Black Woods, Blue Sky

Black Woods, Blue Sky (2025) is award-winning author Eowyn Ivey’s third novel. Ivey is known for storytelling that blends the natural world with elements of folklore and magic. Born and raised in Alaska, she draws inspiration from her home state’s rugged landscapes and rich history. Her debut novel, The Snow Child (2012), was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and reimagines an Alaskan fairy tale. Her second novel, To The Bright Edge of the World (2016), is set in Alaska in 1885. In Black Woods, Blue Sky, Ivey explores themes of The Sacrifice of Parental Love, Human Connection With Nature, and The Line Between Reality and Fantasy. Before becoming a full-time writer, Ivey worked as a journalist and bookseller. 

This guide refers to the 2025 Random House e-book edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of death, graphic violence, animal death, sexual content, substance use, and cursing. 

Plot Summary

Birdie is a young, single mother living and working at the Wolverine Lodge in Alaska. She is trying her best to provide for her six-year-old daughter, Emaleen, but sometimes leaves Emaleen alone while she works or stays late at the bar, drinking and using drugs with friends. One day, Emaleen is alone and searches the woods for her mother. A reclusive local man named Arthur Nielsen rescues Emaleen and returns her safely to Birdie. Birdie’s boss and mother figure, Della, switches Birdie’s shifts to morning, and Arthur visits the lodge daily for tea and toast. Birdie is enamored with him and how he speaks of living in the high country, something she’s always dreamed of doing. Birdie and Arthur meet in the woods, and their relationship turns physical. She can’t deny that being with him brings out her inner animal. Despite her friends’ protestations, Birdie takes Emaleen and moves into Arthur’s cabin in the mountains.

Arthur’s father, Warren, is a bush plane pilot who flies Birdie and Emaleen to the cabin. Against his better judgment, he leaves Birdie and the young child with plans to return often for a resupply. Warren’s interiority reveals that he and his late wife, Carol, found Arthur in the mountains, covered in a bear pelt. He could remove his pelt for a time and transform into the shape of a human, but to survive, he always had to return to his bear form. Despite trying to raise him as a normal child, Carol and Warren eventually had to give up caring for him and surrender him to the wild. Arthur temporarily sheds his coat and hides it in a hole but must put the pelt back on and return to the wild to hunt and eat for survival.

Birdie adapts easily to living in the cabin and works efficiently to clean it and transform it into a home. However, Arthur behaves strangely and doesn’t care about living conditions or cooking food. He disappears most nights and sometimes stays away for days at a time. Emaleen enjoys the freedom of playing outside all day, and the natural environment is ideal for her imaginative mind. She’s never afraid because her mother is always nearby, and Emaleen’s greatest fear is her mother leaving.

One day, Emaleen watches Arthur shed his skin and hide it in a hole. She decides to keep this secret from her mother and accepts Arthur’s dual nature. While Arthur is away, a bear appears near the cabin, and Birdie fears that she may have to shoot it. Emaleen cries because she knows it’s Arthur. When Arthur returns and sees Birdie’s fear, he pledges to stay and protect them. However, Arthur soon grows sick and weak, and out of desperation, Emaleen shows Birdie the hidden bear skin. They help Arthur put on the skin, and he disappears into the wild. Birdie becomes focused on Arthur and his wildness and neglects to care for the cabin or Emaleen. She watches as Arthur hunts and gorges himself in preparation for hibernation.

One day, Arthur comes near the cabin as a bear, and Emaleen and Birdie shoot him out of protection. The wounded bear runs into the wilderness, and Birdie follows despite Emaleen’s cries for her not to leave her. Emaleen can hear the bear attack in the distance and knows that she must help her mother. When she finds Birdie’s body, she runs away to seek help, planning to hike out of the wilderness and back to the lodge. Warren flies in for a visit and fears the worst when he sees the derelict cabin. After following the blood trail, Warren finds Birdie’s lifeless body but sees no sign of Arthur or Emaleen. While flying away, he spots Emaleen and rescues her.

Emaleen goes to live with her aunt Liz in Washington state but remains in contact with Della and her uncle Syd. Liz is a compassionate caregiver and helps Emaleen work through her trauma and grief. Liz remains in contact with Warren, who helps fund Emaleen’s college education. 

After her college graduation, Emaleen road-trips to Alaska to seek answers for her grief and guilt surrounding her mother’s death. Despite Birdie’s death being clearly from a bear mauling, Emaleen holds herself responsible. Warren flies Emaleen to the cabin, where she discovers that Arthur, as a bear, is still alive. Warren keeps him behind a fence. He teaches Emaleen to use her mother’s rifle, and she first plans to shoot the bear. However, she feels pity for it and instead offers to help Warren repair and expand the enclosure for the bear’s comfort. The bear is old and has stopped eating. Emaleen releases Arthur, and he walks for hours into the high country to the mountaintop where he once took her and Birdie, where they can see the Wolverine Lodge. Arthur lies down, and Emaleen holds his paw as he takes his last breath.