Heartwood by Amity Gaige is a beautifully written dramatic story of love, healing, survival and self acceptance. It is part literary fiction and part suspenseful mystery/thriller. Set in 2022, the after effects of the pandemic are featured, but the pandemic itself is not.

The story is told from 3 unique female characters points of view and revolves around a missing hiker in the dense Maine forest off the Appalachian Trail in 2022. Valerie, the lost hiker, is a nurse on a leave of absence, attempting to heal after the horrors of the pandemic. “But we were only given two options - being a hero falling apart.” Lieutenant Bev, the first female forest warden, underestimated for her entire career, is in charge of the search and rescue. Her arc features a journey of self-acceptance that forces her to forgive her estranged mother who never accepted her. Lena is a retired, disabled, intellect who became a recluse during the pandemic and is coming to terms with her part in her estrangement from her daughter. The women’s lives become intertwined in the dramatic search for Valerie.

I found the writing style to be engrossing. A few of the descriptions were so sensory they stopped me in my tracks: “the tomatoes…are absolutely pregnant with red this summer”. I was expecting more of a thriller, but once I recalibrated, I came to enjoy and appreciate the novel. 4/5⭐️

A huge thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for an advanced copy. All opinions are my own.

Forty two year-old Valerie Gillis has grown weary from life, after being a nurse during the COVID pandemic. Looking to find herself, she hikes the Appalachian Trail and finds a second family amongst the other hikers. One day however, she doesn’t show up to a planned check in with her husband along the trail and it’s discovered nobody knows where Valerie is- she has vanished. Who is responsible? Her husband ? A random person? Or has Valerie become injured and is unable to continue the trek?

I loved this book. It’s a story that doesn’t fit within one category, it’s a slow burn thriller, but also much more than that.

Told through three very different points of view- the lead of the search and rescue team, Valerie herself, and an elderly birdwatcher in a retirement community, Heartwood tells the story of how the past affects one’s future, how hard it sometimes is to move on, and how connected everyone is, without even knowing it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Valerie Gillis is a nurse who has gone missing on the Appalachian Trail. As search teams are gathered to try to locate her in the dense woods of Maine, many stories are shared about Valerie's character of giving. Valerie is known to her "tramily" (those who hike the AT) as "Sparrow".
The novel is told from many POVs, but mainly from Bev Miller (the park warden leading the search and rescue mission), Lena ( a 76 year old handicapped senior), and Valerie herself (in writing a journal to her mother). As the rescue mission days drag on with little clues, will it become a rescue or a recovery??

It was very hard to put this book down. It touches on so many different things: the relationship between mothers and daughters, the human spirit when pushed to its limits, the need for someone to escape the rat race for awhile, and the bond between people and nature. FANTASTIC!

Thank you Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for the eARC.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: 👀Suspense
Recommend:✅

“Heartwood” is a suspense perfection if you love stories that thread together different stories and mysteries. While “Heartwood" is about a woman lost in the woods, it’s really about women and motherhood how our stories intertwine and shape us.

Three different womens’ stories center “Heartwood”. Victoria is a married woman who takes on hiking the Appalachian Trail when she gets lost during her solo hike. While lost she spends her time writing letters to her mother in her journal. Bev is the ranger in charge of finding her and Lena is an elderly woman who becomes fixated on Victoria’s case and finding her. Many times with multiple POVs, I have a favorite and find myself rushing through certain chapters to get back to my favorite one. this was not that. All three were so interested and you needed all of them to put together the whole picture.

I absolutely tore through “Heartwood” and I know I’ll think about this one for a long, long time.

You’ll love this book if you love:
✅The Woods
✅Women Centered Stories
✅Missing Persons

"Heartwood" by Amity Gaige is a compelling novel that earns a solid 4-star rating. This intricately woven story is told through the perspectives of multiple narrators, each bringing a unique voice and depth to the narrative. Gaige masterfully balances the different viewpoints, ensuring that each character is fully developed and integral to the overarching plot.

The novel's strength lies in its rich character development and the emotional depth conveyed through the various narrators. Each voice is distinct, providing readers with a multifaceted view of the world Gaige has created. This storytelling technique adds layers to the narrative, making it a captivating read from start to finish.

Even the biggest stories that make the most headlines can be just a blip in the larger news cycle, and public interest can move on long before a story is resolved. The curiosity about the rest of the story and its unseen players was the germ for Amity Gaige's latest novel, Heartwood.

When Valerie Gillis doesn't meet her husband for a night off the Appalachian Trail as planned, worry quickly sets in. Hours later, her husband's worry has turned into a full-scale search in the Maine woods surrounding that northern part of the trail. In charge of the search is Lt. Bev, a career ranger whose expertise is only matched by her tenacity. Despite that and her fleet of experienced searchers and enthusiastic volunteers, she's not sure she hasn't met her match in the search for Valerie. One of Valerie's old trail partners, Santos, provides some insight about the missing woman's experience and level of preparedness, but no amount of protein bars can make up for the fickle weather, at turns cool and rainy and hot and dry as the days become weeks. Meanwhile, at a retirement home three hundred miles away, an elderly woman named Lena strikes up an odd friendship online that could help her figure out the location of the missing hiker that reminds her of her estranged daughter.

In an author's note, Gaige writes the seed of an idea that became Heartwood came from the 2013 disappearance of another hiker on the AT, though fiction differs from real life dramatically in most ways but some of the bare facts of that incident. This isn't, then, ripped from the headlines like some episode of a police procedural, but more like an imagined postmortem on what happens behind the scenes. It's sensitively done, something that can be tricky to do when a subject could so easily lend itself to dramatics.

That doesn't mean that easy potential for dramatics is ignored. Gaige wisely lets her characters feel the pull of someone else's disaster, especially Lena, whose life in the senior living center has shrunk to a claustrophobic extent and for whom Valerie's disappearance represents both distraction and the opportunity to play armchair detective. Bev, meanwhile, has to either sift through useless tips or battle accusations her team isn't doing enough even as every one of them has been pushed to the breaking point. The wounds of the COVID-19 pandemic also can't be escaped; it's Valerie's experience as a nurse in a hard-hit area that drove her to take to the trail in the first place. These elements of real life give credence to the story, making it feel that we, too, are behind the scenes of headline-making news.

Valerie may be the focus of the search, and the story, but her voice is the least heard within the pages of Heartwood. What we hear from Valerie is in the form of letters to her mother, which we learn are in fact written in a notebook from her pack to keep herself occupied and sane during her long isolation. Rather, this is a story about Bev, worried not about her career potentially coming to a close or her difficult mother's last days but whether she missed any signs that could point to the missing hiker before her chances of survival grow too dim. It's about the friendships you find upon the trail, and how a hiking self may or may not reflect the person someone is in society. It's about finding kinship in people we might never have met were it not for the particular place (or cyberspace) that brought us together.

This is a strength in Heartwood. The novel has a focus and it rarely wavers from it. Although some aspects might feel familiar for readers of last year's The God of the Woods (someone lost in the woods, the narrative revolving around the people who knew and/or are trying to find her), this is no thriller. Nor is it a mystery, really, though there are a few elements that show up later in the narrative. Ironically, I found that particular subplot to be the weakest part of Heartwood, as if man vs nature wasn't enough conflict to keep readers reading.  

This is not a story of tricky plot devices and big reveals. Instead, it's a portrait of a search for a missing person, and how it takes a community of professionals and amateurs, friends and strangers, to locate them. No one type of strength will overcome the odds stacked against Valerie, and it's heartening to see such a rendering of what happens behind the scenes of the lost and found.

(This review will go live at https://ringreads.com/2025/04/01/heartwood-explores-questions-behind-headline/ at 3pm MDT on 1 April 2025

Thanks to NetGalley and Smon & Schuster for the eARC.

This missing person story certainly kept my interest. I loved the multi POV, especially the letters. I found myself eager to learn what was going to happen and satisfied by the conclusion. 3.75/5

Just wow! My first Amity Gaige novel but definitely not my last! This was so intense and gripping, easy to get totally involved in. And fantastic characters that kept me burning the midnight oil. I was pulling for the main character until I was flat worn out. Brilliant storytelling, big 5 stars from me.
Thank you NetGalley, Amity Gaige and Simon & Schuster for the opportunity to read and review this gem of a book.

Heartwood by Amity Gaige was great! I thought the premise was excellent and it kept my attention throughout. The writing was fresh and great pacing.

I let this book sit with me for 24 hours before writing this review hoping time would change my opinion. Sadly, it did not.

First, let me say that the amount of research Gaige did for this book impressed the bleep out of me. She is clearly one of those writers who understands the value of setting, and uses that knowledge (and beautiful writing) to make Maine come alive. I liked how she portrayed the concept of Trailamy, that is, the camaraderie that grows among hikers. I grew up playing on a section of the Appalachian Trail, but I never understood what it took to hike the entire length. This book brought that experience home.

Thematically, the book is about the complex and often dysfunctional relationships between mothers and daughters. Gaige does a great job here showing that no matter how far apart we grow, the bond forged in the uterus never completely breaks.

But all the research and beautiful descriptions in the world won't help if you can't identify with any of the characters, and I couldn't bring myself to care about any of them. Game Warden Bev came across as a sad sack, not the take-charge badass the secondary characters purported her to be, For a book where time is of the essence, she did way too much navel gazing. I understand this is a literary thriller so we're going to have more introspection, but being literary doesn't negate the need for pacing.

As for Sparrow, I found myself completely indifferent to her rescue. That's not a good thing when the key story question is whether they'll save her in time. I was sick of hearing how deeply caring she was, and how Covid burnt her out. It's no secret that medical staffs had a helluva time during the pandemic. No need to hammer it home multiple times.

The less said about Lena the better.

The secondary characters were one-dimensional as well. IMO, Gaige leaned in far too much on stereotypes. The uncooperative paramilitary types. The ultra-Beta husband. The overweight but sensitive Dominican hiker from the city. (This character especially bothered me because he mentioned being a fat Dominican <i> in every scene </i>. A person is more than their weight and race.)

Bottom line - as a study into the mother/daughter relationship, the book works great. As a thriller, not so much.

Thank you Netgalley for the advanced read in exchange for this honest review.

This book was so good!

Told from multiple points of view, with chapters in interview form, letters, and narration. Valerie is hiking the Appalachian Trail. One day she doesn’t show up at a check point where she’s supposed to meet her husband, and once they determine she’s missing, a massive search begins. We get the POV of Valerie, slowly deteriorating as she waits to be found, her food supply dwindling, and we learn about why she started her hike in the first place and how she ended up off the trail. Also POV from Lt. Bev leading the search, and Lena, a woman in a retirement community that for a while I couldn’t figure out how she was connected, BUT I noticed a clue and caught on.

This novel has mystery and suspense, not so much a thriller in my opinion.

The middle felt a little slow, and the ending felt so fast after that slower pace, but overall I really enjoyed reading it! This is out April 1. 📖

Thank you @netgalley and @simonbooks for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

I'm a sucker for a survival story, and I'm also interested in through-hiking the AT, so this book seemed like an excellent fit from the description. It was much more literary than I anticipated, in the best way. First, the narrative is driven from multiple items, such as interviews and letters, which I wasn't expecting but ending up loving. Second, it's written so beautifully. I was familiar with the story that this is inspired by and I was a bit afraid this would be a downer to read, but I ended up loving it.

Thank you NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for this ARC.

This was a really beautiful and unique survival story. It's much less a mystery or thriller as most are, I would peg this as literary fiction. In the end it's a beautiful story about humanity I feel like.

It's definitely a slow burn story and there are twists but I saw them coming early. I don't think that matters though as this was definitely a book of the journey.

I thought this was one of the better uses of COVID in book format since the pandemic too. It made sense and added well to the story.

I really loved the mixed media way of telling the story as well. The multiple POV are really unique since some are interviews, some are journals, and some are just a POV.

Overall I really enjoyed this book, I can't quite peg what didn't make it a 5 star read other than I questioned a few times if I liked it. In the end the characters were the story and were truly beautiful characters.

Nature thrillers are really having their moment lately, and while this wasn't the strongest in that genre I've read, I enjoyed it and felt a bit haunted by it especially in the second half. The storytelling alternates perspectives between three different women, including the one who is lost on the Appalachian trail, and I liked how their stories intertwined and explored themes of motherhood/daughterhood, loss, and ambition. It is a slow burn but ramps up a bit after the "twist" and then especially in the final fourth of the novel. I didn't feel quite as connected to the characters as I would have liked, but otherwise this is a solid and interesting mystery set in the mountains of Maine.

This wilderness suspense set in Maine (one of my favorite literary destinations) was so entertaining—perfect for fans of Liz Moore and Peter Heller.

Such an engaging story! The pacing is slightly errradic- but it tracks with the story- sometimes you are with Valerie who is lost in the woods and lost in her thoughts- and other times you are with the Warden who is desperately searching for the missing hiker. I love books that delve into areas I’m not familiar with and this book did just that.

Valerie is a nurse in her late 40s. Who is using a hike along the Appalachian Trail to try to figure her life out. She is attempting something bigger than she ever has before. When she doesn’t show up at a stop to meet Gregory- an all out search begins. The search is headed up by Maine’s first female Warden. A woman who fought through years of machoism to earn her rightful spot as Warden. She is a smart and dedicated nature lover who is intent on finding Valerie.

My only criticism of this book is one character who I struggled to figure out how she fit in. She had a pivotal role in the end- I just felt confused by her entrance.

This book is somewhat if a thriller, but is also a contemporary fiction that looks at underlying motivations, mother-daughter relationships and a love of nature. I really enjoyed this one!!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review. This the first book of Gaige’s that I have read and I think she’s a beautiful writer. She immersed her readers in the Appalachian Trail and the desperate search for Valerie. This would likely have been closer to a 5 star read for me, but the ending fell a little flat. I wanted more of Valerie and her reunion with her family, but instead, we got mostly Lena. It was fine, but didn’t quite measure up to the rest of the book for me. Either way, I will definitely be checking out Gaige’s backlist and keeping an eye out for whatever she writes next.

Although I read Heartwood in one setting, it didn't feel like an
unputdownable thriller. The story is about Valerie, a woman who goes missing while hiking the Appalachian Trail. Heartwood is told through multiple POVs, some of which that don't feel connected to the larger story until the very end.
While I found it fascinating to read a story with a game warden and the missing person's POV, the story itself didn't feel suspenseful or urgent to me as a reader.
Thank you to NetGalley, Simon and Schuster, and the author for this ARC.
If you love the outdoors, hiking and a missing person story you should check Heartwood out when it becomes available on April 1st.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the free e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Valerie Gillis is 42 when she disappears on the Appalachian Trail through Maine. Hikers can get delayed or lost but when she fails to meet her husband at their designated spot, it becomes clear something is wrong.

This is a well written, slow-burn, multi-POV mystery and suspense novel with likeable characters and a believable plot. The story alternates between Valerie as she documents her believed final moments and Beverly, the Maine State Game Warden who is searching for her. There is something sinister going on but I wont ruin it for you. This is a wonderful, twisty and suspenseful read!

I loved every word of this book. And, oh, the words! Beautiful language! Gaige’s prose is just fantastic. But pair that with a compelling story and original characters, and you have a literary feat. This is one of my favorite recent reads.

It’s about a forty-two-year-old woman who goes missing on her quest to hike the Appalachian Trail. With the viewpoint of several characters, the reader is drawn into a mystery, a wilderness adventure, and the gripping journeys these narratives unfurl.

My favorite character was Beverly, the Maine State Game Warden who heads the investigation of Valerie Gillis’ disappearance. Beverly’s strength alongside her vulnerability will make you root for her at every twist in the story. And the question of how an experienced hiker could vanish will make you suspect everything.

This book is one of those rare and unexpected joys the world of reading offers. Many thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for an advance review copy.