The Berry Pickers (#1,223) by Amanda Peters has justly received favorable buzz. The pleasure in reading this novel is not the suspense - we know from the beginning that the two Points of View will converge, like a well-written Regency romance. It's how the writer gets us there that matters.
Back in the 60's, a four-year-old Mi'kmaq girl named Ruthie goes missing from the berry fields in Maine which her migrant worker family and friends are harvesting. Meanwhile, Norma is having bad dreams in her middle-class Maine home. Her mother smothers her with attention, but Norma remembers smells and flashes of another mother. Although she speaks to a family friend about her dreams, nothing comes of it. The journey on both sides to fill in the missing gaps in their emotional lives plays out, bittersweet.
Well worth the time.
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