A gripping novel.

Valerie Gillis is a 42 year old hiker, hiking the Appalachian Trail alone. When she fails to check in with her husband at one of the stops, Maine State Game Warden Beverly starts to coordinate the search to find her. But where did she go missing? Which direction did she go? What made her leave the trail?

The search was fascinating, and such a roller coaster of emotion. I really appreciated the information of the psychology of people when they get lost - but this wasn't a dry and boring book. This was a nerve-wracking plot, following the highs and lows of the searchers and Valerie's family. Told from two points of view, we hear from Valerie as she keeps a diary while waiting to be found. She slowly reveals what happened to cause her to be lost.

Lena, a wheelchair-bound senior living in a retirement community in Connecticut, starts playing amateur detective in the search. Can she find something that will help the search before it is too late?

As we get down to the wire, with Valerie having been gone for almost 2 weeks, all nerves are on edge as the hope of finding her fades.

This was a fascinating books and such an emotional roller coaster. It had me in tears in places and holding my breath in others. Such a great book.

This is the first book that I have read by this author. I liked the writing style incorporating journal entries, interviews and multiple point of views. It was fast paced keeping me turning the pages to the very end..
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the E ARC.

What a beautifully written story about the strengths we have within ourselves and the strength we find in others. The story of Lena, Lt Bev, and Valerie are all unique in their own telling, but so similar and intertwined once read together, as most women tend to find out when comparing stories. I found myself inspired, grief-stricken, anxious, and proud as I read their stories. It was one I definitely could not put down. We need more stories like these of women and their trials, tribulations, and triumphs. It’s so very important. It was also very interesting to have a first eye view of what a game warden endures, especially as a female. Also, given the current happenings in the US and State Parks, it was even more so an eye-opening tale.

"And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul." (John Muir)

Oh, Momma. We have a winner here.

Amity Gaige is new to me. But, believe me, she can write like gossamer wings that float you up to a new dimension. It spoke to me because I'm an avid hiker and outdoor person. But more importantly, it speaks to humanity in a broad sense. We depend on one another whether we want to acknowledge that or not. All it takes is for someone to step forward in our favor.

Valerie Gilles has taken to the Appalachian Trail at 42 years of age. She's taken time away from her job as a hospital nurse after the pressures of Covid. Her caring and supportive nature follows her along on some of these brutal trails with the code name of Sparrow. She meets up with Santo, a heavyset Black hiker from all places from the Bronx. Santo has been ridiculed because of his weight and his unlikely presence on the Appalachian Trail. His incredible sense of humor is endearing.

But soon Santo must return to the Bronx because of a family matter leaving Valerie on her own. Valerie is due to meet up with her husband, Greg, at a stopping point along the trail for added supplies. When she doesn't show up, Greg informs the authorities. This is not like Valerie.

Enter Lieutenant Beverly Miller of the Maine Warden division. Beverly has an excellent track record in finding missing hikers. She assures Valerie's family that they will find her until she can no longer assure even herself. Bev is a diligent tracker, but the Maine woods are ominous. No one knows exactly where Valerie went off the trail and, moreso, why?

Gaige will insert an unlikely character by the name of Lena who is seventy-six years old and a member of an assisted living facility. Lena is a wildlife researcher by nature and spends hours outdoors and on her computer. Lena will become a little nugget.

Heartwood marches to a slow, steady beat while gaining speed midway. Gaige assists the reader in feeling every pulsating moment within Valerie herself and the throngs of volunteers searching for her. She injects writings by Valerie that take us to a deeply personal place within her. Will they ever find her in time or will she become another statistic? Walk the trail alongside the rest of us.

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to Simon & Schuster and to the talented Amity Gaige for the opportunity.

This book is a TREASURE! I loved it. I had to know what was going on, how it would would end. I thought about this book when I wasn't reading it, and couldn't wait til I could pick it up again. I love the intertwined characters who have little in commone..or everything. The mother image as a characteristic amazing as well.
Well done!
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

This book is a slow burn but told so beautifully. It is about a 42-year-old woman who goes missing on the Appalachian Trail. You get multiple viewpoints and learn the tragedies the main character has gone through in life. You also get the perspective of a game warden and a bird watcher. This book allows you to identify with the multiple perspectives told and what many women have gone through in life or feelings they have felt. This book really resonates, and the mystery was an added bonus. Thanks NetGalley for this ARC.

Such a different story! A 42-year-old nurse goes missing on the Appalachian Trail in Maine; her on-trail companion is a big, burly man from the Bronx; her husband dutifully trails her in his car at scheduled rest stops, but there is an underlying tension in their relationship; a strong, determined female warden leads the search for the missing hiker; an elderly woman in an assisted-living facility far away has an unexpected connection to what may have happened to the hiker. It sounds like a crazy story, but somehow, it all makes sense. The chapters alternate from the missing hiker’s journal entries (which made the novel more interesting, in my opinion), with the various search members, fellow hikers, tipsters, and family members. While it could be a hot mess, the author brilliantly balances the beauty of the AT with the harrowing experience of the lost hiker and the efforts to find her. It’s a well-plotted book that kept my interest.

Thanks to the author, NetGalley, and Simon & Schuster for the eARC, and the opportunity to read and review this novel.

Forty two year old Valerie Gillis has gone missing in the Maine woods in the Appalachian Trail. Beverly, the Maine State Game Warden, leads the search. Meanwhile, Lena, a 76 year old bird watcher in Connecticut, is doing a little online sleuthing with her mysterious internet friend. As the search drags on with no progress the situation becomes more dire. Will they find Valerie alive? How did she get lost?

Heartwood can be described as a literary wilderness suspense novel. We get chapters from the perspectives of Valerie via poetic letters to her mother, Beverly, and Lena. Interviews, witness statements, and other news excerpts are included as well. This helps the reader move fast through the narrative.

The descriptions of the Maine wilderness and the Appalachian Trail are done really well. Those parts are immersive and interesting.as are the details of how the search is organized and undertaken. Valerie's letters add a vagueness to her situation. Not only does the reader wonder what has happened or how she ended up in the situation but also the potential outcome. Valerie's state of mind is the focus.

Heartwood is not a traditional suspense novel but you will hold your breath along with everyone who is doing their best to bring her home. There are parts where the suspense is overshadowed though as we get insights into Beverly and Lena's personal relationships with family. It is an overall theme for the novel. I did find it a bit much after a while and some parts of that are confusing as they're written in a poetically vague way. I also found the poetic style from Valerie's letters to extend to the other characters inner thoughts when they previously hadn't been written that way.

I wanted to question some things about Valerie's actions during her disappearance but that's probably for a different kind of novel. Things are laid out for multiple theories but it's not enough. I question why they are mentioned as Valerie's letters do a good enough job on their own.

I breezed through Heartwood. I love the setting and the story is written in a way to make you care about finding Valerie. I think many readers will enjoy this literary novel.

3.5 stars

Thank you @simonandschuster #partner for the ecopy of this book!

I have been on an Appalachian Trail kick lately and this one was the exact vibe I was hoping for! In this book there is a hiker that goes missing only a short 200 miles from the end. Everyone knows that people that hike that trail are searching for something within themselves and have to dig deep to get it done. Valerie is no different. She writes letters to her mom along the way so the reader gets glimpses into her mindset during her hike. In addition there is another POV from an armchair investigator (an older birdwatcher) that comes up with her own theories of Valerie’s disappearance. It seems like there are definitely some more sinister things at play and it’s a race against time to find her before it’s too late!

I love books about hiking, being in the woods, and missing people so this book had immediately sucked me in from the get go. The mystery and allure behind the Appalachian Trail gets me every time. I truly was intrigued thinking about all the different characters one would meet on the trail like Valerie did. I know a lot of people do this hike alone, but being a solo female like Valerie really added to the creepiness of this story! The setting was definitely a vibe of its own. I personally loved it! I wouldn’t consider this book a thriller, it’s definitely more of a suspenseful mystery. In the end, I thought it was very satisfying how this story came together and of course need to go buy a copy because I am obsessed with this cover!

This started off so well. I love an epistolary book; add in solitary survival and you've got a winner. But around the 2/3 mark this got really boring. Lena's chapters got longer and she was the least interesting character. Lena was the weak link of the story. Otherwise, Gaige's writing is very good and mostly engaging. Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC

Very suspenseful read. Valerie disappears from the Appalachian Trail while on the last few hundred miles of her journey. The usual questions: where did she go? Did something happen to her? An all out manhunt ensues. There were a few sections of the book that dragged for me, but the suspense kept me going. The ending was not as I had expected. At all.
Thank you @Netgalley and @Simon&Schuster for the opportunity to read this ARC review.

I struggled with this novel. The split narrative made it harder to connect to the characters. The characters never developed, and I was left unsatisfied with some of the fascbook's parts. Missing persons and mysteries are usuallyinating to me. I loved the idea of the Amissing Appalachian Trailhiker. Someone else will love and appreciate this book in a way I ccan't

This bored me, but that is, I think, mostly a me problem, not a book problem. Survival stories aren’t my thing, mostly. The split narratives here also didn’t work for me: I never got enough of the characters; they all felt wooden.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advance copy.

A beautiful, page turning, wilderness suspense mystery. Valerie is a nurse drained from working during Covid and needs a break from her life and decides to hike the Appalachian Trail. She goes missing and Lt Bev is the warden in Maine whose job it is to find her. Chapters alternate between Lt. Bev and the search progress and investigation and letters that Valerie writes in her journal to her mother that updates you on what’s happened to her in the days she’s gone missing. We also meet Lena who is a woman in an assisted living who is estranged from her daughter and who is engaged in online discussions with a man about the case. The writing especially the nature writing is beautiful. There are so many layers to each character that get explored and how the author weaves all of the story lines together at the end is amazing. I couldn’t stop turning pages to see what happened to Valerie and find out if she would be found. I loved this one!

This is a compelling mystery that brings readers deep into the woods of Maine. The narrative shifts compellingly between a lost hiker, the game warden trying to find her, and an elderly woman untangling her own past. It moves at a good pace.

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for providing a DRC in exchange for an honest review.

4.75 out of 5 stars

My goodness. This book had me on all fronts - my fascination with the Appalachian Trail, my history in Maine, my deep love of forests and nature, and mother-daughter relationships.

We get to know Valerie, an AT hiker who went missing in the North Woods, through letters she writes to her mother. Lieutenant Bev with the Maine Warden Service, is nearing the end of her bittersweet career - one where she started as one of two women in the Maine Warden Service, one where many people thought she could not - and she has a lot of missing hiker searches under her belt. She is certain they'll find Valerie quickly.

There are update posts from the Wardens with information about Valerie, as well as a plea for anyone who might know anything to reach out to the tip line.

There are excerpts of Warden Cody Ouellette interviewing Valerie's trail bestie/brother, Santo, who had to leave the hike early for a family emergency.

There are tips from the tip line about how people like to insert themselves into investigations to air their bigotries and conspiracy theories, which they think are helpful but only take up space.

Then you have Lena - a seventy-six-year-old loner in a wheelchair who resides at Cedarfield - an assisted living facility in Connecticut who spends her days foraging, despairing her admirer, Warren, and talking online to a man she knows only as /u/TerribleSilence, who lives in Bethel, Maine, and is a fellow forager.

She learns of the missing hiker through /u/TerribleSilence, and for a terrifying moment, she thinks it could be her estranged daughter, Christine. She soon learns the name of the missing hiker, though. Still, she's already made an emotional connection and investment in the investigation, and she hounds /u/TerribleSilence for details, as he says he might go join the search party.

There are some real gems of quotes in this book, and there are other sentences that felt like the author was trying to create some deep, philosophical quotes but didn't quite hit the mark. However, the emotional connections that the characters make with each other is quite intense. Santo and Cody end up close enough that when Santo is going through a tough phase while a lot of people blame him for Valerie's disappearance, he reaches out to Cody outside of interviews. There are moments that I cried for Santo, and parts where his conversations with Cody had me laughing out loud.

Then there is the juxtaposition of Valerie's view of her mother, Janet, and Lena's account of her always-strained relationship with her daughter, Christine. I am reminded of a quote from the original The Crow movie: "Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children."

(Okay, okay... this is actually from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackery, but I've never read that, so...)

Valerie seems to have two views of her mother in her mind: the awe, love, and obsession a child has for their mother, and the adult understanding that her mother is human. Her deep, precious love for her mother comes through in the letters she writes as she wonders if she is ever going to be rescued.

Lena, meanwhile, looks back on how her own personality might not have been setup for motherhood, but she loved her daughter. She just didn't know how to "mother." She was a scientist, and when her husband died, she went deeper into an analytical job of mothering - keeping track of Christine's every growth. When Christina runs off with a man five years her senior when she was 18, she tells her mother that her love is poison.

My heart broke for Lena because we can only be who we can be, even as parents, and we are human, and all the things we think we're doing right might be wrong and all the things we think would be wrong might end up having been what the child needed. Oh, how I cried.

These two sides of motherhood is further dissected and compared against Lt. Bev's decision to not marry and have kids, and her memories of her own mother, who has dementia, compared to the memories her two younger sisters have of their mother.

I could not put this book down. It is not often that I start a book when I am in bed for the night and then tear through a third of it before forcing myself to turn off the Kindle and get some damn sleep. Then I had homework to do the next day and if homework were personified, I would have given it some serious side-eye and judgmental faces for taking me away from the book.

Awww. My biggest issue with this book is that I am not going to get more of Lt. Bev and the crew in more mysteries. This was such a great book.

This work follows three women, and I enjoyed each of their POVs equally. There were times when I felt like Lena's POV was a little too detailed, and I do think the work would have been stronger if her sections were trimmed down. It also includes first person excerpts written as letters, search updates posted online by authorities, transcripts of interviews, team assignment summaries, tip emails, and more. I really liked this multimedia approach as it added a well-rounded feel to the work and avoided info-dumping. It also allowed the release of information at a balanced speed to keep the work moving forward.

While a mystery is at the center of this work, there's not much tension relating to it until near the end. While folks looking for a more intense read may not prefer this, I enjoyed the slower, more character-driven feel of this one. The author also incorporated the setting wonderfully, and I enjoyed learning plenty about the hiking culture surrounding the Appalachian Trail.

If you're looking for a quieter, character-driven mystery with older protagonists, then you'll probably enjoy this one. My thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for allowing me to read this work, which will be published April 1, 2025. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Clever, suspenseful, with well-developed characters. Recommended.



Review copy provided by publisher.

Extremely engaging, enjoyable read. Some personal aspects of individual characters were over-dramatized to the point of unrealistic, in the midst of a very realistic, dramatic story. Other than those shortcomings, this was a fun read and will be strongly recommended to a wide audience.

A terrific read! The setting for the novel was certainly different. The Maine woods and the wardens who patrol them were a fresh topic for me as well, as I expect it will be for other readers. The slightly deranged young man who disturbs Valerie as she treks the Applachian Trail was an imagination stretch for me and not well received. The alternate storyline of the elder woman in the independent living facility added an uneeded subplot. I felt it was extraneous. Glad i was approved to read it as I am always eager to read an original novel.