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!

Heartwood is a quiet, contemplative novel that weaves grief, identity, and history into a beautifully written narrative. Gaige’s prose is lyrical and layered, and the characters feel lived-in and real. The pace is slow at times, but the emotional depth makes it worth it. A thoughtful and moving read.

🥾 If you’re looking for a real page-turner, look no further! This is an incredible, fast-paced hunt to save a missing hiker. Thank you to @simonbooks for my #gifted ARC. This is out now and @readwithjenna’s April pick.

🥾My one problem with this book is that whenever I picked it up I could not put it down. It was so quick and compulsive and really made me want to ignore any and all responsibilities so I could keep reading. It speaks a lot to not only the plot but @amity_gaige’s incredible writing.

🥾 This is @readwithjenna’s pick this month and it absolutely deserves all the hype. It gave me The Quiet Tenant vibes— not necessarily similar content-wise but that same ‘can’t put it down’ vibe.

Books like this make me appreciate my hobby of reading over outdoor activities. Making it through a multi-day long hike is already something I can’t imagine and add being lost to this? It’s hard not to get curious about how everything will turn out, Gaige sets up a compelling mystery. I liked the multiple-POVs, Lt. Bev’s the most. I also think the amount of time Gaige took to set everything up worked out well and allowed her to explore various issues around being lost and survival in the wild. I also had no idea of all the various ways a bandana might come in handy while hiking. This one is a slow and steady burn, but I found it to be a quick read.

I was provided an ARC of this book via Netgalley all opinions are my own.

This is the harrowing story of a lost hiker, the Warden in charge of finding her, and an unseemly retiree who unbeknownst to her holds the clues to saving her. In the wake of the pandemic, Valerie has decided to tackle the Appalachian Trail, when she doesn't turn up at her scheduled check in a huge search effort kicks off to find her. She's a nurse and has gear and provisions, but Valerie is no survival expert. Lt. Beverly Miller has led countless successful searches and knows the stakes, so when they keep coming up empty, she begins to unravel. Then we have Lena, a unique woman who lives no where near the investigation, but loves a good puzzle and the outdoors. I couldn't figure out why Lena's perspective was part of the book after it was made clear she had no connection to Valerie or Bev early on, however the author does a great job tying her to the case in a really believable way.

In the author's note, Gaige indicates that part of this was inspired by the search for a real missing hiker and countless hours of research around the topic. I originally thought this was a thriller, and at one point I thought the book was going that direction, but it takes a different path. This is suspenseful but in a completely different way. I was completely invested in finding Valerie and the outcome and how the lives of all of these people were wrapped up in finding her. If I didn't know this was fictional, I would believe this was based on a real person. Having spent a lot of time in the woods as a kid and teen, it is easy to get turned around and disoriented. I thought the author did a wonderful job with the descriptions of the emotions and the descriptions of the forest. I was transported to Maine and felt like I was part of the investigation.

I really enjoyed how the author played with a more mixed media style of storytelling for this. We get a more traditional style when we are with Bev and Lena. We get a more journal entry style of chapter when we are with Valerie while she was lost. We also get interviews between Valerie's hiking partner Santo and one of the other Warden's Cody. As the story progresses we see each of the characters almost descend into madness as they each come to terms with the situation they are in and the circumstances they now find themselves in either by fate or choices they have made along the way.

I really enjoyed this. I was engaged the entire time trying to piece together how things were going to turn out and how all of the characters were tied together. This is so much more than a book about a missing hiker lost in the woods. It is so moving in so many ways, and takes you on not only an investigative journey to find Valerie but an internal journey as well.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster for my gifted eARC!

“You used to call me Sparrow.
Why Sparrow? Well, because the woods are full of sparrows, and you loved everything outdoors. Songbirds, wildflowers, wind. You could read the weather like a poem.”

Heartwood is exactly what I want from a book. It is among the likes of Wild Dark Shore, Once There Were Wolves, Betty, and Tell the Wolves I’m Home. Those types of books centered around a love and respect for nature and its power and beauty.

One of my book friends said this was an Alyssa book if there ever was one, and that warmed a spot in my soul, because yes. This book is what I seek every time I open one. A melancholy sort of book, where Mother Nature’s soul is a character in its own right. There is a mystery to solve, a backstory with trauma, there are birds, depth, soul searching, growth, motherhood. There is this version of motherhood in Heartwood that I hope by boys will remember about me - clinging to my legs, sticky fingers entwined with mine, my lips on their chubby cheeks; a deep longing in my heart and soul to smother them with love and the outdoors in hopes of helping them love nature as much as I do.

Heartwood spoke so deeply to my inner child and I fell so in love with it that I had to purchase my own copy halfway into it. I needed to hold it. Needed to press it to my chest.

I finished this book with whole body goosebumps. My throat heavy from threatening tears. I wanted to immediately read it again and immerse myself in this world that I have always wanted to experience. Appalachia. The Appalachian Trail.

I urge you to read this. There were so many passages I wanted to quote, but ultimately, I realized I would give too much of this book away in the review, so I just need you to read it and experience it and all the beauty it encompasses for yourself.

You can read the synopsis for this book, but it will not tell you that you absolutely must read it! I could not put it down and devoured it. I was completely invested in Valerie’s story. You will be too.

Forty-two year old Valerie, an experienced hiker, goes missing in the Maine woods hiking the Appalachian Trail. This story follows the search for the missing hiker from 3 different POVs plus some mixed media formats that I loved!

Originally I was having a hard time trying to figure out how all the women’s POVs related and how they would come together, but I thought the author did a great job pulling it all together. I really enjoyed their stories and was invested in each one.

Beverly is the Maine State Game Warden who is searching for Valerie. Lena is a bird watcher living in a retirement community that ends up doing some of her own research on the case. Then, we get Valerie’s experience as the story progresses with journal entries she has written.

This book was perfectly layered with an exploration of nature, finding ourselves, hiking, and survival.

An experienced thru-hiker disappears on the Appalachian Trail without a trace. A search ensues, and for almost 2 weeks, a large group of volunteers combs the area where the hiker is thought to have gone off trail. The story of her disappearance is told from 3 perspectives: the hiker, as she writes in her journal, the game warden who is leading the search, and a homebound birder who spends time online with conspiracy theorists. It took a while to understand the last one's connection to the story, but once that aha! moment happened, the pages turned themselves. As a trail runner, I loved the descriptions of the AT. The author captured the joy and fulfillment of being on the trail as well as the solitude and fear of harm. You don't have to be outdoorsy to appreciate this one, though!

Overall, this was a just fine literary suspense novel for me. I was all in with the nature descriptions. I felt like she captured the wilderness and danger here so well. I also felt the pressing need to find Valerie. There was so much pressure and tension, which could be felt as I listened. But I felt like a few of the character's POVs. were unnecessary. I am not sure the Santo character landed well, especially since he's a black man being written by a white woman. I also thought we got way too much of Lena's mind. Her storyline did not pay off in the end. I would've been fine with a novel that alternated only between Bev and Valerie. I hope it finds solid fans with the Read with Jenna audience.

When a female hiker doesn’t show up to her designated meeting spot along the Appalachian Trail, she is declared missing. What follows is an 11-day search mission, wild online conspiracy theories, and a 76-year-old birdwatcher. The whole world has a theory about what happened to Valerie, and while there are times you think you know what direction the story is heading, there were several surprises I didn’t see.

Ultimately, this is about a missing person. But I also don’t feel like that’s really the point of the book at all. It felt more like a character study of these three main characters: Valerie (the missing woman), Bev (the warden in charge of finding Valerie), and Lena (the 76-year-old birdwatcher). Of the three characters, Lena felt the most forced and I didn’t love her connection to the story at all.

In the end, I felt like the story was fine. It didn’t blow me away, and it left me a little surprised at the early attention it’s receiving. As a Read With Jenna pick, maybe I was expecting something more, but it wasn’t the kind of story that changed me in any way and I feel like I will forget about it very soon. I am curious how the others will receive it and anxiously await more reviews!