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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: 7.39

1,234 RATINGS

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Community Reviews

Anonymous
Jan 10, 2025
6/10 stars
3.5 ⭐️
Anonymous
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.
hideTurtle
May 31, 2025
9/10 stars
"I think I've always known that something was out of place. But when I was young, I understood it was me. Then I quickly forgot why." The ugly reality of colonialism/white saviorism and the damage caused to families of the First Nations. Oh, and family secrets, guilt and trauma.
Ronald
May 24, 2025
7/10 stars
I liked this book very much. Although there were technique flaws —- tenses changing back and forth every 15 minutes; lack of character development of Mae, one or two others—- I was moved by the author’s vivid description of the senses —- touch, scent, taste, etc. Good description of racism in Maine targeting indigenous people of the North, how a lost child didn’t matter much. But had she been white, it would have been a regional tragedy and massive hunt lasting weeks. And nothing has changed much in America. Some lives count, some not so much.
DedeMcQuillan
Apr 15, 2025
8/10 stars
Loved it.

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