“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.

August 1975: Barbara Van Laar goes missing from summer camp. As the camp comes to a sudden halt, Barbara's family stays tucked away in their nearby summer home, Self-Reliance, to deal with the impending investigation. Now, the family is forced to revisit the disappearance of their son, Bear, 16 years earlier. But what actually happened to Bear? And why won't the Van Laars talk about him?

This story explores wealth, power, and just how far people will go to maintain their image. Nonlinear storytelling provides nuance to characters and motives, and keeps you guessing until the very end.

This was fantastic. The characters were all so well fleshed out, and the camp/woods setting was amazing. I loved the nonlinear storytelling here. The flashbacks added so much context to the present day portions of the story and moved the story forward in an interesting way. Most importantly, I didn't guess the ending and was actually surprised when I got to the big reveal.

If you are unfamiliar with Moore, her books are literary mysteries and so well done. This book is set at a summer camp in 1975 and one of the campers goes missing. Not just any camper, but Barbara Van Laar - the camp owner's daughter. It comes as worse news because Barbara's brother Bear went missing 14 years earlier.

The story flashes between the two disappearances of both Barbara and Bear. There are many character accounts from all the different timeframes, but Moore does a good job at keeping you in the know and engaged. It only took me slightly out of the story at times, but overall, it ties together nicely.

I highly recommend this book and cannot wait to read Moore's future work. (Pub date: 7/2/24)

Thank you Netgalley and Penguin Riverhead for an advanced copy of Liz Moores sophomore novel, " The God in the Woods". Her first book, " Long Bright River" stuck with me for awhile, and this one also will be on my mind for awhile. A young camper goes missing overnight from her camp with no idea what had happened. This camp has had legends and ghost stories for years, but the truth is even scarier. Every time I thought I figured this book out, Moore took it in a totally different direction and she broke my heart, confused me, disgusted me, and surprised me over and over again. Bravo to this writer.. you can tell she will be around for awhile.

A great mystery with multiple generations and so many great and rich characters. I've found myself thinking about these people a lot since I finished.

I love the way the story pulls you in to the with the characters. I was so pulled in to the story I could not put it down . It was so suspenseful all the way through to the end.

ARC provided by NetGalley.

I liked this book, and was pleasantly surprised by the ending. It was complex enough to keep my interest, especially the interaction of all the characters and the time jumps that were occurring. A slow burn, but worth it.

I don't usually read mysteries because of the deep sense of dread and the horrific things that can happen to people, so I was reading this book with that dread for the first half of this book.

This book pulls you in so that you feel entirely immersed and only want to dive in deeper. I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough but in the end I was sad it was over. I want to read it again!

I’ve yet to see a bad review of Liz Moore’s new mystery and I’m here to add my praise to the heap. The novel opens in the summer of 1975 at Camp Emerson when a counselor wakes to find one of her campers missing. This is not just any camper either. Thirteen-year-old Barbara Van Laar is the daughter of the family who owns the land the camp sits on and the sister of a boy who went missing in these same woods fourteen years previously. I was hesitant about this book because two missing children in one family is a far-fetched premise, but having really enjoyed Moore’s Long Bright River, I decided I trusted her enough to go for it—and I loved it. This book is so intricately plotted I have no idea how Moore planned it all. She takes us through multiple timelines and perspectives, slowly unraveling the story of Barbara and that of her brother Bear. As a rare reader of mysteries, I appreciated how Moore gives readers enough clues to keep guessing without it veering into puzzle book territory. I also enjoyed the detective Moore eventually introduces, but I realized while reading that I like mysteries that aren’t primarily told through the sleuth’s POV—I want the author to unfold the story for me, and Moore did that beautifully. Though I will be curious what other readers think, I really loved the ending of this book and was blown away by how every single detail snaps into place, with only one or two plot points that seemed a little too convenient. Most of all, Moore does a fantastic job of crafting her characters and developing themes. Nearly every character is multifaceted and their stories are littered with tiny details that give the entire book texture and heart. This depth of character allows Moore to explore questions of privilege, inherited wealth, motherhood, and chosen family with care and emotion. My one complaint is that towards the end Moore spells out these themes a little too obviously. I hate being explicitly told what to take away from a book, especially when an author has already done such a wonderful job developing those ideas. But these moments were brief and they didn’t get in the way of my overall enjoyment of the book. The last thing I’ll add is that I would highly recommend picking this book up in print as I think the timelines would be really difficult to follow on audio. If you love a good, truly unputdownable summer mystery, get your preorder in for The God of the Woods.

This book centers on a 13 year old Barbara. The book is based in 1975. Barbara is a camper under her counselor Louise. In order to get to the bottom of what happened Louise, Barabaras bunkmate Tracy and young detective Judyta. The narrative alternates between the 1950’s and the present 1970’s. Alice , Barbara’s mother is an alcoholic. Before Barbara her brother Bear disappeared. I found the characters to be intriguing and I found myself really wanting to know what happened to Barbara. The author focused on the disparity between the wealthy and working class and I found the end to be satisfying .

Slightly misleading title, but a good mystery with plenty of red herrings to keep you guessing until the final pieces fall into place. The characters were well drawn and the divide between the rich and not rich was clear. Enjoyed getting to know Judyta. Not clear on the dates at the beginnings of chapters, though.

A well-written and captivating literary thriller that I 100% believe is best to go into blind! There is a lot going on right from the start (many POVS and nonlinear timelines), but this set up only adds to the drama and suspense. I was immediately transported to the Upstate New York, woodsy and isolated setting as an Adirondack camp girl myself. But even if you never been to this part of NY, you will feel as though you had. With this book being about 500 pages, it is more of a slow burn than a page turner, and do not expect too many jaw dropping surprises. However, I appreciated the realistic nature of the plot, and all the layers that went into connecting the two cases. Further, Moore explored such profound themes like the prejudices against women, class divide, and motherhood that I feel so many can relate to.

Read if you like:
-Lit fiction
-Slow burns
-Missing persons cases
-Many POVs/ nonlinear timelines
-Summer camp setting
-Adirondacks

Thank you Riverhead for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really loved the plot of this book. Girl disappears from summer camp is a great set up! And then it turns out that there is much more to her story, of course! I don’t want to give spoilers but this one kept moving and kept me guessing until the very end. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.