Glendy Vanderah’s Where the Forest Meets the Stars (2019) is a magical realism novel that follows graduate student and cancer survivor Jo Teale after she finds a strange girl who claims to be an alien in the woods. The story explores themes of love and recovery as Jo builds a bond with the girl and forms a relationship with her socially anxious next-door neighbor. Vanderah’s debut novel, Where the Forest Meets the Stars made the bestseller lists of Amazon Charts, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal.

This guide follows the first edition, the 2019 Lake Union Publishing paperback version of the novel.

Plot Summary

Graduate student Joanna (“Jo”) Teale is working on her doctorate in bird ecology and rents a cottage in the woods to complete her summer research. She’s two years behind schedule because she had to battle cancer, and is grieving the loss of her mother from the same cancer. One night, she sees a strange girl on the property, barefoot and wearing pajama bottoms, who claims she’s an alien inhabiting a dead girl’s body. Jo thinks the story’s invented but pities her and feeds her. The girl befriends a stray dog, whom she names Little Bear (after Ursa Minor), and maintains her alien story, acting as if every experience on Earth is new (though she knows about marshmallows and cheese). Jo can tell she’s very intelligent. The girl claims she came to Earth to witness five miracles and report back to her home planet. When Jo tells her to go home, she leaves but insists her home is among the stars.

The next day, the girl returns. Jo offers to make scrambled eggs. Jo goes alone to the egg stand run by her neighbor, Gabe, with whom she hasn’t interacted much. She tells him about the girl. He offers to talk to her. When he arrives, he tries to coax information from her, but she sticks to her story. When she says her mission on Earth is like Jo getting a PhD, Gabe decides she isn’t his problem and leaves.

Jo has the girl shower before dinner, meanwhile calling the police about the possibly homeless child. Later, Jo notices bruises on the girl’s neck and legs. When the police arrive, the girl runs away. The deputy says she’s likely fine and putting her into foster care might worsen her situation. He doesn’t search the property. Jo looks for the girl but can’t find her.

Leaving for town to do laundry the next day, Jo sees the girl, looking more disheveled than before. She slept in the shed on a rain-soaked mattress. Jo makes pancakes and lets her stay inside while she’s out. At the laundromat, Jo sees her best friend, Tabby. It’s Jo’s mother’s birthday, and she’s still grieving. Tabby comforts Jo. Jo’s advisor calls: Some of her colleagues (including an old fling of Jo’s) are returning from a conference and staying in Jo’s cottage overnight.

The girl is gone when Jo returns. While Jo prepares food, the girl returns. She hid in case Jo brought the police. The girl says her name is Ursa, after the constellation she’s from. Ursa read Jo’s ornithology textbook and says she can use the dead girl’s brain, adding that she was very intelligent. Before Jo’s guests arrive, she takes Ursa on a field outing. Ursa enjoys it, declaring a birds’ nest her first miracle, but is upset when Jo asks where her home is. Jo’s guests arrive, and Jo tells Ursa not to talk about the alien stuff. Ursa stays out of the way, but the guests wonder about her.

Jo’s ex-fling, Tanner, speaks to her alone. Jo had her breasts removed due to cancer, and he suggests reconstructive surgery, which frustrates her. She shoos him away and cries. Ursa tries to comfort Jo, but Jo won’t allow it, so Ursa leaves.

When Jo returns from her outing the next day, Gabe is waiting. Ursa spent the night on his property, and he’s unhappy about it. They talk and decide Jo will care for Ursa in the evenings and let her sleep in the cottage, while Gabe will let her hang out on his farm during the day. Ursa declares the kittens in Gabe’s barn her second miracle and reads Shakespeare. As Jo and Gabe care for Ursa, she becomes happy and healthy. One day she tells Jo that Gabe let her shoot a gun. Jo confronts him, and he arrives later to apologize, bringing his telescope so that they can look at Ursa’s “home” galaxy. Jo feels Gabe is coming on to her, but she’s afraid because of her post-cancer body, so she asks him to leave.

The next day, Ursa joins Jo on her research, and Tabby texts Jo that their dream house is for lease. Jo drives into town the next day to look and brings Ursa. Tabby and Ursa hit it off, and Ursa declares Tabby her third miracle because she’s a free spirit. Jo and Tabby secure the rental house. Ursa claims this is her doing because her powers make good things happen to people she likes. Jo plans to move in when her summer research ends but needs to figure out what to do with Ursa first. On the way home, when Jo stops at a gas station, Ursa seems uncomfortable. They stop at Gabe’s to visit. His sister, Lacey, answers the door and turns them away. They try for two more days before Ursa sneaks in to find him. Gabe has a mental health condition and sometimes struggles to leave bed, but Jo and Ursa help him out of the house. He comes to Jo’s for dinner, which Ursa makes romantic with candlelight. Jo and Gabe talk about their lives. When Jo mentions her post-cancer body, Gabe isn’t bothered. They discuss his troubled relationship with his sister. He stays the night and joins them the next day for fieldwork.

Taking a break from fieldwork, they swim in a stream. On the way back to the car, a branch knocks Ursa unconscious. She wakes as they head to the hospital and begs to return to Jo’s, jumping out of the car at a stoplight and hiding until they promise not to take her to the hospital. That night, Gabe stays to help Jo watch Ursa, who claims her powers made the branch fall so that Gabe would stay. All three sleep in Jo’s bed.

The next day, while Jo goes out to do laundry, Gabe watches Ursa. As Jo returns, the cops arrive; Lacey called them. Ursa runs away. Jo and Gabe talk to the police, who leave since Ursa isn’t there. Jo and Gabe find her in the woods and take her home. Gabe distances himself, worried about trouble with the law; Jo thinks he's afraid to care.

Gabe confesses to Jo he’s never been with a woman, and she gives him his first kiss. He takes Jo to the nearby cemetery and tells her about a traumatic childhood experience: His mother had an affair with the neighbor, George, and Gabe learned he’s George’s son. He never forgave his parents—and grew a beard to hide his resemblance to George.

The next evening, Gabe comes to dinner, and Jo shaves his face. Noticing their growing affection, Ursa declares it her fourth miracle and says she made it happen. Gabe begins spending every night at Jo’s. She helps him work through his trauma by reading his mother’s poetry to him. When she moves into the new rental house, she brings Ursa and Gabe, who seems nervous in social situations. Afterward, Jo and Gabe drop off paperwork at her college. There, Gabe encounters George, who wants to talk. Jo gives them privacy.

Gabe learns his mother and George were always in love and the man who raised him was okay with it as long as they met off their property. George wants to marry Gabe’s mom now that both are widowed. Gabe eventually accepts their relationship. On the drive home, Gabe asks to stop at a pizza place near the gas station that made Ursa uncomfortable. She reacts the same way, begrudgingly entering the restaurant. Inside, a man at the bar stares at her as he leaves. Jo wonders about the incident. As they drive home, Jo notices they’re being followed, but the car drives off once they reach their street.

That night, the dog starts barking outside. Ursa says the bad men have found her. The men kill the dog and try to break in. Jo sends Ursa out the back window, into the forest, but when Gabe arrives to help, having heard gunshots, Ursa runs out of the woods to warn him. A shootout ensues, and Ursa and Jo are injured. Gabe kills both men. As Ursa’s consciousness fades, Jo tells her she wants to adopt her. Ursa declares this her fifth miracle but tells Jo not to cry if she returns to the stars. Both lose consciousness.

At the hospital, Jo and Gabe learn about Ursa Ann Dupree, who is eight years old. Her mother was murdered the night she ran away. Ursa won’t talk to the social workers, but Jo gets her to tell them what happened that night. However, Ursa claims to know only because it was fresh in the mind of the human Ursa, whom the bad men allegedly strangled. Ursa says she then inhabited the body and rode in the bed of someone’s pickup truck to Jo’s area. Jo battles the social workers and police to get her charges dropped and foster Ursa. After Ursa alienates a potential foster family and escapes from the hospital, Jo is allowed to foster her.

A month later, they hold a funeral for Ursa’s mother and Little Bear. Ursa still maintains she’s an alien but agrees to pretend she’s the real Ursa for the sake of moving on. Gabe gives Ursa two of the kittens for her birthday. Jo takes Ursa home to the rental house with Tabby. Ursa thinks her powers made these good things happen.