A review of Evergreen, a novel rich in character & place.

The way Eveline would remember it, there was a moment of absolute stillness when the future was still theirs before the wind blew up from the river and the first of spring’s leaves shook as if they were afraid.
~from EVERGREEN by Rebecca Rasmussen

I have loved Rebecca Rasmussen’s writing since her first novel, The Bird Sisters. Landscape plays an important role in the story of two sisters, Milly and Twiss, who “have spent their lives nursing people and birds back to health;” readers become rooted in place and character easily from the first few pages. Rasmussen’s second novel, Evergreen (released in paperback in June), is just as rich, if not more, in setting. The opening paragraph tells all:

Eveline LeMay came after the water. She arrived on a cool morning in early September, asleep in a rowboat without paddles as if she knew the river currents would carry her past the tamarack and black-spruce forest, around Bone Island, a fen, and a bog, all the way to Evergreen and her new husband, Emil, who was waiting for her on the rocky shore.

A young woman ferried into new territory under the shadows of a spiny northern wood and past an island whose name alone hints at desperation, Evergreen opens with the reunion of Eveline and her husband Emil, who has been carefully transforming a broken-down and abandoned cabin into a newlyweds’ safehold.

But Eveline is not safe. When Emil returns overseas to his ailing father, she falls victim to a stranger’s hand and finds herself caught in the turbulence of a backwoods spring, a secret child, and a decision that tears her apart. The companionship of her strange neighbor Lulu helps her survive the harsh living and a broken heart, and later, on her deathbed, she reveals the truth of her secret to her son, Hux: a baby, his sister, given away but never forgotten.

Evergreen is a quiet novel in which landscape not only paints the picture but sets the tone of this generational story about a young wife and mother, about the broken soul of a daughter, and about a brother’s love, devotion, and healing. Rebecca Rasmussen is an author to follow if you’re a reader and one to emulate if you’re a writer.

Click HERE for more about Evergreen, including an excerpt, reviews, and a reading guide.