B (10:03)
Love it. I am bringing one from the Indie press list this year. I'm going to talk about Blackwood's Blue sky by Eowyn Ivy. So I already had this book on my TBR for about six months when Book Tenders put it on their stack of five books for the July Indie press list. Much like Eowyn Ivy's first breakout hit, this one is set in Alaska. It gives us that dreamy magical realism vibe that she's so, so known for. And her first one is the Snow Child. That's the one that if anybody has read AO and Ivy, it's usually that book. She actually has three now, but they're all set in Alaska. Here's the setup. Birdie is trying her hardest most of the time to get her life together. She works not far from home, like walking distance at a local roadside lodge in Alaska. Sometimes she has to bring her daughter Emily to work with her, but she works hard enough to keep that daughter's belly full. And that by itself is an achievement as single mom in small town Alaska. Arthur Nielsen is a strange and reclusive man with brutal scars across his face, both physical ones and emotional ones. He's quietly present, despite the fact that he's a hulk of a man. He's like, they're always talking about how tall he is, how broad he is, how wide he is. He speaks with this strange presentness to his speech. Nothing is past or future for him. He'll talk about his teachers in school and he'll say, my teachers always do this thing. Thing. Currently, even though he's talking about when he was a child, everything he tells is happening now. When Emmeline gets lost in the woods one day, be still, Mother hearts, because everything's okay. Arthur is the one to bring her home. Even though most others in town avoid him. Birdie finds herself strangely drawn to him, especially the remote cabin in the woods where he lives, which brings back memories for her of fishing and hiking with her grandfather in the tundra and all those beautiful things that she associates with the Alaskan wilderness. When she uproots Emmeline to move to that tiny cabin with Arthur, it's probably against the better judgment of her family, her friends, everybody in town, but she goes anyway. There they are utterly alone. Thankfully, Birdie is as prepared as she's sure that she needs to be, because Arthur disappears for days or weeks at a time. But Birdie is competent with her rifle, and she knows how to fish. She can stir, start a fire, and she can keep them fed. Those disappearances, though, and the isolated nature of the cabin make the stakes ratchet up higher and higher for Birdie and for Emily. In the meantime, we as readers are sinking into the wilderness and the wildness of Alaska. It's dangerous and gorgeous at the same time. I As a reader, I'm not always great at suspension of disbelief, but I really loved my time in this story, in this world that Eowyn Ivey is building. I first tried reading it in March of this year, right after I went to the Tucson Festival of Books because she was a featured author there, but it just wasn't hitting right for me. And it was because we were already warming up here in Arizona and I needed cooler weather. So when I tried again in the fall, it worked out perfectly. So that timeline is I tried reading it in March. Booktenders put it on the indie press list in July. Still wasn't working for me. I I love the writing. I loved the story idea, but I couldn't get into it. So I set it aside without prejudice, came back to it as it started to cool off. Perfect timing. Emmaline, the little girl is so easy to root for, and as readers, we really want to protect her from everything that's wild and harrowing outside the doors. Birdie makes decisions the rest of us are shaking our heads at. We might not be rooting for her, but it does feel within the realm of possibility. Arthur is gentle and kind, but moody and distant and a little unpredictable. So so we're left feeling lost in the woods, relying only on Eowyn Ivy's surehand to show us where to go. I think this book is a great pick for the end of your year. It's not going to end up on my top books of the year or my favorite books of all time like the Snow Child did, but it felt very much like returning to that world she had built that I still love now. And so I'm glad that I read it. This is Blackwood's Blue sky by Eowyn Ivey.
