We are beyond thrilled to announce that best selling author Amanda Peters debut novel THE BERRY PICKERS is the 2023 Barnes & Noble Discover Prize Winner!
The Discover Prize is a new prize that celebrates the very best new authors, elevating the joy of spotting fresh voices early on in their careers. Barnes & Noble booksellers have been reading hundreds of debut authors to narrow down to the six books that make up this year’s nominees. Spanning historical fiction, works of mind-bending realities and harsh truths, equal parts painstakingly tragic and beautiful – these stories have permanently imprinted into our hearts, minds and bookshelves.
Here is what booksellers are saying about the winning title, THE BERRY PICKERS:
“The Berry Pickers immerses you in a story between two families, whose feelings of grief and guilt surround years-long secrets and repercussions of a missing child. The ending was heartening and so satisfying.” — Tara S., Nashville, TN
“A family mystery spanning 50 years sets the stage for an exploration of loss and tragedy, truth and identity. A powerfully heartbreaking, yet ultimately hopeful debut.” — Kevin R., Houston, TX
“This poignant debut reaches deep into your emotional core as you follow a family and their unimaginable heartbreak and another family’s secret.” — Alicia G., Indianapolis, IN
“This begins as a tragic mystery and blossoms into a story of resilient hope. I couldn’t put it down.” — Carly R., Green Bay, WI
You can hear more about this compelling story on the Barnes & Noble Poured Over Podcast, here: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/poured-over-amanda-peters-on-the-berry-pickers/
About THE BERRY PICKERS (Catapult):
A four-year-old Mi’kmaq girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a mystery that will haunt the survivors, unravel a family, and remain 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, 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.
Amanda Peters is a writer of Mi’kmaq and settler ancestry. Her work has appeared in the Antigonish Review, Grain Magazine, the Alaska Quarterly Review, the Dalhousie Review, and Filling Station Magazine. She is the winner of the 2021 Indigenous Voices Award for Unpublished Prose and a participant in the 2021 Writers’ Trust Rising Stars program. A graduate of the Master of Fine Arts Program at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Amanda Peters has a Certificate in Creative Writing from the University of Toronto, and currently teaches at Acadia University. She lives in the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia, with her fur babies, Holly and Pook.
Amanda is represented by Marilyn Biderman for her writing and Rob Firing for her speaking.
To get a copy of this award winning, powerful novel, click here: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-berry-pickers-amanda-peters/1143013349?ean=9781646221950
Congratulations Amanda!