Eowyn Ivey’s newest novel, Black Woods, Blue Sky (2024), transports readers to the wilds of Alaska’s interior and the loving, albeit dysfunctional family of a single mom and her eccentric daughter. Emaleen is five and lives with her mother, known to all as Birdie, in the Alaskan wilds along the fictional Wolverine River. Birdie has been trying to fly since childhood and often flirting with disaster as she courts her long-desired flight. This novel explores the complexity of mother-daughter love, the call of the Alaskan wilds, and the ways people grapple with memory, loss, and forgiveness over time.