The Berry Pickers: A Novel

NATIONAL BESTSELLERWINNER 2023 BARNES & NOBLE DISCOVER PRIZEWINNER of the ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL for EXCELLENCE in FICTIONWINNER Best First Novel, Crime Writers of Canada AwardWINNER Dartmouth Book Award for FictionFINALIST Amazon First Novel AwardFINALIST for the Atwood-Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction PrizeFINALIST Margaret and John Savage First Book Award, FictionFINALIST Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction AwardFINALIST OLA Forest of Reading Evergreen AwardLonglisted for the First Nation Communities READA 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. Read more