I am a bit late in reviewing but this book was amazing and it completely blew me away! A slow burn filled with immersive characters and a fantastic plot and intrigue!

A beautiful cover. A great book for end of summer / fall book as it is a fun summer mystery / light thriller. If you have ever been to a sleep away summer camp, this book will bring a lot of nostalgia. This book has you guessing, but your guessing will never be right as you flip through the pages. The different narrators and stories split up through the years were confusing at first, but made the book in the end.

I was completely transported to the Adirondack Mountains in 1975. There are a lot of characters and POV. But, I felt they all became more interesting as the book went along. This is creative and engaging writing. A book has not captivated me like this for awhile. Liz Moore certainly has my attention.

This book is by far in my top 5 of all time. I cannot get the characters off my mind. The writing was so good! I was afraid that I would not be able to keep track of the multiple characters in the book but it was so interesting that I didn't have that problem at all. I am now reading Long Bright RIver because I cannot get enough of Liz Moore's writing.

If I was asked to rate this book before 50% it would've been low. I admit I was not feeling it as the plot was slower and there were too many characters who blended together for me to remember who was who but as the story progressed it did get increasingly more interesting and I was ultimately rooting for some of the characters by the end.

This definitely will not work for most thriller/mystery fans as it reads more fiction but if you are looking for a character driven book or a slower family drama read this works for that.

The ending was good. I was expecting a bigger twist based on other reviews. I'm am looking forward to more from the author!

Thank you to the publisher for the advanced copy!

Sensational, in more ways than one!
When a camper disappears from her summer camp grounds, the tension begins and never lets up. It appears to be a repeat performance as the camper's brother disappeared years earlier.
The writing is so compelling. The story touches on so many angles including the class struggles, the haves and have-nots. The characters are so well drawn, and the suspense kept me on tenterhooks. I could not put this book down. The narrative was so well-constructed.
Great read!

This one took me a long time to read, mostly because of my own life happenings. I did feel that it moved slow, but the story and writing was still great and worth the read. There was a lot going on as far as characters and timeline, but it wasn’t difficult to follow, especially with the dates and names at the top of each chapter. If you like fast-paced suspense, this might not be your absolutely favorite; but, if you like a good, well-written mystery, you will be golden.

This was not a thriller in my opinion, but a literary mystery. The characters were well developed and the plot was intriguing. I enjoyed this more than Long Bright River, the authors previous book. Going in knowing what to expect, that this would not read as a thriller helped my enjoyment of this story. My heart breaks for Alice. Loved the multiple points of views and the strong women characters. The mystery was engaging.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advance reader copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. What a great thriller!! After two teens from the same family go missing years apart, the search is on for the cause. The story expertly weaves the 2 situations together and the reader has to turn the pages quickly to uncover the mystery. 5 amazing stars for Liz Moore

This literary slow burn suspense from the former podcast guest and the author of Long Bright River is one of my favorite books of the year so far! The story is set in the mid-1970’s at an outdoors-focused summer camp in the Adirondack mountains of New York that’s owned by the wealthy Van Laar family. The story opens when Barbara Van Laar, the daughter of the camp owners who is at Camp Emerson as a camper, disappears from her bunk in the middle of the night. And, over a decade earlier, her younger brother (Bear) had gone missing from the estate and never returned. This book is perfectly balanced between plot, character and style. You’ve got the mystery of what happened to Barbara (and her brother years ago), but, this is really a story about the Van Laar family (there’s definitely some demons there), Camp Emerson, and the people who run and attend the camp. The family ties run deep here and there’s a wealthy interlopers vs. the locals vibe running through the story. I was totally immersed in this almost 500 page book from start to finish…the Camp Emerson setting, the focus on love of the woods and the land, and these highly nuanced and well developed characters. This is the kind of mystery / suspense novel I love...one that rides on far more than the mystery / suspense of the story. Note: this is NOT a thriller...so, don't be surprised by the slower pace.

I'm apparently in the minority here, but I do not get the hype around this book. The only reason I can think of that it's so popular locally is because I live near the setting, and because Jimmy Fallon (who went to school in Albany) chose it for his book club.

It honestly felt like I read 500 pages to learn something I already knew: rich people suck. We get no real answers until about 400 pages in. This isn't so much a thriller as a generational family drama with a few red herrings. It wasn't bad by any means; I just think I had different expectations for it based on all of the reviews and publicity. I was expecting something more along the lines of Angie Kim's Miracle Creek or Happiness Falls, both of which I found much more gripping and fast paced while still acting as a searing commentary on family, identity, and race. This was just a bit too slow of a burn for me, and there were too many characters to really develop any sort of connection to them, despite the book's nearly 500 pages.

tl;dr- didn't love it, didn't hate it, just had different expectations and feel it's been a bit over-hyped

Also, thanks to NetGalley for the ARC, as I got to start reading it before it hit the shelves and didn't have to wait in a long line of library holds!

Absolutely lives up to the hype. Liz Moore is an incredibly gifted writer. She manages to keep a suspense novel tightly paced while giving each of her large cast of characters ample breathing room and space to show their many dimensions.

Super engrossing, compelling mystery that I couldn't put down. Atmospheric and lush with a lot of good characters. Highly recommend.

I love Liz Moore and her previous book. Something about this one just wasn't doing it for me. It may admittedly be the topic itself, but it just seems like Long Bright River was so much better. However, I'd gladly recommend the book to anyone who is a fan of Moore's and a mystery book.

Liz Moore's latest is as unsettling as it is beautifully written. When Barbara, a young camper goes missing, not unlike her brother 14 years before her, the whole community reels from it. There are three distinct story lines that intersect: the camp. counselors, and campers, the wealthy families who own/are friends with the owners of the camp, and the town that surrounds it. I found the characters from the community to be most intriguing, but the entire story is riveting. The connections from one group of characters to the other make it murky, impossible to tell who can be trusted, and heartbreaking. A moving thriller with a lot of tension and a bit of hope.

Many thanks to Penguin Group Riverhead Books for the advanced reader's copy of this book in exchange for my honest feedback.

"𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘤.... [𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥] 𝘤𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘎𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘬 𝘨𝘰𝘥 𝘗𝘢𝘯: 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘰𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘰𝘥𝘴. 𝘏𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘬 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦, 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘴. 𝘛𝘰 𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘤, 𝘴𝘢𝘪𝘥 𝘛.𝘑., 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘮𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵. 𝘛𝘰 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘺 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘮 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥."

𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗚𝗢𝗗 𝗢𝗙 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗪𝗢𝗢𝗗𝗦 by Liz Moore is my kind of book. A slow burn, literary, character-driven novel about two siblings who disappear 14 years apart, it's set at a summer camp with complicated class dynamics, and has rich people behaving badly and tons of family dysfunction.

This isn't a short read but I couldn't put it down. It's so atmospheric - I loved how the woods almost become a character (both the audio and ebook come with a PDF map of the camp). The narrator did a tremendous job narrating the large cast, and each new POV added another layer to the story. There were some great twists, and resolution of the mysteries totally surprised me.

If you're a fan of complex storytelling and beautiful writing that will keep you guessing, pick this one up. You won't be disappointed.

4.5 stars

Thanks to PRH Audio and Riverhead Books for the copies to review.

The God of the Woods is the story of two siblings disappearing, over a decade apart. The Van Laar family has money and power, but none of it helps to find their lost children. This book is narrated by several points of view and timelines, but the author made a good job for the reader to know when everything is happening. This has the perfect amount of mystery and plot twists. I was very pleased with the ending and loved the explanation of the name of the book. I don't want to get much away to avoid spoilers, just know this is very worth the read. Perfect end of summer vibes.

The hype is so real. I absolutely could not get enough of this one – another five-star #read from Liz Moore. This one is SO, SO GOOD – you will not be able to put it down. Mystery meets family drama meets crime thriller meets a powerful story about the sheer force and – at times – deadly beauty and power of nature. You simply MUST #read this one. There are a lot of points of view, but I personally love that format, and I truly enjoyed each and every character’s point of view. This is the quintessential, perfect #summer #mystery.

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August 1975. Camp Emerson is a summer camp frequented by the upper echelon children of New Yorkers and the like. A sprawling camp with an emphasis on survival tactics, Camp Emerson is owned by the mysterious and obscenely wealthy Van Laar banking family, who lives on an estate on the grounds, all of which is located in the beautiful but brutal wilderness of the Adirondak Mountains. The family, haunted by the tragic disappearance of their beloved son, Bear, years before, wakes up at the start of the #novel to a new and unbearable truth: their only other child, Barbara, a first-year teenage camper at Camp Emerson did not wake up in her bunk. She is missing.

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As the events unfold and suspects are parsed through, the key players emerge: Barbara’s best-friend and bunkmate, an escaped killer on the loose, two young men – both blue collar and white – with a penchant for young girls, a grieving and desperate mother who has now lost both of her children, a seemingly impassive family of millionaires with an undying devotion and protectiveness of their land, business, and legacy, a camp counselor with a knack for picking the wrong men, and a female detective, rare in the 1970s, desperate to find the truth.

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Read this now. Just do it.

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The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
Liz Moore takes us to the Adirondacks in a summer camp set in the 1970s where the daughter of the camp owners, the wealthy Van Laar family, has gone missing. Ironically, their son went missing years before and the case was never truly solved.

What we loved :
—multiple POVs
—spanning time periods in the 1950/1960s and mid 1970s
—short, bitey chapters that push you forward quickly
—a brooding mystery humming beneath the soil of everyday camp life
— all ages (from young campers to grandfathers) were believable and authentic
—wrong turns that pay off in the end
— giving the reader the credit to be smart enough to follow multiple mysteries and multiple POVs

This was our first novel by Liz Moore and it will not be our last. This was a masterful telling of multiple mysteries and many points of view that all weave together to make sense and form a beautiful cohesive story. A missing person mystery set in the summer camp we can all picture. Wealthy, dysfunctional family drama (that is not overly dramatic!) that makes your own seem tame. There were so many sad elements to this story and yet it never felt heavy-handed or melodramatic. Enigmatic but interesting characters with just the right amounts of backstory revealed at just the right moments. And a rookie, highly intelligent investigator trying to piece it all together. Well-written and transportive this book gives you all the feels, while letting you continue to do your own thinking.

The very end of the book left us slightly underwhelmed but on reflection, Jill thinks the very end was a type of coda — and thought it would make for a very compelling on-screen experience (someone please confirm that @sony has made a deal with her!). Kerry admits that she didn’t see the ending coming and is still trying to decide if she agrees with it. Either way, we are heading straight to our next Liz Moore book. This one lived up to the hype. 4.75 stars

Loved this propulsive story about a 13-year old girl from a wealthy family who disappears from summer camp in the 1970’s.

This is a richly layered novel that bounces seamlessly between time periods and characters and breaks down secrets, societal expecations, and sexism in a compelling and mysterious way that made me cling to every page.