A rescue team in Maine, headed by Maine state warden Beverly, is racing against the clock to find a missing 42 year old novice hiker, Valerie. The story is told through multiple POVs including Beverly, Valerie’s hiking buddy Santos, Valerie herself (through letters she writes during her time missing), as well as Lena, an elderly women in CT who is closely following the case. Between all of these viewpoints the story of Valerie’s hike and life emerges as the pieces of the puzzle about her disappearance begin to fit together.

I didn’t really know what to expect when I went into this one but I ended up loving it. It’s a bit of Strayed’s Wild but in thriller form. Each character has a parental/child relationship that gets fleshed out, but also this book is about caretakers in all forms: Valerie is a nurse right after COVID and writes letters to her mother, Beverly is the caretaker of the hikers, Santos has issues with his father and Lena is struggling with the estrangement of her daughter. I love the depth of each character which makes me hesitate to call it a thriller, but there is the element of the race against time to find Valerie in time. I listened to a little less than half of this one and the audio was the perfect pace and speed for this genre crossing book.

4.5 stars

Thank you to S&S and NetGalley for the ARC to review

Heartwood by amity gauge, Valerie is a 42 year-old nurse who went missing while walking the Appalachian Trail in Maine. For over 1000 miles she had a trail partner named Santos who had to leave due to his dad‘s untimely death and although she wanted to give up she kept going. When she didn’t meet her husband at their proposed time he raised the alarm and now the Maine forestry parkwardens led by Beverly Miller is trying to find her. A couple of states away 73 year-old Lana is online talking to her friend on a forging website when he tells her about the 42 year-old missing nurse who was hiking the trail and instantly Lana Belize it is her daughter and although she will be wrong about who it is she will still be pivotal to finding the lost woman not to mention she will also find something she has been yearning for for years and didn’t know it. This book whether it be Valerie Lana or Lieutenant Beverly, on the surface this looks like a simple case of a missing woman but as you peel back the layers it is about so much more. this book is so well written and captivating I found it hard to put down and although there are no big reveals or got you moments it is still a book that will leave you thinking about it days later.#NetGalley, #TheBlindReviewer, #MyHonestReview, #AmityGauge, #Heartwood,

Gripping and suspenseful until the very end.

When 42 year old Valerie Gillis, trail name Sparrow, goes missing in the Maine woods while hiking the Appalachian Trail, a massive search effort is launched to find her. This fractured, multifaceted story unfolds from a host of points of view as the days stretch on and the clock continues to tick. As search efforts go from days into weeks, it becomes less and less likely that Valerie will be found alive. Follow Valerie as she strives to keep her heart beating and make it to rescue as well as the wardens and other interested parties in her search as they strive to do the impossible.

Heartwood was such a gripping read. I was immediately drawn into this story, hoping and praying just like many of the characters involved that Valerie would be found alive. The author's inspiration was obvious. As a true crime fan, I knew very quickly that this story was inspired by Gerry Largay. This meant my reading of this tale was colored by this knowledge and honestly made it that much more important that I finish the book as soon as possible and find out if Valerie's story had a different ending than Gerry's.

At first I was a little confused as to how all the characters and different POVs intertwined, especially Lena. As I continued, however, I began to put the pieces together and the individual points of view began to make more and more sense as a cohesive story. I feel that Ms. Gaige masterfully wove all these different viewpoints together and that the varied formats of the chapters (journal entries, interviews, and more) made for a very diverse and interesting read.

While not quite the thriller I thought this would be, I was nonetheless glad that I had read this novel.

This has been a common theme in a few books I've read lately. Woman is going through some internal or external crisis and goes on a solo hike to think thinks over. Then proceeds to get lost. In this case, Valerie is a nurse recovering from the emotional toll of the COVID pandemic and decides to start planning this trip to get away. She's an experienced hiker, so when she doesn't show up at the meeting point with her husband, he starts to get worried. We hear Valerie's inner dialog throughout the book, and she also narrates letters she writes to her mother, offering intimate insights into her internal struggles and the profound bond they share.​ Her journey takes a perilous turn when she strays from the path and becomes lost in the dense wilderness.​

The author masterfully intertwines suspense with profound explorations of human relationships and resilience.

The novel is told through 2 other perspectives besides Valerie's. Maine State Game Warden Beverly assumes the daunting task of leading the search and rescue mission, her determination and expertise highlighting the challenges of navigating the treacherous terrain. Meanwhile, Lena, a 76-year-old resident of a Connecticut retirement community, becomes an unexpected participant in the search, her involvement adding depth and intrigue to the unfolding drama. She has researched the area throughly and believes that something supernatural is going on, which adds some extra curiosity to Valerie's predicament.

Gaige's prose is both eloquent and immersive, capturing the raw beauty and inherent dangers of the natural world. The way she weaves together various viewpoints and timelines, creates a rich tapestry that keeps readers engaged and invested in the outcome. The novel's exploration of mother-daughter relationships is particularly resonant, adding emotional weight to the suspenseful plot.​

The ending comes as a complete surprise and it was a great journey getting there!

If you read this, keep a box of tissues handy because this story will destroy you first and then repair you. What do you do when the world becomes too much for your heart to handle?

Valerie Gillis is a forty-two-year-old nurse in need of healing and reset after pandemic traumas. She decides to take on the challenge of hiking the Appalachian trail, making wonderful new friends and life-changing decisions along the way. And then, shortly before reaching her destination, she vanishes.

Lieutenant Bev is the Maine State Game Warden assigned to lead the ground search for Valerie, still fighting to prove herself after thirty years as one of few women in her line of work.

Lena, an elderly wheelchair-bound woman living in a retirement community becomes obsessed with the case of this missing woman who is so similar to her own estranged daughter.

This is such a beautiful story, from Valerie’s letters written with love to her mother while she hopes for rescue, to Beverly’s devotion in caring for her community. It’s very much an exploration of the complexities of mother-daughter relationships and the powerful emotions contained within. How do you let go of the idealized relationship you’ve wished for?

Thank you so much to Simon and Schuster and Netgalley!

Heartwood tells the story of a woman lost on the Appalachian Trail, in the Maine wilderness, through the eyes of three different women. Valerie, is the lost hiker, who tells her story through journal entries addressed to her mother, Lt Bev is the no-nonsense warden in charge of the search, and Lena is a woman in an assisted living facility in Connecticut, whose role only becomes clear as the story plays out. We also hear from Valerie's hiking buddy, Santo, through his interview with the warden service.

Valerie doesn't immediately tell us what has happened to her, so we're left to wonder at exactly what (or who?) let to her going off the trail. I was completely engrossed through all the different narratives, and desperate to know both what happened and whether the search team would find her. The tension ramps up as the search drags on and Valerie grows weaker. I loved the format and found the story really compelling. There's a lot of exploration of relationships, especially mother-daughter ones, and loneliness throughout all three women's stories. While I was rooting for Valerie to be found, I found both Lt Bev and Lena to be the most compelling characters, so the structure of shifting between these viewpoints really worked for me. Recommended for anyone interested in survival stories or mysteries!

This book immediately draws you in with what happened to Valerie, a woman in her 40s who disappears on the Appalachian Trail. The book has shifting narrators between Valerie (in letters she writes to her mother), and older woman who is a scientist and has become engrossed in the news of Valerie's disappearance, and the parks warden in charge of the search for Valerie. The plot definitely moves pretty quickly, so it's an easy read. There are definitely interesting examinations of what it means to be mentally healthy in this book. I only wish the mystery lasted a bit longer. It was pretty clear to me about half way through the book what happened to Valerie, so I became a bit less interested in the chapters that were supposed to make me be suspicious of a lot of different characters. Overall, if you're interested in hiking books, or search and rescue, this is a good read.

Thank you NetGalley for the free digital ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

When I started reading this well-written story, w/just the first letter to mother, I was reeled in. I barely did another thing until I finished it.
It’s obviously a well-researched book. I find all the info about hiking the Appalachian Trail, & the human machine that kicks into action when someone goes missing, very interesting. It’s definitely more than a police procedural. It’s also a mystery w/perfect character development. I like how things are gradually revealed through various perspectives, interviews, & journaling. There’s also interesting insight into family & relationships, & how these shape each character. I really enjoyed putting all the puzzle pieces together as they were revealed. Thanks to the author & publisher for allowing me to read an advance copy via Netgalley.

📌 Summary:
Deep in the remote Maine wilderness, seasoned hiker Valerie Gillis vanishes just shy of completing the Appalachian Trail. As search efforts intensify, the story unfolds through three distinct voices: Valerie, whose fragmented, lyrical letters reveal her fight for survival; Beverly, a game warden leading the search with relentless determination; and Lena, a retired birdwatcher in Connecticut who unexpectedly becomes engrossed in the case. As their narratives intertwine, a quiet mystery emerges—not just about how Valerie disappeared, but about the internal landscapes of those left searching.

💭 My Thoughts:
Heartwood is a novel that leans more into reflection than suspense, exploring themes of isolation, resilience, and the many ways people become lost—both physically and emotionally. Stewart’s writing is undeniably beautiful, but its poetic, fractured style didn’t fully work for me. Valerie’s letters, while evocative, created a sense of distance rather than deepening my connection to her plight.

The shifting perspectives provided interesting contrasts—Beverly’s grounded determination versus Lena’s introspective curiosity—but the pacing felt uneven, and at times, the narrative meandered. While the premise had potential, I found myself more engaged in the atmosphere than the actual story.

Ultimately, Heartwood wasn’t a bad read, just not entirely my style. If you enjoy literary fiction with meditative prose and layered character studies, this might be a better fit for you. A solid three-star read.

A character driven novel about a search and rescue on the Appalachian Trail. This was a slow burn, told from multiple perspectives, actually too many perspectives in my opinion. A couple of the perspectives didn't really add much to the overall story. This is a lot about mother/daughter relationships and much of the book is taken up by people reflecting on these relationships. The details about the search and rescue process was fascinating, and the setting was beautifully described. There is definitely an audience for this book, but I found the book a little slow for my liking.

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for an advanced reader copy.

I’ve never read anything by Amity Gaige before but idea behind this story captured my attention as I had a couple of friends who used to talk about hiking the Appalachian Trail. Told from multiple POVs, Heartwood is the story of a woman who goes missing while hiking the trail and the search for her. This is definitely a non-traditional thriller but still quite gripping, and I loved the wildness descriptions. Thanks so much to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me access to an advanced copy of Heartwood.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/heartwood-amity-gaige/1146399497?ean=9781668063606&bvnotificationId=a122afee-0f3a-11f0-8bea-0efac8be9935&bvmessageType=REVIEW_APPROVED&bvrecipientDomain=gmail.com#review/341841182

What a book! I am entranced by the Appalachian Trail and those that decide to hike it (or at least try).
This story is about Valerie, a forty-two year old nurse, who has set out to walk the trail alone. The book starts out with a letter that she writes to her mother from the trail. Valerie is lost. She was supposed to meet her husband at the meet up point two days before.

The search for Valerie is headed up by Lt. Bev of the Warden Service of Maine. The hunt for Valerie is very personal for her. She's a woman in charge in a "man's world". Giving up is not something she will do when it comes to trying to rescue a hiker.

Then there's Lena. She lives in a senior facility and is in a wheel chair. She doesn't belong in that world, either. She just wants to be left alone. However, she just may have the answer to the question of where Valerie is.

This was a really good book. You get bits of all of these women's lives, the changes that overtake them throughout the story. You get their hearts, their spirits, and their drive. I couldn't stop reading this, or read fast enough. Awesome story!

Thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the e-book. All thoughts are my own.

Captivating read. You won't want to put this down until you find out whether Valerie will be rescued from her ill-fated hike of the Appalachian Trail. Interspersed with her reflections while lost in the woods are the perspectives of others concerned with her fate. These include Lt. Bev, the game warden in charge of the rescue operation, and Lena, a lonely older woman who see shades of her daughter in Valerie.

The Appalachian Trail--specifically, the part that runs through Maine--feels like its own character in the story. Between the rich descriptions of the backwoods surrounding the trail and the stories from Valerie's months-long adventure, I felt like I was experiencing the woods alongside Valerie and Bev.

Ultimately, this is a story of perseverance for each of the three women through whom the story is told. It's a story of mothers and daughter, one focused on forgiveness, acceptance, and love. And it manages to be all these things without being cloying.

Highly recommend!

Scenic, savory, and suspenseful... I was up well past my bedtime. What an open and honest love letter to nature and self. Told in different points of view through multiple formats, I stepped off the trail and got lost in the pages, only to emerge once the last word was read. Impressive.

A riveting, suspenseful drama focusing on three separate woman-one lost while hiking, the detective charged with rescuing her and a bystander that has a gravitational need to assist in the search. While still with an overall wilderness survival search and rescue plot, there is an underlying, empowering theme the mother/daughter relationship dynamic. I remained intrigued and admired how the three main characters tribulations were interwoven and connected. This would make for a great book-club read and discussion.

Literally, heartwood is “the older harder nonliving central wood of trees that is usually darker, denser, less permeable, and more durable than the surrounding sapwood” according to Merriam-Webster. When Appalachian Trail hiker Valerie goes missing, she and the women searching for her find their own figurative heartwood through interconnected stories of mothers and daughters. Valerie’s storyline is told in a series of letters she writes to her mother while she’s lost. I’m a total sucker for outdoor adventure and survival and loved this book. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The book reads like a thriller but is so much more nuanced. I loved the little communities of people portrayed- the hikers, the searchers, Lena and her friends at the senior home. All of them are seeking something, lost in some way, but find fellowship with their fellow travelers. These stories within the story were so compelling- I couldn’t put it down. Perfect pacing, no notes.

Heartwood by Amity Paige (Simon & Schuster, 1 April 2025) is about the search for Valerie Gillis, a fortyish nurse who decides to hike the Appalachian Trail and disappears near the end in Maine, the most rugged part of the trail. Lieutenant Beverly Miller is the Maine game warden organizing the search and rescue teams, including volunteers and K-9s.
Told from multiple points of view, the story is hard to follow sometimes, as the connection between some of the narrators is not clear. While waiting to be found, Valerie writes a journal about her experience, directing her notes to her mother and reflecting upon their relationship. Beverly has the greater part of the narration as she describes the daily search plans and the attempts to gain more information about Valerie to try to understand where and how she might have gotten off the trail. Then a 76-year-old wheelchair-bound nature enthusiast named Lena Kucharski in an assisted living facility in Connecticut writes about her failed relationship with her daughter and her uneasiness living among so many people. Her online friendship with a survivalist is her primary distraction, which turns out to be unexpectedly helpful. She has no apparent link to either Beverly or Valerie.

The hiker who walked with Valerie most of the way, Ruben Serrano, gets almost as much space as Lena does, and transcripts of interviews with family and friends form chapters. Notes from other hikers who met Valerie along the trail and from the public saying the caller knows where Valerie is or that they saw her yesterday, no doubt similar to those received during a real-life search, break up the longer sections.

I cannot easily categorize this book. It shows up on NetGalley in the Mystery and Thriller section. I suppose it can be called a low-key thriller, perhaps suspense is a better term. It can also be categorized as women’s fiction, since the three main characters are women at turning points in their lives.

The gradual increase in tension in the action is restrained but noticeable. I found the book propulsive, despite its disorderly flow, and insightful in its examination of individual relationships with people and with nature and how well an individual balances those needs with their own needs.

Readers who like nature-focused mysteries or search and rescue stories or find the Appalachian Trail fascinating should consider this book. In some ways it reminds me of The Left-Handed Twin by Thomas Perry, in which its protagonist is pursued through the wilderness of Maine.

Starred review from Booklist.

I picked this one up recently and flew through it within a week. I was immediately sucked into this story of a lost hiker on the Appalachian Trail and those who are helping find her. What initially felt like a lost hiker mystery turns into a bit of a character study of the three women involved: Valerie, the missing hiker, Bev, the warden leading her search party, and Lena, an elderly arm-chair detective who is following the case.

I wasn't sure how all their stories would converge, but really enjoyed the adventure along the way. I saw that this one was selected as one of #jennasbookclub and I think it'll make for a great book club discussion. At the heart of the story, it is about women finding themselves, whether that's through doing a solo backpacking trip, reconnecting with an estranged family member or putting all your energy into helping someone else. There's also an interesting subplot about a hidden government base off the AT that I kind of wanted a bit more of.

Do I have some unanswered questions? Sure.

But was I entertained? Totally.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free digital ARC. This was not at all what I expected. Yes, there’s a missing hiker and the search for her is at the core of the narrative, but this isn’t really a mystery or thriller. It’s about three women - Valerie, the missing hiker; Bev, the Maine Warden leading the search; and Lena, an elderly woman in Connecticut who is invested in the search. It’s about who they are, what formed them, and how they navigate through the world. It’s not the kind of character study I would ordinarily pick up, but it’s well-written and engaging, and I was invested in the outcome from the beginning.

I didn't understand the title until I was almost finished with the book.
Good main character; I rooted for her.
Good scene setting; I felt like I was in the woods.

The chapters did go back and forth between Valerie, the missing woman, and Bev, the park warden, and Lena, an older woman in a senior community.

It kept me guessing.

It also made me realize how arduous Vev's line of work could be.

Finally, there were several mother-daughter relationships compared.

This book kept me reading.