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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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Published Oct 31, 2023

320 pages

Average rating: 7.38

1,334 RATINGS

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Community Reviews

Kristen Olson
Jan 10, 2025
6/10 stars
3.5 ⭐️
Khris Sellin
Jul 05, 2024
10/10 stars
Beautiful story

I did not want to put this book down! It grabbed me right from the start and wouldn't let go.
A little girl goes missing and it changes her family forever. Told from the point of view of two siblings, in alternating chapters, and how their lives unfold.
Kayla Horne
Jul 08, 2025
10/10 stars
Terribly heartbreaking and complicated but also beautiful
louislabelle
Jul 03, 2025
9/10 stars
Nice read, pulls on your heart strings and short
JShrestha
Jul 01, 2025
5/10 stars
This book could be a trigger for those who have experienced the loss of a child as it follows a brother who lives in the past with guilt of losing his sister and a daughter who must constantly dance around her mother and her miscarriage loss. It is more of a character development book than a mystery book as the plotline only is discussed in the beginning and end. It is not a book I would suggest.

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