I thought that this book was a bit slow. It wasn’t the page turner that I was hoping for. There is a lot of character development which I thought deterred from building the momentum of the story. That being said it’s a good summer read on camp setting.

When Barbara Van Laar goes missing from her ritzy, upperclass summer camp, the past is brought forth again through the fresh eyes of an up and coming female investigator, Judyta Luptack, the only woman officer in the service. Coincidently, Barbara's own older brother, Bear, had disappeared years before and Barbara's absence forces Bear's closed case to be reexamined. As secrets are gradually brought to light throughout the investigation, characters discover the importance of self-advocacy and the dire consequences that can occur when they allow themselves to be pushed aside.

Engagingly written and enthralling throughout, "God of the Woods" is an analysis of relationships, family, and public status, asking the question: how far are you willing to go to preserve your public persona? And how much are you willing to go through in order to stand up for yourself? I love how it is set in the '60s and '70s, a time that presents itself without the distraction of digitized personas. Impressively, Liz Moore takes the pressures that online media bring forth and applies them to the characters in the story, emphasizing that there has always been that social pressure in the public sphere. It is a mystery that always keeps you guessing until the satisfying resolution at the end. There are some cliffhangers at the end of certain chapters, which I am not a fan of personally; if the book is good (which this one is), readers won't need cliffhangers to keep them reading. This is an original, gripping story, one that I would definitely recommend.

I received an ARC of this title from NetGalley in exchange for an impartial review.

Excellent! Great story, smartly plotted, interesting characters--all the hallmarks of a very successful literary mystery and a notable instance where multiple POV and timelines don't hinder the storytelling. Moore's sophomore effort indicates she continues to up her game!

This book might be a bit much if you're not in the mood to keep track of multiple narrators and all the time hopping, but I think the author did a really good job weaving everything together to create this slow burn mystery!

"The God of the Woods" is my favorite sort of mystery, one that seems very straightforward on the outside, but the more time you spend with it the more gnarled its paths become. A rebellious teenager goes missing from the summer camp her family owns. She is the second person to go missing from this area - her brother disappeared over a decade before. This new mystery throws the old, supposedly solved case into turmoil, and exposes some of the friction between the different classes. Is old money hiding secrets? Or are urban legends true?

I loved this book because every character was so empathetically realized, even the one that were objectively awful people. I ordinarily do not enjoy books that bounce around in terms of time period and point of view, but this one sucked me in so efficiently that I was excited for each perspective's tale. I thought I knew where this book was going; I did not. This gloomy, eerie story held such compassion for its characters; I can't wait to read Moore's other book.

Two children go missing from the same family, years apart. Are the disappearances related? What happened all those years ago and did they accuse the wrong person? Solid mystery title for any collection.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC for review.

I wish I could live forever in Liz Moore's writing. I did not want to put this down. I did not want it to end. This isn't a happy tale but it's a mesmerizing one. This is told from multiple perspectives and over multiple timelines: The daughter of a summer camp's owner goes missing from her cabin. Her younger brother also disappeared over a decade ago. You get insight into the family, whose wealth can't buy them happiness. You hear from the working-class town and the detectives trying to find these missing persons. You hear from the camp's director about how her family is intertangled with the owners. Sometimes I got a bit lost in whose perspective I was reading but overall, I loved this book!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy.

As a fan of Long Bright River, Moore’s previous novel, I was very excited to dive into The God of the Woods. The story centers around a teenage girl who goes missing from a summer camp in the Adirondack mountains. The camp belongs to her very wealthy family, and it’s not the first time someone in her family has gone missing. The book is a slow burning mystery that focuses on the Van Laar family as well as the townspeople around them. The timeline jumps between 1950s and 1975, with multiple POVs, but they were easy enough to tell apart. I really enjoyed this one, and would recommend it.

The pacing of this book is excellent. Moore doles out teaspoons of information while rocketing around from one POV character to the next, keeping the reader on their toes through the entire story. The POV characters are chosen thoughtfully and are people she makes you want to root for, even as painful revelations surface about each of them. This is a perfect book for summer.

I couldn't wait to read Liz Moore's latest and it did not disappoint. She adeptly develops the characters, the plot, and the setting. You feel like you are back at summer camp. The narrative highlights so many of the tensions inherent in the time period - socioeconomic inequalities, misogyny, etc. The mysteries surrounding the disappearances of the Van Laar children unravel slowly, but the reader's patience is rewarded. It's a truly tragic story with some horrible characters, but there are some good folks in there, too. The young investigator Judyta Luptack is sure to be a reader favorite.

Shifting expectations of women in family and society are only two of the many issues coming under the lens of this satisfying mystery. Class and gender norms are also challenged by some of the richly drawn characters in this multi-generational saga. Even the woods are a character, able to affect the lives and fortunes of those who believe they own and control the land where they live.

Enjoyed this long, twisty mystery involving the disappearances of two children, decades apart, from the same wealthy family. The summer camp setting, peppered with the rich landowners, the local townspeople, and the camp's inhabitants, provides a varied backdrop to contrast the myriad lives brought together in the course of the tragedies. There's no shortage of family secrets or misdirection to keep readers guessing to the end. A great mystery, fascinating characters and a well plotted storyline make this a winner.

“The God of the Woods,” by Liz Moore, Riverhead Books, 496 pages, July 2, 2024.

Early morning, August 1975, Louise Donnadieu, 23, a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Barbara Van Laar, 13, is missing. Louise shares a cabin with Annabel, 17, a counselor in training. It was Annabel’s turn to be on duty the night before, but she went out after the campers went to bed.

Barbara is the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother, Peter Van Laar IV, nicknamed Bear, similarly vanished 14 years ago, never to be found. He was eight. Peter and Alice Van Laar are the parents. Alice is an alcoholic and has had mental problems since Bear’s disappearance.

As a panicked search begins, a drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Liz Moore tells the story through multiple viewpoints. T.J. Hewitt is the camp director. Investigator Judyta Luptack is a new officer involved in the search.

The novel is a good combination of a police procedural with a character study. It’s a finely wrought plot that centers on individuals searching for connection. There are bigger themes as well, including misogyny, class, substance abuse and domestic abuse. This is as good as Liz Moore’s 2020 novel “Long Bright River.”

In accordance with FTC guidelines, the advance reader's edition of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a review.

Moore’s new book is definitely a labor of love! Her plot and characters are riveting and she keeps you wanting to keep turning the pages! At close to 500 pages she will nicely wrap up everything!

Liz Moore's "The God of the Woods" transports readers to the dense forests of the Adirondacks in a gripping tale of family secrets and suspense. The novel begins in August 1975, when teenager Barbara Van Laar vanishes from her summer camp, echoing the disappearance of her older brother fourteen years earlier.

Moore expertly weaves a multi-threaded narrative, exploring the complex dynamics between the wealthy Van Laar family and their blue-collar employees. The characters are richly developed, each hiding their own motives and secrets. The atmospheric setting of the Adirondacks adds to the novel's suspense, immersing readers in the wilderness and the small-town tensions.

The pacing is well-handled, with tension building steadily through new revelations. While the number of characters and subplots can be challenging to track, the compelling mystery and satisfying resolution make it worthwhile. Moore's evocative descriptions and intricate storytelling make "The God of the Woods" a riveting read, perfect for fans of suspenseful, character-driven fiction.

The God of the Woods is a quiet mystery and police procedural. In 1961, a young boy, Bear Van Laar, from a wealthy upstate NY family goes missing on the family's land. At the time of his disappearance, Bear was an only child. The Van Laars go on to have another child, a daughter, Barbara. Fourteen years later, Barbara, Bear's teenage sister, goes missing from the their family-owned camp that sits on the same land that the family still resides, the same land from which Bear went missing. Are the disappearances over a decade apart of these two missing siblings related? The story is further complicated because a serial killer recently escaped from prison. and is known to be near the area. Is he behind Barbara's disappearance? Could he have been responsible for Bear's disappearance fourteen years ago? Is someone from the camp responsible? Are any family members culpable? A new and upcoming female detective, Judyta, is on the case. It is her first and she is in a very male-dominated line of work in 1975.

The God of the Woods is a twisty novel that demands the reader pay close attention. There are many characters and many timelines. It is a police procedural. It is a family drama. It is a mystery. This novel has many layers. I found myself reading is slower than most mystery or thrillers I read. I was engrossed in the beginning, the 2nd 1/3 of the novel was slow, but the last 1/3 made me want to keep reading.

I would suggest this for readers wanting a slower-paced police procedural or mystery. Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin Group Riverhead publishing for this ARC.

The more I read books like this, the more I'm realizing that the somewhat confusing category of "literary mystery" or "literary thriller" really hits the sweet spot for me. The God of the Woods is definitely a great entry into this category. The novel tells the story of two children (brother and sister) who disappear into the woods more than a decade apart. The two (general) timelines are followed among multiple points of view, but I didn't have difficulty following either of the stories, and I was very drawn to several of the characters. The writing is atmospheric and the relationships among characters well-drawn, all while building plot tension in a skillful way. I was left with a couple of questions at the end, but I may just have missed some details in my Kindle reading that I would have probably paged back through in the hard copy. All in all, I thought this was an excellent read and one I'll definitely be recommending.

The God of the Woods is literary mystery at its finest. The story is fast-paced and surprising, and the summer camp setting is just perfect. I can't wait for everyone to read this one!

Liz Moore has become a favorite author, even though I’ve only read three books by her. I loved Heft and Long Bright River, and now The God of the Woods. (I own The Unseen World and need to move it to the top of my TBR pile.)

I loved many things about The God of the Woods. The author jumps around in time and employs multiple points of view, but she doesn’t make us GUESS. The chapters tell us whose viewpoint we are getting and when. She weaves together the threads very skillfully, advancing the story, making the reader want more, spinning out the relationship between the characters and clues to what happened in the past and the present.

Chapter narrators include a camp counselor who dropped out of college, has a rich boyfriend who is taking advantage of her, and doesn’t know how to move forward; an insecure 12-year-old camper astonishingly befriended by the missing girl; the drug-addled mother of the missing children; an escaped serial killer; a kind man under a cloud of suspicion; and a female cop trying to make it in a man’s world. The characters are so well drawn I think I could have identified the narrators even without the labels at the beginning of each chapter.

This is not a tense, action-filled psychological thriller. This is a character study. The author has a gift for creating real people. Several times I thought "this is a bad person." And then they turned out not to be a bad person but a flawed person. Our impressions are formed by what characters say about other characters, but just like in the real world, what people say is not always the truth (or not always the whole truth).
I love the way Moore puts together words and conveys truth, as in this passage about the insecure camper: “Her father once told her casually that she was built like a plum on toothpicks, and the phrase was at once so cruel and so poetic that it clicked into place around her like a harness.” (p. 19 of the advance reader copy)

In this book, we see the super rich and the working class, and their worlds do indeed collide over and over. The author throws in casual information that really helped me as a reader understand people and family dynamics. Judyta, a middle child who never exceled at anything, is part of the “Nation’s First Class of Female State Troopers” according to a local newspaper article, and her brother begins referring to her as “The Nation’s First” instead of her name. Jokingly, affectionately, proudly – that little fact alone tells me a lot about her family.

Part mystery, part police procedural, part literary fiction – I find it hard to categorize The God of the Woods, but I loved it. I was in suspense until the end.

I read an advance reader copy of The God of the Woods from Netgalley.

A slow burn mystery that I could not put down and when I had to (curse you, work!), couldn't stop thinking about. Liz Moore deftly weaves together multiple story and timelines that kept me on the edge of my seat, even in quiet moments.