When I saw this was about the search for a missing hiker on the Appalachian Trail I knew I had to read this! I also enjoyed Gaige’s previous book, Sea Wife. Heartwood follows a cast of different characters related to the search, including the missing hiker. A mix of lit fic and mystery, this was the perfect book to read 3 weeks postpartum and kept me interested enough even when I was reading it in the middle of the night.

Valerie Gillis a 42 year-old nurse struggling to figure out what to do next after the suffering of the Covid pandemic embarks on a long hike of the Appalachian trail. The story begins after she is lost and her story is told through journal entries to her mother.
Lt. Beverly is a Maine game warden in charge of the search and also battling with what she should do next as she near retirement age.
Lena is an elderly woman in an assisted living community who is immediately intrigued by the search for the missing woman.
This story starts out slowly and some of the POVs are more captivating than others. The author also uses phone calls and interviews to bring clarity to different parts of the search. Midway through the book, I was racing to figure out if Valerie would be found.
All three women are examining their lives in different ways but the theme of mother/daughter relationships permeate all three narratives. At the beginning, I wondered if they were connected by a shared relationship.
Great book-thank you so much to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC in return for my honest review.

An experienced hiker has gone missing on the Appalachian Trail. This novel is told from multiple viewpoints, which makes for an interesting read. We hear the hiker, Valerie's POV, Lt. Bev, and Lena, an air chair detective. Through these POV's we wonder if Valerie got lost, her husband did something to her(she was supposed to meet him at a checkpoint and he reported her missing), or if something more sinister is in the works. Lena hears all kinds of theories from online communities she is a part of. Many things have happened or are suspected of happening on the Appalachian Trail, especially to those hiking alone.

This was a much quieter novel than I anticipated from the synopsis. We have 3 POVs that intersect to differing degrees. I kept waiting for the smoking gun and it never came. At its core, this is a book about mother daughter relationships. The missing woman felt very much so like an afterthought. Lt Bev was my favorite character of the three. She was unwavering and strong. Lena seems like she belonged in a completely different book, albeit one I would definitely read. The string that ties her to the missing woman was definitely intriguing but felt a little disjointed to me.

Valerie Gillis, a 42-year old woman, goes missing while she hikes the Appalachian Trail. As the mystery unfolds we get to know her husband, the other hikers, family members, and the steadfast Maine State Game Wardens that coordinate search efforts. The vast wilderness is one of the main characters in this novel. What happened to Valerie, is she lost, injured or worse? Will they find her in time?

**A big thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an electronic ARC and the opportunity to review this book.

Valerie Gillis, a 42 year old nurse needed to get away from life's pressures for a while and recharge. Her method of doing that was to walk the Appalachian Trail. Now I'm not sure that would be my chosen way to get away from it all and recharge, but Valerie jumped into it and did wonderfully well. She began in the midpoint and undertook the northern half of the trail for her first challenge. Along the way she struck up acquaintances with a number of other hikers, but along the way something happened and in the heart of the Maine forest, only a relatively short distance from the trail's terminus at Mount Katahdin and she disappeared. Somehow she got off the trail, was injured, and lost. The book is about the search for Valerie and the tale is a gripping one.

There are three threads in the book. Valerie's story comes in the form of letters to here mother that she writes in her journal. Through that we learn a lot about Valerie and her experience on the trail. Beverly is a Maine State Game Warden who is charged with coordinating the search and rescue efforts. Then there is a 76 year old woman named Lana who lives in a senior home in Connecticut, but know enough about the internet and the issues involved in a search and rescue effort to initiate her own search from her home.

Of course there are also a plethora of false leads from hacks, quacks, and not-very-helpful hikers who add their two cents worth. Most of these entries I found tedious and obviously not significant to the main thread but they do give a feel for the type of thing that real search parties have to deal with.

HEARTWOOD is a carefully crafted and elegantly written book that reads like something out of real life. I appreciated the opportunity provided me by NetGalley and the book's publisher to read and give and honest review to this book.

Thank you @simonandschuster and #netgalley for the e-ARC.

This one came out on 4/1, but I was deep in a cozy mystery mood and so I just got to it last week. Also it’s a Read with Jenna pick, if you care about that. I only care because then great books get more publicity. But I don’t make my reading selections based on that.

This is about Valerie, a novice hiker who gets lost while hiking the Appalachian Trail. There are multiple points of view. Valerie’s is through letters to her mother, about her struggle with the elements and her fight to stay alive. Another is Beverly, a Maine State Game Warden, who leads the investigation. The third is Lena, a seventy-six year old woman who lives in a retirement community and who becomes a bit obsessed with Valerie’s disappearance. There is also a man that hiked part of the trail with Valerie, and may be the last person who saw her before she disappeared.

Despite the free e-ARC, I listened to this on audio. The audiobook is done well. Each character is represented by a different narrator (so, full cast).

Overall, I enjoyed it. It’s a slower burn mystery and I did find myself wanting a faster pace. With so many characters I felt like the story strayed often from the Valerie disappearance. The author had many stories to tell and I feel like there wasn’t enough time to flesh out each character.

On the flip side, it was pretty apparent what happened. I kept waiting for some kind of twist, but I think the author wants you to know what happened. It allows for more storytelling around the characters.

I enjoy hiking and so I loved the nature aspect.

Overall, a good read.

I really enjoyed this literary mystery. There was a good balance between character development, setting, and the central mystery. The parts from Lena's perspective were my least favorite but I did like how everything tied in at the end. I would definitely recommend this, especially for people who liked God of the Woods.

A young woman, a nurse sets off to hike the Appalachian Trail but somewhere in Maine she gets lost. The story is told with her entries in her journal, from Bev, the female warden in charge of the search and Lena, a disabled woman who is estranged from her daughter. But Lena through an online connection sends Bev to the spot where the woman is. It takes 14 days before they have the coordinates from Lena’s online friend, but she is found alive.

The story is interesting but because it jumps around to different POV's it can become confusing.

A search for a missing person and all those that it affects. It's crazy how one lost person can cause so much pain for the rest of those left behind, but mostly a terrible way to live with yourself with no one around. Talk about solitary confinement. Totally loved this mystery and all of the characters (with an emphasis on character). Do we love who we love because we have to or is there more to our love?

This book will hold you in its grip until you've read every last word, and it is WORTH IT. Such an engaging, layered story, told through the points of view of three characters whose connections will become clear by the last page. I have not stopped thinking about this book since I finished it, and I cannot wait to read more from this author.

This was such a beautifully written book. It had me on the edge of my seat but also was very emotional. The story was woven so beautifully around these three women. This book will be living in my head for awhile.

I could not put 𝗛𝗘𝗔𝗥𝗧𝗪𝗢𝗢𝗗 down. If this book isn't already on your TBR, it needs to be.

Gaige's literary mystery is set in Maine where a woman hiking the Appalachian Trail goes missing, and it's impossible not to feel immersed in this story. The way the author describes the woods and portrays life on the trail is so vivid, you feel like you're there, and the desperate search for the hiker is an adrenaline rush and an emotional rollercoaster. But this isn't just a thriller or a story of survival - it's also about complex mother/daughter relationships and how easy it can be to find yourself lost, both literally and figuratively.

I loved so many of the characters in this book, especially Bev the warden running the search, but I was especially touched by the letters Valerie, the missing hiker, writes to her mother while hoping to be rescued.

"𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘥. 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘨𝘰𝘥𝘢𝘸𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴. 𝘍𝘰𝘳 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘰𝘤𝘤𝘢𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵. 𝘏𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘭𝘺, 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦."

As a mother juggling a lot at the moment, those words resonated. I can only hope my children feel the same.

Thanks to Simon and Schuster for the copy to review.

I read this book as I was listening to a Maine true crime podcast, so it didn’t take me long to get into that atmosphere of the Appalachian Trail. Valerie Gillis was like many hiker that got lost that I listened about. She did not show up where she was supposed to and alarm bells started to ring

She was experienced all right; she knew that spending time on this trail when she would be out of supplies would be deadly. But she was not at her meeting point as she promised to her husband. Beverly was tasked to find Valerie. She was to set up the search and rescue, and make sure that Valerie was brought back before it was too late. On the other hand, birdwatcher Lena thought Valerie could be her estranged daughter, so she rolled up her sleeves too

My 4 stars are for the storytelling, weaving letters and stories together in a curious way. I thought the story was of a common occurrence with reaction to it was also as common as I thought it would be. I appreciated Valerie and Beverly’s back stories taking part in the story too; however, I had bit of hard time tying Lena into all of this other than an older woman involving herself with the story out of a hope

I really enjoyed this book. It's a slow burn book as we follow a woman lost in the Appalachian mountains, the female warden searching for her, and an older woman who thinks she might be able to help. I was invested in this story and had to know what happened. It's hard to put down, too!

I gulped down "Heartwood," a new thriller by Amity Gaige, in just a few days. The story follows the search for a nurse who goes missing while hiking the Appalachian Trail. But the book is much more than an urgent sweep through the Maine woods. Gaige gives us the story from multiple vantage points, flipping from the lost hiker herself to a friend she made on the trail and from the woman heading up the search to persnickety old lady following the story online. Lyrical passages in which the prose lingers on the leaves of a tree take nothing away from the sections in which search-and-rescue teams comb the woods on foot and from the air. Gaige keeps the narrative moving along at a good pace while somehow giving the reader time to get to know Valerie and her reasons for embarking on this strenuous hike as well as Bev and her reasons for joining the Maine Warden Service. Highly recommended.

Heartwood, by Amity Gaige, follows the story of Valerie, a nurse, who goes missing while hiking the Appalachian Trail in Maine. I gained insight into Valerie's experiences through the letters she wrote to her mother throughout her ordeal. This ritual of writing gave her solace as she endured hunger and exhaustion, often overwhelmed by her loneliness and on the cusp of breaking down and giving up. This mystery and quasi-suspense novel is told from different perspectives. That of her husband (although not in depth) expecting to meet her at their designated rendevous spot. Beverly, the Game Warden leading the search, and a recluse bird watcher, Lena, from Connecticut. I didn't find this novel to read like other mysteries, probably because I didn't think the author created enough mystery or suspense about what happened to Valerie, whether she would be found, and if so, dead or alive. At times, I found the story to drag on, which may have been intentional, as a day lost in the woods might feel like days. I enjoyed the book, but I would have liked the characters and the themes of motherhood, love, loss, and resilience to have been better developed. I did enjoy learning some interesting facts about the Appalachian Trail.

Thanks to Simon & Schuster for an advanced copy of Heartwood.

As someone who has done some hiking on the Appalachian Trail and would love to one day hike all of the AT. So I was drawn to this book. It was interesting but didn't love the similarities to the 2013 Geraldine Largay missing hiker in Maine. I liked the aspect of the search from Beverly and I didn't want to stop listening but I didn't love how this book turned out.

The hiking descriptions and the missing hiker aspect I really enjoyed.

The idea for this and setting were what interested me. But in the end I was left feeling disappointed. The characters were interesting but the plot too predictable to be engaging. Some sections of the story felt too edited or cut off and others felt like long slogs. The ending was not satisfying.

Heartwood is a gripping story of a search and rescue team racing against time to find an experienced hiker who goes missing on the Appalachian Trail in Maine. As the investigation unfolds, the story follows the perspectives of the missing hiker, the determined Game Warden leading the search, and an armchair detective who becomes involved in the case. The mystery deepens as it becomes clear that the hiker's disappearance may not be accidental.

What a captivating mystery! Despite its slow burn, I found myself completely engrossed - a rare occurrence for me with slow burn reads. Having visited Maine multiple times, I loved being able to visualize the locations mentioned in the story. It truly enhanced the overall experience.

The novel follows three different points of view: Valerie, Lt. Bev, and Lena. Their perspectives intertwine and eventually converge, leading to a satisfying outcome. Lena's role in the story is particularly intriguing, as she holds crucial information yet remains a mystery to those around her. The character development is gradual but keeps the plot moving forward.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the story was based on actual events, adding an extra layer of depth. The resolution was heartening, although I couldn't help but wonder about Gerry's fate. It made me ponder my own survival skills in a similar situation. The book offers valuable tips on navigation and survival, making it both informative and gripping.

Overall, the story is suspenseful, intriguing, and ultimately heartwarming. I can only imagine the heightened emotions that an audiobook version would bring. I highly recommend adding this book to your summer reading list - it's a real page-turner!

Thank you, Simon & Schuster, for the digital ARC copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.