Black Woods, Blue Sky - by Eowyn Ivey (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Birdie splits her days between caring for her six-year-old daughter, Emaleen, and working as a waitress at a roadside lodge in Alaska. But this is not the life she'd dreamed of as a child. Back then, she had fantasized about being free in the world of nature. Arthur is a soft-spoken recluse--adopted as a boy under mysterious circumstances by a local couple who raised him as their own but understood that he could never fully fit into their world. He calls the mountains on the far side of the Wolverine River his home and lives completely off the grid, appearing in the town at random intervals. But when he shows up at Birdie's lodge one day and she serves him honey and tea, the two form a friendship, and as they eventually fall in love Birdie begins to imagine a different life for herself and her daughter. When Birdie and Emaleen move to Arthur's remote cabin life initially seems idyllic; they spend their days catching fish, picking berries, and playing games in the sunshine. But as the days shorten Birdie begins to realize that the truth of Arthur's life is much more complicated and mysterious than she understood, and that the reality of who he is may be putting her and her daughter's life in danger."--

Book Synopsis

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - The author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Snow Child returns to the mythical landscapes of Alaska with an unforgettable dark fairy tale that asks the question: Can love save us from ourselves?

"No one writes like Eowyn Ivey."--Geraldine Brooks
"You will find yourself in places you have never been."--Louise Erdrich
"Ivey is an enthralling storyteller."--The New York Times Book Review

Birdie's keeping it together; of course she is. So she's a little hungover, sometimes, and she has to bring her daughter, Emaleen, to her job waiting tables at an Alaskan roadside lodge, but she's getting by as a single mother in a tough town. Still, Birdie can remember happier times from her youth, when she was free in the wilds of nature.

Arthur Neilsen, a soft-spoken and scarred recluse who appears in town only at the change of seasons, brings Emaleen back to safety when she gets lost in the woods. Most people avoid him, but to Birdie, he represents everything she's ever longed for. She finds herself falling for Arthur and the land he knows so well.

Against the warnings of those who care about them, Birdie and Emaleen move to his isolated cabin in the mountains, on the far side of the Wolverine River.

It's just the three of them in the vast black woods, far from roads, telephones, electricity, and outside contact, but Birdie believes she has come prepared. At first, it's idyllic and she can picture a happily ever after: Together they catch salmon, pick berries, and climb mountains so tall it's as if they could touch the bright blue sky. But soon Birdie discovers that Arthur is something much more mysterious and dangerous than she could have ever imagined, and that like the Alaska wilderness, a fairy tale can be as dark as it is beautiful.

Black Woods, Blue Sky is a novel with life-and-death stakes, about the love between a mother and daughter, and the allure of a wild life--about what we gain and what it might cost us.

Review Quotes

"Ivey is an enthralling storyteller who paints the Alaskan landscape and its inhabitants with equal affection. Her empathy for her characters doesn't falter . . . [Ivey] weaves the tapestry of her story so deftly, presenting the natural world with respect instead of romanticization, that later developments hit us with devastating force."--New York Times Book Review

"Black Woods, Blue Sky is an original work of art that only Ivey's imaginative powers, deep knowledge of Alaska and its beings, and commitment to depicting the real, loving, and often confused lives of her characters could create."--Anchorage Daily News

"With lush and visceral prose, [Ivey] makes you feel tossed about by the chaos and violence of the story just as much as you're held still by its tender, hopeful moments. It's a beautiful and haunting story that sits with the complexity of consequences, the limits and endurance of love, and blurry lines between reality and myth."--Condé Nast Traveler

"The curious fairy-tale genre of human-bear romance . . . receives a heartfelt new treatment in Eowyn Ivey's Black Woods, Blue Sky."--The Wall Street Journal

"This riff on Beauty and the Beast is well written and suspenseful, a story of a certain inner wildness and violence, of taking chances and facing the consequences, of a destructive love."--Booklist, starred review

"Ivey takes readers on an emotional literary journey that includes touches of magic woven throughout and the question of whether love is enough to change someone."--Library Journal

"Quietly suspenseful, laced with beauty and shot through with darkness, Black Woods, Blue Sky explores the nature of courage, the limits of love, and what happens when nature and civilization collide."--Shelf Awareness

"Myth and reality fuse together in the Alaskan wilderness in the potent latest from Ivey."--Publishers Weekly

"A stunning tale told by a master of her craft. Black Woods, Blue Sky is what skilled storytelling is supposed to be."--Jason Mott, National Book Award winning author of Hell of a Book, and New York Times bestselling author of The Returned

"Black Woods, Blue Sky is a dazzling and moving journey into the reaches of the wilderness and of the human heart."--Tiffany McDaniel, internationally bestselling author of Betty, On the Savage Side, and The Summer that Melted Everything

"Entrancing, tender, bold, and beautifully strange."--Rachel Joyce, New York Times bestselling author of Miss Benson's Beetle

"Black Woods, Blue Sky is an enthralling novel about the endurance of love, the power of forgiveness, and the savage, irresistible allure of wild places."--Paula Hawkins, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Blue Hour

"To be in the imagination of Eowyn Ivey is to be wrapped in the exquisite pelt of the wilderness."--Jackie Morris, author of The White Fox

About the Author

Eowyn Ivey was raised in Alaska and continues to live there with her husband and two daughters. She worked for nearly a decade as a bookseller at independent Fireside Books in Palmer, Alaska, and prior to that as a reporter for the local newspaper, The Frontiersman.