The God of the Woods starts out at a summer camp in the summer of 1975 when Barbara Van Laar, the daughter of the wealthy family who owns the camp and the surrounding estate, goes missing. Through three decades and eight different perspectives, Liz Moore unfurls a masterful, multi-layered mystery that explores the impact of class and privilege.

When I started out, I had a hard time keeping track of the cast of characters and how everything and everyone intersects. On the face of it, there is a lot going on, but I quickly eased into the flow and the world of Camp Emerson and the Van Laar Preserve. The character development throughout the story was very well done - I enjoyed seeing through Judyta and her struggles as she comes into her own as an investigator. Delving into Louise's background and how her story ended was particularly satisfying. Although TJ wasn't a perspective character, she was one that I found myself thinking about the most and how integral she was overall to the Van Laar children.

While I enjoyed how the mystery played out, some of the false directions felt off right away. In particular, the threads on TJ and Vic being involved nefariously, which made it less believable for me and took me out of the story a bit. I also didn't fully understand where the fear with Bear and his grandfather was meant to go and it felt slightly unresolved. However, the final turns were well built up and the ending was incredible satisfying.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a layered mystery and is willing to dive into a full cast of characters. Thank you very much to NetGalley and Riverhead Books for the advanced copy.

I received an eARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The title of this book is extremely misleading. I honestly can’t figure out how it’s supposed to make sense with the story. This book is about a girl, Barbara, who goes to summer camp and goes missing. She is the daughter of a rich family who owns the property that the camp is on, and before she was born, her brother went missing on the same land. There’s a lot going on in this book. There are a lot of red herrings and a lot of people with secrets. You have an escaped serial killer that had been in the area during her brother’s disappearance and is potentially loose in the same area now. You have a very cold father and grandfather. You have a disturbing number of older men in their 20s and 30s(?) who are having relationships with or trying to have relationships with teenage girls. This book takes place in the 70s and I guess that’s its way of trying to make the age inappropriateness OK? The missing children’s mother is like a decade younger than her husband, so it’s like a big theme in this book. We also have multiple points of view. We have flashbacks and flash forwards. This book was decent, but I had to force myself to finish it because it was just so all over the place. I figured out what happened to Barbara 50% through, so everything after that was like the author was trying to make me change my theory. I figured out a lot of the other twists probably sooner than I was supposed to so the very ending was kind of a letdown. I don’t think this book is awful. I just think it wasn’t my kind of book. I could see a lot of other people really enjoying it.

I love how this author writes familial relationships - the ones we’re born into and the ones life brings us. Especially love how she writes brothers and sisters and their loyalty, both in this book and her previous one, Long Bright River.

This one was at first hard to track, with so many characters and alternating timelines. So worth it though for the second half. It’s about a disappearance at a summer camp in the Adirondacks, and about the lengths people will go to protect family. The mystery is tightly woven and hard to guess, and the character development along the way is so well done.

Thank you to @netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy of this book.

The God of the Woods is a decades-spanning, double-layered mystery. Our story begins with a camp counselor waking to discover that one of her bunks is empty. Its occupant, a thirteen year-old girl, is missing. Barbara, the aforementioned missing girl, is not just any camper; she is the daughter of the Van Laars, the owners of the camp. Not only that, but she’s not the first child to vanish from this massive plot of land in the Adirondacks. Fourteen years ago Barbara’s brother, only eight at the time, also vanished. And he was never found. With this foundation in place, we begin moving back and forward in time, watching as investigations for both children unfold.

I’ve seen others label this book a thriller, and I allowed that description to inadvertently impact my expectations. I would not consider this a thriller; the pace is far too deliberately meandering. Instead, The God of the Woodscan more accurately be described as a mystery. The tension does build as the plot progresses but, for the most part, this is a quiet story. There is little actual action and much internal questioning and inferring.

This is the first Liz Moore novel I’ve read, and I really enjoyed her writing. The characters were interesting and varied enough in their thought patterns to keep straight, in spite of the abundance of perspective characters, almost all of them female. Moore also did a wonderful job balancing her setting in place and time against the central stories being told. Both the camp and Self-Reliance, the family mansion on the same land, are beautifully rendered and easy to visualize, as are the forests surrounding them. The year, the month, and sometimes even the day of each chapter are highlighted at the beginning, which is really helpful for readers as they try to keep track of where exactly they are in the timeline. All of the years included, from the 50s to 1961 to the summer months of 1975, felt true to the time.

I enjoyed this book, but I didn’t quite love it. One of the reasons I didn’t connect with it on an even deeper level is a very subjective one; I don’t like stories about rich people. The problems of the wealthy, their tendency to look down of the rest of the world and see the less affluent as pawns instead of people, drive me completely crazy. I also couldn’t help but compare this book a bit to one of my favorite books of 2024 so far: All the Colors of the Dark. Both of mysteries surrounding the search for missing children in the 70s. Both are big, chunky books that span decades and have expansive casts. Both are beautifully written. But All the Colors of the Dark spoke to my soul in a way that The God of the Woods couldn’t quite manage.

The God of the Woods is going to be one of the books of the summer, and I can absolutely see why. It’s a compelling mystery, and the setting being a summer camp is going to speak deeply to the nostalgia most everyone feels in varying degrees when school is out and the days get hotter. The fact that it’s largely set in the 70s will add even more to that nostalgia factor. As for the mysteries at the heart of the book, they are not easily solved. They kept my attention in spite of the slower pace of the story, and I didn’t fully guess the ending. If you’re looking for a big, meaty, nostalgic, tense mystery to sink your teeth into this summer, The God of the Woods might be exactly what you’re looking for!

Liz Moore tore apart the layers of a family tragedy and built a complex family deep within itself. At the heart of the story you have a disappearance that moves the plot. Throughout, the reader also receives views from several involved in the incident and how they came to be. This is a lot of back and forth timeline as well as viewpoints. Extremely slow burn that was well constructed. Thank you Netgalley for the advanced copy.

The God of the Woods was an intricately woven historical page turner written from many perspectives. Each story had me captivated and eager to find out how they all fit together. This is the best book I've read so far this year.

Best book I’ve read in 2024 so far.

Most often books I read that starts with a missing child usually are dark, twisted, and fast.

That’s not what between these pages.

This story is weaving back and forth between points of view, timelines, and tragic stories.

It was slow moving and compelling. I wanted to know everything the entire time I was reading. Not a single thread wasn’t tied in an interesting way.

Phenomenal. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

I enjoyed reading The God of the Woods. Recommended for mystery lovers. Characters are well defined. A lost child destroys many lives only to be repeated again with the second ‘replacement’ child. The corrupt rich attempting to get away with crime.

This novel starts at an Adirondack camp in 1975 which is owned by a wealthy banking family who live in the mansion also on the land. It's told from multiple points of view by unreliable narrators covering incidents from the 1950s, 1961, inter of 1973, and June, July and August 1975.
I thought that the characters were well-developed, although a little too much information about their back stories did slow down the book.
Camp Emerson was described well ((and the map at the beginning of the book helped).
The story centered around one camper, Barbara Van Laar, (daughter of the camp owners) who disappeared one night, which brought all of the counselors, campers, the local fire department, and ultimately the NY State crime investigators. The story also brought into play the disappearance of Barbara's brother Bear, 14 yrs earlier.
I loved the way the author merged the 2 stories, and provided both Van Laar and Hewitt (the father and daughter who run the camp) backgrounds.
The fire dept and state police did thorough searches for both Barbara, as well as Bear. The author brought in "the god of the woods -Pan- who liked to trick people; to confuse and disorient them until they lost their bearings and their minds" and creatively wove little tricks (red herrings) into the story. I liked the way she wrapped up both disappearances - clever and unexpectedly.
My only issue with the book,(and it may only be relevant to the NetGalley ARC) was that it would have helped to have the date of the chapter highlighted or in bold, to allow the reader to recognize the frame of reference that the person was referring to, because the crimes were so similar.
I received an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher, rating it 4 1/2 * and will highly recommend this book to my book clubs and library.

"The God of the Woods" by Liz Moore is a richly woven tale set in the Adirondack Mountains in 1975, starting with the disappearance of 13-year-old Barbara Van Laar from her family's summer camp. This isn't the first tragedy the Van Laar family has faced—Barbara’s older brother disappeared fourteen years ago and was never found.

Moore masterfully blends the secrets of the Van Laar family with the dynamics of the local community, creating a multi-threaded narrative that is both compelling and immersive. The characters, especially the women, are well-developed and their stories explore deep themes like motherhood, gender roles, and class. The setting is lush and vibrant, vividly bringing to life the woods surrounding Camp Emerson.

The alternating timelines between the 1950s and 1970s add depth to the story, slowly peeling back the layers of mystery and family drama. Moore's writing is beautiful and evocative, truly transporting the reader to the era and place. However, I found myself somewhat a victim of the hype. I was expecting something more literary and less focused on the mystery element.

That said, "The God of the Woods" is still a very good book. The plot is well-constructed and the short, sharp chapters increase the tension as the story unfolds. The novel’s strength lies in its character development and the way it handles complex themes with nuance and empathy. My heart shattered as the events culminated in a tragically sad and painful revelation.

While it didn’t completely match my expectations, "The God of the Woods" is an emotionally powerful read with a lot to offer. It's definitely worth checking out, especially if you appreciate richly detailed stories with well-drawn characters.

Thank you to NetGalley and Riverhead Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

In August 1975, Barbara van Laar, a camper, goes missing from Camp Emerson. This is even worse than it sounds, for two reasons: first, the Van Laars are the wealthy owners of the preserve where Camp Emerson sits, and second, they lost a son, Bear, fifteen years prior, when he, too, went missing.

Moore has written a captivating mystery with a large cast of characters, layered with issues of social class, of gender, of the duties we owe (or don’t) to our family members. Add the Adirondack setting, and summer camp intrigue, and I was hooked.

Thanks to Netgalley and Riverhead for providing an advanced copy of this in exchange for my honest opinion.

THE GOD OF THE WOODS was recommended to me a friend of mine at a literary agency. She told me this would be the book of the summer and she was 100% correct. I devoured this book…as I know our customers will.

A perfect slow burn that kept me glued to my chair. I was wary approaching this novel because crime fiction with child victims often feel particularly voyeuristic, but Moore dealt compassionately with all of her characters and, in turn, her readers.

Add this literary mystery to your beach read TBR. This book has multiple POVs- an unreliable narrator, a first of her kind state investigator and a supporting cast of characters you will wonder about as you turn the pages.

Two children from the same aristocratic family disappear in the Adirondacks- who is responsible and who is the woman haunting the woods around the summer camp?

I’d love to read another by Liz Moore when I have the chance!

My plan is to read The Bright Sword and move on to a couple of historical fiction novels that are intriguing me.

What’s next on your summer reading list?
#currentlyreading #bookreviews #bookreview #thegodofthewoods #arcreading #newbooks #bookstagram

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

When I started reading this book I was at about 20% and I thought "I really am not getting into this book." but it's a book by Liz Moore so I gave it the benefit of the doubt.

Liz Moore showed up and kicked my butt.

The end.

Booksource: Netgalley in exchange for review.

Perfect summer thriller with gothic vibes. I love love love anything to do with camp, and this exceeded my expectations. The characters were so dimensional and crafted. I loved the plot and twists that come along with it. This was so creepy and atmospheric. I recommend

Maureen Corrigan wrote that “The God of the Wood” should be “your next summer mystery,” and it should. Moore has crafted a literary suspense novel that is propulsive and immersive. NPR has compared “The God of the Wood” to Donna Tarte’s classic, “The Secret History.” The novel opens at Camp Emerson in the Adirondacks, a sought after destination for children of well-to-do New Englanders and Manhattanites. The camp, and the land on which it is situated, is owned by the Van Laars, an Albany banking family known to be “outdoorsy” but staid. The camp itself has been the province of the Hewitts, and T.J. (Tessie Jo) Hewitt, the serious and brusque director of Camp Emerson, had succeeded her father, Vic, as camp director and preserve groundskeeper in the summer of 1970 when Vic’s physical and mental infirmities could no longer be ignored.

In August of 1975, Alice Van Laar, is looking forward to a summer without Barbara “her rages, her storms, the hours she spends weeping aloud, disturbing the staff,” and prevails upon a reluctant T.J. to accept her 12-year-old daughter, Barbara, into the camp. Alice has been married to Peter Van Laar for 24 years, but he is stern, intolerant, and vicious, and Alice subsists on prescription pills generously doled out by her physician.

Barbara arrives at camp in punk attire, and stuns her shy and withdrawn bunkmate, Tracy Jewel, by befriending her. Tracy had been dumped in camp after her newly divorced father, who had a new girlfriend and a fancy rental house, declared that he did not want his daughter lying around all summer. Tracy had plans to “go unnoticed, hiding behind books whenever possible. Staying out of it. Blending in,” but she thrives under Barbara’s attention.

Barbara goes missing from camp. Her disappearance is first noticed by Louise Donnadieu, a counselor at Camp Emerson who had gone out that evening and left a counselor-in-training, Annabelle, on duty. Athletic, intelligent, and pretty, Louise had attracted the attention of John Paul. When Louise had to drop out of college, John Paul had suggested that she take a job at a summer camp owned by his godparents. John Paul represented the chance for Louise to enjoy a better life, and to rescue her younger brother from their alcoholic mother, but John Paul disappointed Louise by ignoring her while he was a guest of the Van Laars, and she enjoyed a mild flirtation with a good-looking dishwasher.

Barbara is not the first Van Laar to disappear. Her older brother, Bear, had disappeared 14 years ago, before Barbara was born. Many of the residents of the depressed town of Shattuck, which abutted the Van Laar preserve, who were trying to find Barbara had been involved in the search for Bear, including Carl Stoddard, a groundskeeper at the Preserve since 1956, who was the last person to see Bear and was the recipient of a cryptic message from the young boy. The indefatigable state trooper, Judyta Luptack, rounds out the characters whose point of view is alternated throughout the novel.

In addition to writing a tantalizing missing person mystery (with an escaped notorious murderer lurking in the woods) and an atmospheric family drama, Moore has crafted a solid social drama which reflects the strict divide between the Van Laars and their wealthy guests and the residents of Shattuck. Thank you Riverhead Books and Net Galley for an advanced copy of a novel that I will highly recommend.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Riverhead Books for gifting me a digital ARC of this wonderful book by Liz Moore. All opinions expressed in this review are my own - 5 stars!

In August 1975, a teenager camper is discovered missing from her bunk at summer camp in the Adirondack Mountains. However, Barbara is also the daughter of the family that owns the camp and this isn't the first time that a Van Laar child has gone missing. Barbara's older brother disappeared 14 years ago and has never been found, nor has their family been the same since. A panicked search begins.

This story draws you in slowly until you can't put it down. Told from multiple POV and timelines, we hear from. Louise, camp counselor,; Tracy, Barbara's bunkmate; Barbara's mother, Alice; and a young police investigator, Judyta, who was a wonderful character you'll be rooting for. This is an ambitious book but it is brilliant in execution, with multiple mysteries spanning generations. It is richly atmospheric - I live in the foothills of the Adirondacks, and loved all the local mentions, and the deep woods add another mysterious element, complete with a few ghost stories. It also delves into classism, sexism, motherhood, especially in the time periods covered in this book. The ending was pitch perfect. Highly recommended and a must read this summer!

An amazing book! I loved the sense of place this book provides—both for the setting and the time periods. The main action takes place in the summer of 1975 at a camp in the Adirondacks, long before cell phones and social media. Maybe a simpler time, but also a time when it was much easier to become lost.

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5⭐️ 𝙿𝚞𝚋𝚕𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝙳𝚊𝚢 𝚁𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚎𝚠: (Thanks to @riverheadbooks #gifted.) The hype is real! 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗚𝗢𝗗 𝗢𝗙 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗪𝗢𝗢𝗗𝗦 by Liz Moore is THE book of the summer for fans of literary mysteries or really for any fan of a well-told story. So many have already weighed in on this book that I knew it was going to be a hit for me. I was tempted to read it months ago, but held off until mid-June and am glad I did. While reading, I was surrounded by mountains, trees all around, so my setting beautifully enhanced the reading experience. Now, enough about me!⁣⁣⁣⁣
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The story opens in 1975 at Camp Emerson nestled deep in the heart of the Adirondacks. As the camp awakens, it’s quickly discovered that Barbara Van Laar is missing. Barbara isn’t your average camper. She’s the 13-year old daughter of the camp’s wealthy owners and the sister of Bear Van Laar who went missing before Barbara was even born. Bear was never found. ⁣⁣⁣⁣
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𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘎𝘰𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘰𝘰𝘥𝘴 seamlessly weaves together the stories of both these missing children, their parents and grandparents, the camp director, the rookie detective investigating Barbara’s case and much more. Though it may sound like a thriller, this book is most definitely not that. Yes, there’s a lot of mystery to the story, but it evolves in a more literary fashion. You get to know the characters deeply and the revelations come steadily, but not rapidly. Instead, through the eyes of many different players, Moore unveils not only what happened to these siblings, but how and why. Her execution was flawless. At just under 500 pages, I flew through the book and was left with a whopper of a hangover. Liz Moore is high on my auto-buy list and should be on yours, too! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⁣⁣⁣⁣
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“She explained. It 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.”