Heartwood by Amity Gaige is one of my favorite reads of 2025 so far (out of 50+ books read year-to-date). Told from three different perspectives, this book is ostensibly about the search and rescue effort to find a woman lost in the woods of Maine near the Appalachian Trail. As each of the three main characters' stories unfold, however, we learn that this tale is about so much more: the mother-daughter dynamic. The lost hiker writes her mother letters to help keep her sanity while lost in the woods; the rescue coordinator (a female Maine Game Warden) shares memories of her mother, who is currently in hospice; and the elderly forager tries to block out the pain of her lost relationship with her daughter. Through each of these characters' memories, musings, and actions (or inactions) we learn how their mothers shaped them or how they shaped their daughters.

This book is filled to the brim with descriptions of the natural world, especially of the backcountry in Maine. It is a love letter to mothers, daughters, and naturalists everywhere. Each character was so carefully crafted that they appear fully formed, like distinct human beings that could walk right out of the pages of this story. It is a rare five-star rating for me.

Perfect for readers of Wild by Cheryl Strayed and Trailed: One Woman's Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders by Kathryn Miles.

Many thanks to the author, the publishers, and NetGalley for the chance to read and review this wonderful book.

Heartwood is a beautifully written and deeply reflective novel that blends mystery, survival, and emotional introspection in equal measure. Centered on the disappearance of Valerie Gillis, a seasoned Appalachian Trail hiker lost deep in the Maine wilderness, the story unfolds through three distinct yet gracefully interwoven perspectives: Valerie herself, writing raw, poetic letters to her mother; Beverly, the focused game warden leading the ground search; and Lena, a perceptive and unexpectedly sharp-witted retiree who turns amateur sleuth from afar.

What makes this novel stand out is not just the suspense of Valerie’s fate, but the tender, introspective nature of each character’s journey. Valerie’s chapters are lyrical and haunting, filled with vivid imagery and a sense of aching solitude. Beverly brings a grounded, procedural realism to the narrative, while Lena adds warmth and surprising insight as she pieces together clues from her quiet life in Connecticut.

The pacing is more meditative than propulsive, which may not appeal to those looking for a fast-paced thriller, but for readers willing to settle into its quieter rhythm, Heartwood offers rich emotional rewards. The mystery itself is well-crafted, but it's the novel’s exploration of grief, purpose, and the human will to survive (physically and emotionally!) that gives it lasting impact.

A thoughtful, moving novel that lingers long after the last page, Heartwood is a celebration of resilience and connection, told with grace and compassion.

I went into this book not knowing the subject at all: I literally judged a book by its cover! It did not disappoint. I was so deeply invested in this story- I enjoyed every bit. It was suspenseful but she had so much personal reflection I appreciated as well.
Great story.

This is a slow burn literary mystery, a thoughtful journey that involves Valerie, a hiker on the Appalachian trail who goes missing; Beverly, the Maine game warden who leads the search for her; and Lena, the disabled woman living in a retirement community who takes a special interest in the case and becomes an armchair detective.

But this is so much more than a lost in the woods story.

It’s an exploration of the often complicated mother-daughter relationship. I won’t ruin the story by getting into specifics but the author did a fantastic job of highlighting the inner lives and struggles of these women. I particularly enjoyed the portrayal of Beverly. Her strength and perseverance, along with the volunteers who led the search for Valerie was a highlight of the novel.

I loved the nature scenes and descriptions of the hardships of hiking the AT.

I struggled a little bit with the circumstances that surrounded Valerie’s disappearance. It didn’t ring true for me and I was frustrated with her character. There was also a side character whose presence made little sense to me.

But, still, there was a lot to enjoy here - it’s not just a physical survival story, but an emotional one as well. There’s more than one way to be lost.

LOVED the AT details. I'm a sucker for an Appalachian Trail hiking story. It always makes me want to set off on a hike and this book was no different. I also loved all the foraging details and Bev's story. Where i got bogged down was the SERE plot details and Daniel's motivation. Still, I'd recommend this book as a fast, satisfying read.

A novice hiker goes missing while traveling the Appalachian Trail, spurring a small, nearby Maine town into action.
After a few books that were pretty meh, it was nice to get into one that I felt invested in.
Thanks to #netgalley and #simonandschuster for this #arc of #heartwood in exchange for an honest review.

What an amazing book. I can totally see why this was chosen as a Read with Jenna pick. The characters are nuanced and have a depth that makes you understand them to their core. The writing has a lyrical quality to it and I found myself lulled into this world. Heartwood is a wonderful book.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

42 year old Valerie Gillis is experiencing her “Wild” moment, taking on what many would consider the impossible task of hiking the majority of the Appalachian Trail. Long repressed past memories bubbling to the surface in her adult life have presented her with the decision to take a solo trek on the trail to truly dig deep and work through her swirling emotions with the hopes of moving on to a new chapter in her life. When she suddenly disappears toward the end of her trek in Maine, Lieutenant Beverly of the Maine Game Warden department jumps in to lead the investigation to hopefully rescue Valerie. As the investigation progresses, Beverly starts to have an unexpected almost parallel experience to Valerie, addressing long held emotions of her own that come bubbling to the surface and her desperation to find Valerie transcends to a whole new level.

🌲Additional POVs are brought into the story to add to the mystery surrounding Valerie’s disappearance and the will they or won’t they find her scenario, but I actually felt that they detracted from the primary storyline and sort of muddied it. Ultimately, I found the missing hiker storyline to actually be a background storyline to the bigger topic of emotional exploration, especially from a mid-life female perspective.

🌲I thought the description of the AT and what an investigation of that magnitude would involve was fascinating. The descriptions specifically of the treacherous northern part of the trail and the statistics of the timelines in locating a missing hiker were eye opening.

🌲As I mentioned above, while this was billed as a mystery, I thought that the mysterious element to the book was a slight misdirection and that the true purpose of the book was to convey female emotional conflicts during mid-life. If I had gone into the book with this knowledge, I think I would’ve had a completely different perspective of the book. I also felt like the ending was slightly predictable.

Heartwood tells us the story of a lost hiker on the Appalachian Trial.

The author takes us on a journey of the search and rescue mission that is full of suspense with gripping characters.

You will need an entire day for this book as you will not want to put in down.

I thank NetGalley, and Simon & Schuster for the advance reader copy. My opinions are my own.

I love a good book with suspense AND lots of heart, and Heartwood checks both of those boxes in full! This stunning book will be a winner with so many friends and readers because of the depth of the story and the tense moments that keep you flipping pages!

Quick synopsis: Valerie Gillis goes missing while hiking the Appalachian Trail. We journey alongside those searching for her through interviews with her husband and another fellow hiker on the trail, the lead warden's thoughts and experiences, and most surprising of all, Lena- a 76 year old forager with the heart of an explorer but the reality of living in near seclusion in a retirement home. All of these pieces come together as each race the clock to find her.

The only critique I have was that the ending seemed extremely rushed after such a long build up, and many people's accounts don't really end up playing the part you'd think they would once the climax and solution are revealed.

All in all, a solid four star that I'd recommend to almost anyone I know!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! The structure of the book and the writing style were excellent. My favorite chapters were Valerie (Sparrow's) chapters that included beautiful letters to her Mom during the time she was lost on the Appalachian Trail. Her story of how she went missing is told slowly throughout the book, alternating perspectives with the Lieutenant leading the search, and Lena, a woman whose storyline ties in beautifully in the last part of the book. A beautifully written literary mystery!

"Here's an idea: All emotions start out as love. Later, that love is worked on by the forces of luck and suffering. Hate is just soured love. Fear is wounded love. Longing is homeless love. Love, not pain is the mother. Love is the taproot."

A solid 4.5.

I couldn’t put this down. Read it in a day and stayed up late to finish. Thanks to Netgalley for a free advanced copy in exchange for an honest review

Heartwood took my heart, literally. It is the story of a backcountry hiker who loses her way. It is a twisty tale of suspense and intrigue. It becomes an international story and one that involves the occult, theorists of all kinds, the husband, and the Game Warden Beverly tasked at the end of her career with finding Valerie. The mystery is especially intriguing because Valerie is an experienced hiker. In an interesting turn of events days after Valerie is missing, when she is considered dead, clues finally lead to what is her final resting place. Or is it? Loved this book! Thanks to #NetGalley#Heartwood#AmityGaige for the opportunity to read and review this excellent book.

Thank you Simon & Schuster for the gifted copies!

Heartwood
Amity Gaige
Publishing Date: April 1, 2025
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

➡️ Swipe for Synopsis ⬅️

This book felt unique to me. A blend of literary fiction and mystery/thriller as we follow three female main characters throughout a missing person search, but more so on a search for self discovery and acceptance.

Valerie is hiking the Appalachian trail and goes missing, Beverly is the game warden leading the search, and Lena is a retiree who has taken on the role of armchair detective. These three women don’t know each other but their lives slowly begin to intertwine.

This novel has a sense of urgency while also being introspective and reflective. It feels like a character study while also incorporating suspense and mystery. The setting on the Appalachian trail in Maine is so atmospheric. A slower paced story that kept me engaged through my investment in the lives of these three women.

This was a really good book, although it took me awhile to get into with all the different points of view. I really liked it, its made me very curious of the Appalachian Trail.

Title: Heartwood
Author: Amity Gaige
Narrated by: Justine Lupe, Alma Cuervo, Rebecca Lowman, Ali Andre Ali, Cary Hite, Helen Laser
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Length: Approximately 8 hours and 45 minutes
Source: Review Copy from Simon & Schuster Audio. Thank-you!

What is a goal that you hope to accomplish in the next ten years? I hope to get back to the Grand Canyon so that my kids can see it for the first time.

Valerie Gillis is forty-two years old and close to finishing her goal of hiking the Appalachian Trail when she goes missing in Maine. Alone and lost, she writes her thoughts down for her mother. Maine State Game Warden, Beverly, is leading the task force looking for her. Lena is a seventy-six-year-old retired woman in Connecticut that is fascinated by the disappearance. Will her armchair sleuthing help to find Valerie?

My thoughts on this novel:
• I love, love, loved the full cast audiobook recording. There were three main points of view: Valerie, Beverly, and Lena. I also loved the interviews/conversations that popped up throughout book with her hiking buddy, Santo. The voice actor really brought Santo to life! I loved his story of being a black, “fat” hiker on the Appalachian Trail. I want a book just on Santo’s adventures.

• I enjoyed the hiking aspects of the Appalachian Trail as well as the relationships between hikers on the trail.

• Valerie’s husband, Gregory, also follows along and meets Valerie at stops along the way to keep her supplied. She decides during the hike that she no longer loves Gregory and lets him know. Did Gregory have anything to do with her disappearance?

• Valerie’s trail nickname was Sparrow. I thought the trail nicknames were interesting.

• Valerie decided to go on this hike after being burned out as a nurse during the pandemic.

• I enjoyed the guitar music at the end of the audiobook.

• Over the course of the book, I grew to love Valerie, Beverly, and Lena as well-rounded characters. I like how the book looked to the future to where their lives went after this mystery.


• The pacing of this book was slow at times, it’s not a fast-running thriller, but I was intrigued and wanted to know why Valerie was lost and whether she would be found.

• This is a Read with Jenna Book.

Heartwood by Amity Gaige was an intriguing contemporary suspense audiobook set in nature with well rounded characters. The audiobook with the full cast was a great experience.

You’re no young lass, though you’re tougher than you thought you were.
Having lived in North Carolina for a few years and visiting my daughter and sister in Tennessee as I do often, I see serious hikers that come into town, those heading for the Appalachian Trail. Not little me who hikes for the day and heads home to my creature comforts. I can imagine the desire to leave routine, the demands of modern life behind to become one with nature. The charm of how people leave provisions and supplies for strangers, but it can be daunting and swallow you as much as it heals, changes you. Lt. Beverly “Bev”, the Maine State Game Warden, says from the beginning of the novel that she is in the business of finding lost people in the woods, she has been doing so for thirty years. Valerie Gillis, a 42-yr old nurse has been hiking the legendary Appalachian trail for three months, and she vanished after saying goodbye to two friends, fellow female hikers she bonded with the night before. Her husband waited a day to report her missing, as it wasn’t unusual for her to be a day late. It is a difficult part of the trail, dangerous. It is possible she stepped off the path, became disoriented and could not get her bearings, it’s just as possible she encountered another sort of danger. It is Lt. Bev’s puzzle to solve, and time is of the essence.

The reader is privy to beautiful, emotional writings from Valerie’s time on the trail to her mother. One where she admits that romantic notions of the Appalachian Trail are nothing like physical and mental reality. Will she be found alive?

Her trail brother, for a time, is Ruben “Santo” a man from the Bronx who seems like an unlikely hiker. Overweight and burdened by his own internal struggles, he seems like a gentle man but could he know more than he is letting on? We meet Lena (76) , a birdwatcher and passionate reader, living in a retirement community who has spent her life supporting the brilliance of others rather than feeding her own insatiable curiosity. A bit of an eccentric, she understands the taste of loneliness, and though Valerie is a stranger, she is pulled into the mystery and longs to find her alive. She has a bond with another online sleuth, who has actually become her best friend in many ways, both trying to figure out where Valerie may be. Try as she might to resist, the world is pulling her back in. Her own hurt from the past, her failure as a mother, haunts her but is it possible she could have a second wind at her age? So much of her life was resigned to being the support for her ‘important’ husband, raising their child while putting her own dreams on a shelf. Lt. Bev knows about the fight it takes to work in a field dominated by men, but she has had support in one, fellow warden Mike, who saw the potential in her so long ago.

All these characters are drawn together, looking to rescue one lost woman and finding out so much about themselves. It’s a beautiful tale of finding your place in the world, feeling lost, and the bond of mothers and daughters. The writing is lovely. It would make a perfect gift for any reader on Mother’s Day.

Published April 1, 2025

Simon & Schuster

✨ The Vibes ✨
A character-driven literary mystery centered around the Appalachian Trail

📖 Read if…
✨ You like books centered in nature
✨ You prefer mysteries that prioritize character over plot
✨ You’re looking for a book that will make you emotional

Heartwood has been getting a ton of praise, and it’s all deserved. It’s well-written and emotional, full of well-developed characters, and has a unique narrative structure that propels the story. That being said, it wasn’t a book for me, but I think many, many readers will fall in love with this story.

The book follows many POVs and has a sort of mixed media element, incorporating transcripts and news stories throughout. But the main focus of the novel is three women: Valerie, a hiker who has disappeared along the Appalachian Trail; Beverly, the game warden who is searching for her; and Lena, a retired birdwatcher who becomes an online detective. The book moves swiftly between each woman’s perspective, and the POVs weave together seamlessly making what could be a slow moving literary mystery a page turner.

There’s a lot of emotion in the story, as Valerie, Beverly, and Lena are each dealing with their own burdens. It doesn’t make for a light read, but it will make you think and feel, and would definitely spark conversation among book clubs.

In terms of what didn’t work for me, I’m not an outdoorsy person at all, so all of the talk about nature and the outdoors was extremely uninteresting to me. I also struggled with the mystery element of it, as while there was suspense, it didn’t feel like a true mystery. Again, these nitpicks don’t mean the book was bad by any means, it just wasn’t my cup of tea.

Heartwood is out now (and is a Read with Jenna pick!). Thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Loved this book so much. I'm drawn to books about Maine and have a long fascination with the AT as well. This wilderness thriller was the perfect combination of genres for me. Highly recommend!

Thank you to Simon & Schuster for the advanced galley of this book. I really enjoyed this book. Much more than I thought I would. I’m not a hiker. I’m not a particularly outdoorsy person, but yet the stories of the three main characters just really spoke to me. Valerie is lost along the Appalachian Trail. She’s hiking and through a series of letters that she writes to her mother we learn about her circumstances. It is so deep and personal and I just loved the letters that she wrote. Beverly is a game warden and she is the lead in the search for Valerie. We learn about her relationships with her mother, her deceased father, her coworkers, her love of her job her trailblazing role as a woman as a warden. It’s very very good. And last we learned about Lena, this older woman who is living in a assisted living or independent living facility, she has a very estranged relationship with her adult daughter. She is a bit of a loaner among the other residence. She has an online relationship with a fellow forager and nature, lover, and Her consistent belief that Valerie is alive and that she can somehow help in this search keeps her going and it’s really interesting at times I wondered where her story was going, but I really enjoyed it. I’m giving this book 4 stars. It kept my attention and I can see why others have liked it