023 BARNES & NOBLE DISCOVER PRIZE
WINNER of the ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL for EXCELLENCE in FICTION
WINNER Best First Novel, Crime Writers of Canada Award
WINNER Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction
FINALIST Amazon First Novel Award
FINALIST for the Atwood-Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize
FINALIST Margaret and John Savage First Book Award, Fiction
FINALIST Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award
FINALIST OLA Forest of Reading Evergreen Award
Longlisted for the First Nation Communities READ
A four-year-old girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a tragic mystery that remains unsolved for nearly fifty years
July 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, is seen sitting on her favourite rock at the edge of a field before mysteriously vanishing. Her six-year-old brother, Joe, who was the last person to see Ruthie, is devastated by his sister’s disappearance, and her loss ripples through his life for years to come.
In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as an only child in an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, while her mother is overprotective of Norma, who is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem to be too real to be her imagination. As she grows older, Norma senses there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she pursues her family’s secret for decades.
A stunning debut novel, The Berry Pickers is a riveting story about the search for truth, the shadow of trauma, and the persistence of love across time.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
In her stirring debut novel, Amanda Peters paints a heartrending portrait of a First Nations family’s lengthy journey to find their missing daughter. Joe is just six years old when his little sister Ruthie vanishes without a trace while the family is blueberry picking in Maine—and the weight of the mysterious loss changes them all forever. Elsewhere in Maine, an only child named Norma grows up with a sneaking suspicion that not everything in her household is what it seems. Peters weaves the parallel lives of Joe and Norma together with incredible detail and tragic clarity. From marriages and miscarriages to residential schools and racism, The Berry Pickers explores the lives of a loving Indigenous family and the lengths that people will go to bury—and seek out—the truth. This thoughtful, empathetic tale of love and loss will stick with you long after you’ve put it down.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Peters's enthralling debut tracks the lives of two siblings from an Indigenous Canadian family working in Maine as seasonal berry pickers. In the summer of 1962, four-year-old Ruthie is kidnapped by a white New England woman, who renames her Norma and raises the girl as her daughter. Meanwhile, Ruthie's brother Joe, who was six years old at the time of the kidnapping, never forgives himself for not keeping an eye on his sister. Joe's perspective alternates with Norma's, who shares her dim recollections of her real mother ("It's just a dream," she's told by her new parents) with her imaginary friend, "Ruthie." Joe spends most of his life guilt-ridden by his sister's disappearance. Norma, meanwhile, is haunted by the puzzling gaps in her family history: there are no pictures of her before the age of five, and her skin is darker than her parents' (she's told that she takes after an "Italian great-grandfather"). Joe acts out in rage and resorts to alcohol to cope, while Norma builds a life for herself as a teacher and a wife. Peters traces their experiences over several decades, and their reunion, when it finally comes, is powerfully rendered. The result is a cogent and heartfelt look at the ineffable pull of family ties.
Customer Reviews
The Berry PICKERS
Enjoyed reading this book,
Excellent
This book was well written and kept my interest all the way through. It was was an emotional book and heartbreaking. The author has a talented way of expression and detail. A very good read
The Berry Pickers
Outstanding!