I admit that I approached this book with rather lukewarm expectations. I was not excited about reading about a woman disappearing in the woods, it freaks me out honestly. But i want my Netgalley score ratio high, so i decided to give it a try. And i have to admit, it was definitely worth it!
We follows the lives of three very different women, we meet Beverly, the Maine game warden, who coordinates the field research; Lena, a former teacher passionate about birdwatching who, improvises as an investigator; and then there’s Valerie, the missing woman, she is a nurse.
There is a tension, a lot of it. Come to think of it i'll suggest to book as a read for Mother's Day. It's interesting reading about the relationship between mothers and daughters is explored.
A sincere thank you to the publisher for the advance copy! The opinions expressed are all my own.

4.5 Stars

This book was truly beautifully written. It is an examination of human relationships, written through the lens of a tragedy and it was so lovely to read.

The book centers around a middle-aged woman hiker who goes missing while hiking the Appalachian trail, and the exhaustive search for her that ensues.

There was a great coordination of different points of view and different types of conversations happening, some letters, some emails and then some written prose. It flowed so well and kept me engaged in each person's part in the story.

I loved that everything comes into question in this book; Reliability of people offering perspective, expertise and ability of the search efforts and leadership, which relationships could be trusted vs tossed, and throughout it all, there is a woman coming to terms with her own mortality while clinging to her sheer will to survive.

There was a character perspective at the end that I was dying to hear just a little more about, but in the end it didn't dissuade my love for the book. Highly recommend.

Being from MA with family in Leominster it was great to read a book that takes place there and in Maine. When I was young I was an avid hiker but did not have the guts to do the AT. Good mystery and suspense. Really felt for Valerie and wanted her to be found. Towards the end we get some character development of some of the characters that seemed like extra fluff as I did not care at that point. Just wanted to know what happened to Valerie.

I zipped right through this book and will recommend it to everyone. If you like mysteries, survival stories and the AT, this book is for you. I'm checking out her older novels next. ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.

Valerie Gillis has been hiking the Appalachian trail for three months. She’s finally arrived in Maine, which consists of the longest wilderness section of the AT, when she goes missing.

Lt. Beverly is now responsible for trying to find Valerie and direct all search and rescue efforts. After days and days of searching, and coming up short, Lt. Beverly isn’t sure what to do next. She’s interviewed many people who either hiked with or saw Valerie, spoke with family members, followed up on many tips, and still no luck, but she’s not ready to give up.

This book is told through the perspective of several different characters. Their stories are told through letters, police interviews, and their own personal accounts of the Valerie Gillis search. I liked how the characters’ stories came together, and the connections between them all. Overall, I enjoyed this book.

A tender story about mothers an daughters and the beauty and danger of nature. I highly recommend this book.

This book had such a great sense of place on the Appalachian Trail. I have read a number of books that take place on this trail and Heartwood did a great job. I loved the variety of POV's in the story telling and the culmination on how it ended. The underlying concern and worry for Valerie who we assume is hopefully only lost on the trail was real.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for the gifted e-ARC.

Thank you to Simon and Schuster for my copy of HEARTWOOD.

I loved this one! The atmosphere was great, the characters were so well developed and the mystery hooked me in. I could definitely see this becoming a movie or series and it would be a big hit. I'm super excited to see where this one goes. I highly recommend this book!

Opens with what I will call surprisingly beautiful writing - not what I expecte based on the straightforward mystery synopsis. The story does feel a little cryptic at first, with a good dose of mystery introduced from the beginning. As you continue, there’s a good deal of twists and turns along the way that really keep the story moving.

This book tells the story of a hiker named Valerie Gillis aka as “Sparrow” who is lost in the woods and those who are trying to find her.

There are three female POVs explored - Valerie, the missing hiker,
These character’s different voices come through really clearly from the beginning and continue to draw you into their worlds and minds throughout the story. Valerie’s voice is explored through letters to her mother which adds a depth and uniqueness to how her character is approached. I also appreciated the deep emotion explored around Valerie’s role as a nurse during the Covid pandemic. Those stories need told and re-told.

I really enjoyed and appreciated the interviews, letters and diary entries interwoven through the book.

I grew up right off the Appalachian Trail where the setting of our story takes place. At times when they talk about the Pennsylvania part of the trail, I felt I could see it! Even better, the way the wildness of the woods in Maine is described really adds to the atmosphere of the story.

This captivating story follows a woman’s harrowing journey on the Appalachian Trail, where she finds herself lost and uncertain of her fate. The plot masterfully weaves suspense, keeping me intrigued about the circumstances leading to her predicament and the possibility of her eventual rescue. The female investigator spearheading the search and the older woman following the story from her room at a nursing home added an intriguing layer of complexity to the narrative.

Set in the woods of Maine, this book tells the tale of community that springs into action when an experienced hiker mysteriously disappears.

Engrossing.
Suspenseful.
Unputdownable.

The three words I’d use to describe my reading of this novel.

Thank you Simon Books.

This was such a great read! Surprising in all the best ways. And while it wasn’t “thrilling” it was definitely mysterious, reflective and engaging. It read like women’s fiction, as well, with lots of focus on mothers and daughters, which I loved. Fans of The God Of the Woods will enjoy I think! The twist was good and i loved all the red herrings. I would for sure read more from this author! Rounding up from 4.5.

HEARTWOOD is a beautiful feat of storytelling full of heart and, somehow, suspense. Amity Gage masterfully weaves the narratives of three women together against the kind of plot that left me bleary-eyed at three am, unable to sleep until I had finished it.

Valerie is lost on the Appalachian Trail, somewhere in the dense woods of Maine. Beverly is the warden tasked with leading the search and rescue efforts to find her. And Lena is an elderly woman hundreds of miles away in an assisted living community. Valerie has already been lost for more than 24 hours and the odds of survival are not good. This wilderness can give - but it also can take in the most relentless ways.

As the search desperately continues, we learn more about these three women who are so very different and yet so very much connect. Gage’s ability to thread them so deftly together while crafting this kind of clock-is-ticking suspense novel is remarkable.

Yes, this is a book about getting lost in the woods. But it’s also a book about mothering, about vulnerability, about our capacity for self-discovery. It’s a book about connection and its absence, about what it means to care for another human being, to be cared for by someone else. This is a book about love, I think. Love as the taproot, to quote the book itself. When I finished the book, I walked quietly across the house into my daughters’ bedroom just to see them. That’s the kind of book it is.

Not enough stars in a five-star system for this one. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy. All opinions entirely my own.

I’m not sure that anyone writes complicated dread the way that Amity Gage does. The Sea Wife was a master class of tension, and Heartwood might be even more fraught. I was gripped until the very last page, and enchanted by the descriptions of the Appalachian trail and the Maine wilderness. Loved this.

4.5 stars rounded up. Heartwood is a wonderful read. I do not typically enjoy nature / hiking stories, but this book is definitely the exception. First off, the writing is absolutely beautiful, and the characters are very well-developed. This story centers around a hiker named Valerie who has gone missing while walking the Appalachian Trail. The story is told from multiple perspectives, but primarily that of Valerie, also called Sparrow, and the Warden who is searching for her, named Bev. The book also features interview transcripts and other mixed media elements that add a lot to the story. It feels like you are watching a true story unfold in the news, and you as a reader you are very invested in the outcome. It is a quick read because it is hard to put down until you know what happens to Valerie and all the other characters you have come to love. If you enjoy missing person stories, nature stories, hiking accounts, and/or stories set in Maine, this is definitely a book for you. I highly recommend. Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for the advanced reader copy.

I wanted to like this much more than I did, once the reveal of the missing hiker plotting began I did not fully love the way it turned out. very literary suspense!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Heartwood is a beautiful written book that was much deep than expected. Hiking the Appalachian Trail has always been a dream of mine so I'm instantly drawn to books set on the trail.

The story is about trying to find a lost hiker, Valerie. Everyone thinks that she just wander off the trail and is lost in a very limited area of the Appalachian Trail. But the story is told from multiple POVs and we know that Valerie didn't leave the trail on her own. She followed someone off. I really enjoyed the slow burn of figuring out who Valerie left with and how it connected in with everyone else.

I really loved how motherhood played such an important role in the story. The mother child relationship with vital to each of the characters. Valerie writing letters to her mother as she slowly loses herself to starvation. Lt. Bev who was dealing with her emotions of her mother dying and their tremulous relationship. Lena coming to the realization why her daughter stopped contact and trying to repair their fractured relationship. It was honestly the stories of motherhood were what made me truly love this story.

Overall Heartwood was a really good read and I can't recommend it enough.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing me with a review copy in exchange for my honest thoughts.

In Heartwood, three women contemplate and grapple with their life circumstances and their relationships with their mothers or as a mother, each of which has an element of loss. Lena has lost her daughter over past turmoil in their relationship, Bev has lost her mother to dementia, and Valerie is literally lost in the woods.

The circumstances of this story are really intriguing and I enjoyed the setting in backcountry Maine and on the Appalachian Trail and learning about them both. I did enjoy reading the book, which at times was quite suspenseful as we follow the search for Valerie. But I found myself much more interested in Bev's story line and voice than Valerie or Lena's, and sometimes I would get the story lines and everyone's relationships with their mother's confused. I did like how the story lines came together at the end, although it did seem like Valerie and Lena should have met.

I would recommend this book to someone who enjoys literary fiction, descriptions of the natural environment, and exploring relationships with an element of suspense.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and Net Galley for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Definitely liked this one, but not sure if I overhyped it or what. Fell a little flat. I found myself getting bored by the end.

Heartwood was a Read with Jenna book club pick, which lived up to the hype. I wanted to keep reading late into the night…this book was phenomenal! This novel blew me away by the author’s literary writing. Heartwood is more than a mystery of a woman missing from a hiking trail, it was atmospheric and filled with beautiful descriptive language that made me see, hear and feel everything in the story. This will be one of my favorites for 2025!