Pearly Everlasting

"A remarkable story, sparkling with brilliance.” —Amanda Peters, author Berry Pickers “One of those novels that instantly transports you to a world that’s so bighearted and full of love that you can’t put it down.” —Willy Vlautin, author of The Horse and The Night Always Comes An immersive and enchantingly atmospheric novel set during the Great Depression, about a girl and a bear raised as sister and brother in a remote logging camp and the lengths to which they’ll go to protect each other. New Brunswick, 1934. When a cook in a logging camp finds an orphaned baby bear, he brings it home to his wife, who names the cub Bruno and raises him alongside her newborn daughter, Pearly. Growing up, Pearly and Bruno share a special bond and become inseparable. While life in the camp can be perilous—loggers are regularly injured or even killed—the Everlasting family form a close-knit community with the woodsmen, who accept and embrace the tame young bear. But all that changes when a new supervisor arrives, a ruthless profiteer who pushes the workers to their breaking point and abuses Bruno. When the man is found dead in a ditch, the blame falls on the bear; soon after, Bruno is kidnapped and sold to an animal trader. Determined to rescue the only brother she has ever known, Pearly, now a teenager, sets off alone on a hazardous journey through the forest—her first trip to “the Outside”—to find him. In the harrowing quest to bring him home through miles of ice and snow, eluding malevolent spirits and the cruelty of strange villagers, she will discover new worlds and a strength she never knew she possessed. Steeped in rural folklore and superstition, and set against the backdrop of an enchanting woodland, Pearly Everlasting is a story about the triumph of good over evil, the beauty of the natural world, and the bonds that cannot be broken.

Tammy Armstrong is the author of two novels and five collections of poetry. Her first book was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry. Her work has appeared in Canadian Geographic, Nimrod International Journal of Prose & Poetry, Prairie Fire, and the New England Review, among others. Pearly Everlasting is her US debut novel. A former Fulbright Scholar, Armstrong holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia and a PhD in literature and critical animal studies from the University of New Brunswick. She lives in a lobster fishing village on the south shore of Nova Scotia.