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The Berry Pickers: A Novel

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, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister’s disappearance for years to come. 

In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret. 

For readers of The Vanishing Half and Woman of Light, this showstopping debut by a vibrant new voice in fiction is a riveting novel about the search for truth, the shadow of trauma, and the persistence of love across time.

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320 pages

Average rating: 7.35

567 RATINGS

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14 REVIEWS

Community Reviews

SherylStandifer
Sep 20, 2024
7/10 stars
A very well-written, but tragic, book. It’s a shame that the woman who stole the life away of the young child was never brought to justice. The birth mother, I feel, didn’t seem to harbor the feelings that I would have had in from the kidnapping of Ruthie. But her Christian upbringing and forgiveness may have made her a better person than me. I was not much of a fan of Norma. I wonder if she’d been raised in her birth family, she might have been more likable. I loved most of her native family. They had far too much to deal with, but very glad things resolved with some degree of satisfaction.
Debbie N
Sep 14, 2024
9/10 stars
I loved this book and would highly recommend it. It was hard to put down and very impressed that it was her first book.
Southern Reader
Sep 14, 2024
5/10 stars
Very good for a first time author. Two things bothered me, 1. Didn’t like being told the ending in the beginning (but did cry at the end), 2. I have some knowledge of migrant workers in the late 1990s and I felt she missed so many opportunities to show the hardships they endure. Doing so would have further shown the differences in Norma and Ruth’s lives.
AnneMercer
Aug 22, 2024
9/10 stars
I enjoyed this book and was surprised to see that this was her debut. It will be interesting to see where she goes from here. The characters are complex but I would not say all are very appealing. The story from the beginning is very heartbreaking and doesn’t get much better or uplifting from start to finish. Saying that there are some uplifting aspects to this story. I would recommend this book for a personal read or a book club.
Caroleame
Aug 20, 2024
So good. Interesting story about a group of people I didn't know about. The hold that secrets can have on a person and their loved ones can be awful. Loss and guilt can destroy a life. Keeps you reading, you want to know how the characters lives play out.

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