3.5 stars - I think people going into this should know that it's definitely not a heart-pumping, action-filled mystery. The story of a missing hiker on the Appalachian Trail is much more of a slow-burn character study. That being said, the writing is beautiful and the descriptions of nature are really thoughtful and unique. I do think I might have liked this a bit more if it had stuck to maybe one or two POVs, and the ending felt really rushed. There were several scenes that I was surprised to see had been left off the page (which resulted in a lack of emotional closure at the end). I do think Gaige is an extremely talented writer, but I wish the ending had felt more satisfying.

I’m torn between feeling particularly in love with this one or bored by some of the aspects. I think I’m somewhere right in the middle on this one.
I found myself struggling to connect with some of the POVs and partly this may have been because there was just too many. The weaving together of perspectives is beautiful and ambitious but it didn’t quite hit for me. I think I wanted more of a survival story and less of a mystery.
Still, I can think of several friends who I would recommend this too! Some of the writing is just breathtaking.

Amity Gaige has written a pulse pounding book of a missing woman on the Appalachian Trail. The more they search the more they come up empty. As the days go by, hope diminishes. Is there even a slim chance they will find her alive? Told in the voices of three very different women, the pages on this book turn themselves as the reader races to the end. Thank you to Hachette UK and NetGalley for an ARC of this book.

I guess I need to go and read more from this author, because I absolutely loved this book! Thankfully, I wasn't reading this whole my husband was on a multi-day hike. I've made that mistake before. Wondering if he is facing the same challenges the subject of the book is facing. But, knowing that the things happening are truly perils that can face hikers and knowing that there are groups out there who spend their days looking for people who are lost or injured, sometimes through no fault of their own, makes the events in the book that more realistic and dramatic. And this all reeled me in! I read snippets out loud to my son and husband. Chuckling over common mistakes or silly mishaps. I loved the balance of points of view, even the old lady who lived 100s of miles away with no apparent connection to Valerie, and variety of formats used throughout the book to differentiate between characters. Each one added depth to the story and I spent my time with one character thinking "oh please don't let it be them, please don't let it be them." I could say more, but instead I'll give you the time back to go start reading this book!

I saw great reviews for this book and decided to give it a go! WOW! I absolutely loved it. What a unique take on a missing persons book that managed to develop several characters and hit on some many themes beyond just the "thriller" part of a missing persons case. This will definitely be in my top reads for 2025. I loved it.

I will say this, the POV’s in this book is enough to confuse you, but don’t give up! This book is PACKED with so much, I don’t know anything about these Trails and the AT in Maine or anything like that and through Bev being the bad ass Warden running things, it gets a little wild. But I will say this, it is a slow burn, and this book DRAGGED. It started to pick up more than 60% into the book, but I felt at times with everything going on it was TOO much.

"Heartwood" is a slow-burning thriller that masterfully builds tension and atmosphere, immersing readers in its intricate narrative web. The author expertly crafts a story that unfolds gradually, allowing suspense to simmer beneath the surface as layers of mystery are revealed.

From the outset, the Appalachian Trail setting plays a crucial role in creating an eerie ambiance that draws readers in. The evocative descriptions of the landscape and the haunting elements of the environment add depth to the plot and serve as a compelling backdrop for the unfolding drama. The characters are thoughtfully developed, each with their own secrets and motivations that contribute to the novel's tension.

The pacing is deliberate and slow, which might not suit every reader. However, those who appreciate a methodical build-up will find themselves captivated by the slow unraveling of the central mystery.

While some may find the pacing a bit too slow at times, the payoff is worth it. The climax delivers the kind of punch that leaves readers breathless, providing a satisfying resolution that ties together the myriad threads of the narrative.

In conclusion, "Heartwood" is a compelling thriller that rewards readers who appreciate a slow, suspenseful build-up. With its rich atmosphere, well-drawn characters, and intricate plotting, this novel is a must-read for fans of psychological thrillers and character-driven stories. It's a gripping journey into the heart of darkness that lingers long after the final page is turned.

Fantastic!

It's hard not to compare Heartwood to God of the Woods, because they definitely have parallels: multiple POVs, a beautifully described setting (the Adirondacks in GotW, the Appalachian trail in Maine in Heartwood), and a female character in a traditionally male job who is tasked with finding a missing person.)

They have different vibes, though. God of the Woods had a more dramatic feel and a focus on buried secrets, while Heartwood felt incredibly stoic, just like Northern New England itself.

When 42 year-old Valerie goes missing while hiking on the Appalachian trail, Maine State Game Warden Beverly Miller is the one assigned to find her.

Heartwood is both a missing persons case and a beautifully crafted story of the ways we lose and find ourselves and looks at our obligations to others as friends, family, and fellow human beings. Valerie has been acknowledging the dying embers of her marriage. Bev, who has put everything into her job, is facing retirement and now wonders what is left for her. Santo, a boy from the Bronx who has found confidence and inspiration in nature, was Valerie's impromptu hiking companion and struggles with guilt over leaving her. And Lena, a reserved and lonely woman in a retirement community, becomes obsessed with the case.

A beautiful, heart-breaking and life-affirming meditation on the strength and fragility of life, the beauty and menace of nature, and the ties that bind us.

When nurse and novice hiker Valerie Gillis gets lost on the Appalachian Trail, her disappearance sparks a massive manhunt—one that not only consumes the life of the warden leading the search but also the life of an elderly woman hundreds of miles away.

Told from multiple perspectives and in varying styles, the novel follows Lieutenant Bev, who is under immense pressure to lead the search while also grappling with the impending death of her mother, which stirs up childhood traumas. Valerie’s own story unfolds through journal entries she writes during her time lost in the wilderness, offering a raw and poetic glimpse into her experience. Meanwhile, Lena, who lives at a senior center in a different state, finds herself unexpectedly connected to the search for Valerie due to online relationship with a young man struggling with mental health issues.

I particularly enjoyed the entertaining interviews with Santos, Valerie’s hiking partner for part of her journey, as well as the beautifully written journal entries from Valerie.

Suspenseful yet deeply moving, this novel explores not just physical survival but the many ways people can feel lost in life. A compelling read, especially for those who love the outdoors.

“To search is to guess. If the location of the lost person is known, that’s a rescue, not a search.”

Amity Gaige’s “Heartwood” is a mystery-suspense novel centered around the disappearance of a woman along the Appalachian Trail and the subsequent quest to find her. The story unfolds from three distinct perspectives: Valerie, the missing woman, through her journal entries to her mother; Lena, an elderly woman in a retirement home; and Lieutenant Beverly Miller, the game warden tasked with locating Valerie.

Forty-two-year-old Valerie “Sparrow” Gillis was a nurse during the COVID-19 pandemic that swept the world in 2020. After witnessing the death of patient after patient, many of them dying alone, Valerie reached her breaking point. Two years later, she sets out to hike the Appalachian Trail (AT) using the flip-flop method. Valerie begins in the middle of the trail, planning to reach Maine before circling back to complete the rest. Her journey is motivated by the question: "When will my heart be whole again?" This quest for emotional healing drives her forward, allowing her continued personal growth on the trail.

When Valerie fails to meet her “Treasure,” Gregory Bouras, at a Maine trailhead for a scheduled resupply, he isn’t immediately concerned. After all, Valerie has been hiking for three months and has frequently slowed down or been delayed. However, when she doesn’t check in after a second day, Gregory contacts the authorities.

Fifty-seven-year-old Lieutenant Beverly Miller, a Maine state game warden, has been on the job for thirty years. With a ninety-seven percent success rate in finding missing persons, she has dedicated her entire life to her work, never marrying or having children.

Seventy-six-year-old Lena Kucharski, confined to a wheelchair, lives at the Cedarfield retirement community in Connecticut. Isolated from the other residents, Lena spends her days foraging and conversing online with an enigmatic figure known only as u/TerribleSilence, a person with an extensive knowledge of plant species.

Gaige skillfully weaves together Sparrow’s diary entries to her mother, Beverly’s perspective, transcripts of interviews with other wardens (including Ruben “Santo” Serrano, Sparrow’s closest companion on the trail), and chapters told from Lena’s point of view. Readers are left questioning whether Gregory can be trusted, if Santo was capable of harming Valerie, and the true circumstances of Valerie's disappearance. The novel’s strength lies in its exploration of how a disappearance affects a town. The emotional rollercoaster Valerie experiences on the trail—from fear of the dark, to joy and triumph at spending a night alone in the wilderness, to frustration with her trusting nature, to desperation for food and water—mirrors the emotions Beverly faces as the search continues. Beverly’s growing frustration with false leads, her decision to take matters into her own hands, and her fear that the search may soon shift to finding remains provide a powerful emotional counterpoint to Valerie’s journey.

Favorite quote:
“All emotions start out as love…Hate is just soured love. Fear is wounded love. Longing is homeless love.”

Heartwood was a unique missing hiker book that kept me engaged all the way through. I enjoyed the multiple POV’s, and the different ways the POV’s were presented including interviews and diary entries. This book overall felt like a combination of a literary book and a softer mystery/thriller book. I liked the book as it was unique being centered around hiking the Appalachian Trail. Heartwood was a fast read. The only drawback was the plot felt largely resolved to me earlier than I would have liked (maybe at the 75% mark). However, I also don’t like when a book’s ending is rushed, so I might be in a fussy mood right now! Either way, great read.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster, Amity Gaige, and NetGalley for allowing me to read this novel in exchange for an honest review.

SYNOPSIS
- Heartwood follows the mysterious disappearance of 42-year-old Valerie Gillis, an experienced hiker who vanishes on the Appalachian Trail just 200 miles from completing her journey.
- While Valerie battles isolation, hunger, and disorientation in the Maine wilderness—documenting her thoughts through poetic, desperate letters to her mother in the form of journal entries—a search team races to find her.
- Game Warden Beverly Miller leads the ground search while dealing with personal challenges of her own.
- Meanwhile, Lena, a 76-year-old birdwatcher in a Connecticut retirement home, becomes unexpectedly involved in the mystery through online conversations with a cryptic contact.
- Through multiple perspectives and narrative formats, the novel slowly unpacks what happened to Valerie—and why.
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MY THOUGHTS
- This one was a slow burn.
- I loved the multi-POV structure—especially how each woman’s voice added a different emotional weight to the story: Valerie’s fragmented letters, Bev’s methodical urgency, Lena’s quiet curiosity. Even the interviews with hikers sprinkled throughout added texture and helped widen the scope.
- The genre-blending worked well here. It’s not quite a thriller, but the mystery thread keeps you reading. It’s more concerned with character, reflection, and emotional nuance than high-octane suspense.
- If you’re someone who loves introspective literary fiction with a side of mystery, this will hit the mark. That said, the mystery itself wasn’t particularly surprising—I had a strong sense of who and where long before the characters did. But the journey still felt worthwhile because of the emotional investment.
- The themes are rich and layered: motherhood, identity, grief, burnout, solitude, and the limits of human endurance. Valerie’s mental unraveling and her determination to hold on—both physically and emotionally—were heartbreaking and compelling.
- I appreciated the setting so much—the Maine wilderness, especially Sugarloaf and Carrabassett Valley, felt vivid and familiar. I’ve visited there, so it was fun to revisit in a book.
- Everything does eventually weave together nicely, with a satisfying (though somewhat expected) resolution. No loose threads, which I always appreciate.
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TL;DR: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️4 stars. A quiet but gripping exploration of what it means to be lost—physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Told through layered perspectives and various formats, it paints a haunting picture of survival, motherhood, and connection. The mystery isn’t groundbreaking, but the journey is intimate and moving.
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Thanks to Simon & Schuster and Netgalley for this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. This book will be published on April 1, 2025.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC of this novel. What a wonderful story. It's about a woman lost on the Appalachian Trail, but really about so much more. It's about mothers and daughters, our fraying relationships in the age of the internet, the longstanding traumatic impacts of the pandemic, and the impossible standards women are required to live up to by society and by themselves. And the descriptions of nature are as good as any I've read. I loved all three main female characters, with the most special place in my heart for Bev.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: I've been going back and forth in my head between 5 stars and 6 stars (6 for me goes on my favorite of the year list). I do think I will have to put this on my 6 star list. I loved this book.

What I loved: I live on the Appalachian Trial (not actually on the trial line but very close) and to read a book that talks about it and how dangerous it can be, was very cool. This also combined interesting mixed media, podcast, journal entries, a tip line, I just thought the whole investigation and the way the story was told was engrossing. Amy Gaige did a phenomenal job of connecting characters in very different places in life, with very different personalities and connections to the case, keeping you interested the whole way through. Mental health was woven throughout the book in a way that felt meaningful and relatable. The writing and pacing was great, I basically always wanted to be reading this.

I loved the ending, it was the perfect kind of ending for me. If you love popcorn thrillers or require a large plot twist, this probably isn't going to feel satisfying and i want people to know that. Don't go into this story for the twist, it's more about the journey and the characters which is why. I loved it so much. Plus the setting. I just thought this book was so enjoyable and there's no way it won't be on my favorites list of the year.

This was such a gripping story. Looking at how differently each of the women dealt with similar issues, and the relationship with the world around them was both eye opening and terrifying.

This was an interesting missing person story. Valerie Gillis is a nurse who was burnt out from the pandemic so she decided to hike the Appalachian trail. But 200 miles from her destination she goes missing. Beverly, a Maine Game Warden, is leading the charge to look for her, and knows the importance of finding a missing person ASAP. And Lena is a 76 year old bird watcher living in a retirement home in Connecticut who becomes an armchair detective trying to figure out what happened. The book is told from the POV of all three of these women, Valerie in a journal written to her mom while lost, and Beverly and Lena as they are doing their part to find her. This was an interesting mystery with a lot of knowledge about the woods and trail life. I enjoyed the themes of motherhood and the exploration of how our relationship with our mothers shapes us. A moving story of conquering one’s fears. I received an ARC, and this is my honest review.

3.5/5 Stars

Overall, I quite enjoyed this book. I thought that the multiple P.O.Vs and their formats worked really well. Being able to see into the minds of not just Valerie - the woman lost on the trail - but also of her former trail-buddy Santos, the Game Warden Beverley searching for her, and Lena, an elderly woman who seemingly has no connection to the story other than trying to figure out on her own what happened to Valerie, was executed so well. I loved how poetic Valerie's scenes were. You could really see just how much writing those letters to her mother was helping her to hold on for so long. They were probably my favorite scenes in the entire book. I did, however, feel at times that Valerie's story was overshadowed by Beverley and Lena's personal relationships with their families. For me, it took away the suspense of trying to find Valerie before time runs out.

Heartwood by Amity Gaige

Thank you NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for a complimentary copy of this novel! I was not expecting to enjoy it as much as I did. Valerie Gillis is a 42-year old nurse who has taken time off from work to hike the Appalachian Trail. She has made it close to the end where she reached the state of Maine. However, at one of the checkpoints where she was supposed to meet her husband, she never shows up. At first, he's not concerned. Maybe she's running late. He gives it a day but when she does not show up, he gets concerned and reports her missing. Along the way, Valerie had met other hikers and sometimes teamed up with them.One such person was Santo,but he had dropped out of the hike earlier. The game warden for Maine, Beverly, is put in charge of trying to locate Valerie. She brings together a whole team including k-9 units to help find her. Then there is Lena, an elderly birdwatcher living in a retirement community who becomes part of the investigation. What happened to Valerie? Did she herself purposefully disappear? Did she accidentally get lost? Or, is something more sinister going on? This novel is both heartfelt and tender while at the same time being full of suspense as the search for Valerie is laid out in this edge-of-your seat, gripping wilderness journey !
To me, this novel begs the question, how can we truly find ourselves if we've lost our way? Many times we lose ourselves in the daily mundane tasks and we forget who we truly are. So we need to take a step back and find ourselves again.
AVAILABLE April 1, 2025!

This captivating tale of survival and search in the Appalachian wilderness is a masterclass in narrative tension, weaving together three distinct female perspectives with the dexterity of a master storyteller.

Gaige's use of first-person narrative and epistolary segments is nothing short of brilliant. It's as if we're simultaneously racing through the forest with Lt. Bev's search team and huddling beside Valerie, the missing hiker, as she pours her soul into her journal. The pacing is relentless, each page turn revealing new layers of mystery and human complexity.

The dual nature of the narrative is particularly enthralling. On one hand, we're immersed in the grueling, high-stakes search led by the indefatigable Lt. Bev. On the other, we're privy to Valerie's harrowing journey through her poignant journal entries. It's a narrative tightrope walk that Gaige executes with aplomb.

And then there's Lena, the septuagenarian birdwatcher who initially seems like an outlier in this wilderness drama. Trust me, her role unfolds like a rare bird sighting - unexpected, beautiful, and utterly crucial to the story's ecosystem.

What truly elevates "Heartwood" is the golden thread of mother-daughter relationships woven throughout. It softens the harsh wilderness backdrop, adding a layer of emotional resonance that turns this mystery into a profound exploration of human connection.

Gaige's portrayal of the Appalachian Trail is a tour de force. Through Valerie's eyes, we witness nature's breathtaking majesty - the kind that makes you want to lace up your hiking boots and hit the trail. Yet, through Bev's search efforts, we're acutely aware of the lurking dangers, the wilderness transformed into a formidable adversary.

As I turned the final page of "Heartwood," I felt as if I'd emerged from the forest myself - exhilarated, contemplative, and profoundly moved. Gaige has crafted a multi-layered mystery that's as much about the enigmas of the human heart as it is about a missing hiker. It's a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, the complexity of relationships, and the enduring allure of the unknown.

Thank you, Simon & Schuster and NetGalley, for my free ARC.

Valerie Gillis, while working her way down the Appalachian Trail, has gone missing. Beverly, the Maine State Game Warden for the area Valerie goes missing is determined to find her. But as the search spans one week and then two, the likelihood of finding Valerie is slim. Meanwhile, Lena a birdwatcher in a Connecticut retirement community might be the only person who can ensure Valerie is find in time.

Separated into multiple POVs, this is a much deeper story than I originally anticipated. We get the standard detective POV from Beverely, Valerie’s POV is written as diary entries, and then Lena’s POV seems somewhat random at first. Each women’s thoughts are complex and complicated, and I enjoyed getting to know these women and their histories. The depictions of the wilderness though are what really make this book stand out.

This is for my atmospheric mystery readers and natural lovers. If you love character driven mysteries with lyric prose, then you will love this book. It’s a slow read and certainly not a thriller. But it is filled with stories of motherhood and self-discovery and certainly well written. It’s not entirely my cup of tea so 3.5 stars rounded down.


Heartwood comes out April 1, 2025. Huge thank you to Simon & Schuster for my advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion. If you liked this review, please let me know either by commenting below or by visiting my:Instagram @speakingof.books.
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