The Berry Pickers: A Novel by Amanda Peters

In the summer of 1962, in the blueberry fields of Maine, Ruthie, a four-year-old Mi’kmaq girl from Nova Scotia, goes missing. While many presume her dead, her mother and her brother Joe never lose hope that she is out there somewhere. Ruthie's mother prays for her safety and eventual return to the family while Joe remains distraught by Ruthie's disappearance and other tragedies that befall the family for decades to come. 

In Maine, after the summer of 1962, Norma grows up in an affluent, but somewhat cold and suspicious family. While she comes to learn that her parents did love her in their own way, little things from her past like dreams and an imaginary friend, niggle at her throughout her life causing her to wonder the truth of her own history.

Told in two voices, Joe's and Norma's, The Berry Pickers eloquently weaves together the stories of two lives, most cruelly separated from one another. Joe and Norma each experience love and pain throughout their lives differently, but their stories still create a harmonious narrative--this is no small feat. 

Tragic, yet lovely, The Berry Pickers paints a masterpiece of the ties that constrict or bind us all.

The Berry Pickers: A Novel by Amanda Peters, Catapult