Thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the chance to read and review 'Heartwood' by Amity Gaige.

This is an excellent missing person thriller that although it happens quite slowly over the period of many days keeps you wound up to know what the outcome will be.

We follow the story from multiple viewpoints and, like Stephen King's classic 'Carrie,' through various media. The main viewpoints are the missing person herself through the medium of 'letters' she's writing to her mother, the head of the search effort from whom we get a straightforward character point-of-view, transcripts of tip line phone calls and emails, a fellow hiker of the missing person through the transcript of a ranger service interview, a seemingly unconnected older woman in a care home. plus several others. They're all knitted together really well and, throughout, wild rural Maine and the Appalachian Trail are key characters in the story as well.

I noticed that the theme of parenting is very prominent - the missing woman and her mother, especially; the head ranger and her mother; the Black/Dominican hiker and his father; and the older woman in the care home and her daughter. The blurb talks about the novel being 'redemptive' and, without giving too much away, it's in these reflections on parenthood that we get to witness whatever redemption is available.

All-in-all, a gripping and engrossing story to the very last.

Added bonus, if I ever find myself on the Appalachian Trail or in the wilds of Maine I'll know a few tricks as to how to not get lost and, if I do, how to find my way back! :)

Nothing like the typical mystery/search for a missing person sort of novel, but that is the basic gist of the plot. The character development makes all the difference in this book...there are quite a few of them, but all are distinct and intertwined. A wonderful book that I couldn't put down!

This was pretty good! Some of the more technical aspects of the i kind of glossed over, but all in all it was a pretty good story. The characters were well written and engaging, the back and forth that seemed confusing at first ended up making sense. It was a good story told from multiple perspectives.

I picked this up believing it would be a survival thriller – and that it would perhaps turn into a full blown murder/crime mystery – about a missing hiker on the Appalachian Trail. I've enjoyed novels in this vein previously, like Jane Harper's Force of Nature (the second Aaron Falk novel), so I kept reading in hopes that state game warden Bev would prove to be our intrepid sleuth, or that missing AT-hiker Valerie would overcome some malicious foe in the Maine woods in a heroic battle for survival. And while those elements aren't entirely missing from "Heartwood," the author seemed much more interested in ruminating on the melancholy issues of traumatic childhoods, motherhood and loss, than telling the more heightened story I was looking for. I appreciate Amity Gaige's very clearly well-researched descriptions of the Maine wilderness. But I think I was expecting the quick, tight pacing of a mystery, with clues and motives and the tropes of a detective novel, and there were just too many disconnected POVs and detours here instead.

I read this book in close to one sitting and have been thinking about it ever since. I adored the Maine setting (I’ve read a lot of books set there recently and this was a refreshing new take on it) and was captivated by the mystery as well. I particularly loved the character of Beverly but found everyone layered and well drawn.

I am rating this two stars because I finished the book, which is why it rates that high. I read through to the end, hoping that things would all come together, but I still feel unsatisfied and that loose ends are yet to be tied.
The characters are poorly developed. Lena needed more; I see how she fits with the story, but her involvement is more of a tease that helps a plot point. Valerie is written in a way that makes it hard to know what I'm hoping her outcome will be. And Beverly, ugh, there is no need for anyone to be that wrapped up in playing the martyr, especially when nothing isn't necessary to progress the story.

“Heartwood” by Amity Gage is a missing person thriller that will keep you up all night. Like all great quests, it will bring you back changed, perhaps with a little more depth and appreciation for who and what we are.

When forty-two-year-old Valerie Gillis goes missing on the Appalachian trail, the appropriate protocols are followed. The Maine State Game Warden is called in and a search begun. We see Valerie through her journal entries to her mom. At the same time, we follow the search team, led by Lieutenant Bev, and we are periodically pulled away to spend time with seventy-six-year-old Lena who lives in a retirement home several states away.

All the characters in this novel have back stories that make them human and accessible. This is a thriller, but it is also a love story, or rather a series of love stories that intertwine and touch like the roots of a stand of trees.

I could say that “Heartwood” is a love song to the mother, but that would downplay the pulse quickening tension, the twists of plot, and the very real experience of walking the craggy and precipitous path Amity Gage has set out for us. The interplay of the wonderful cast of characters, including Maine and the Appalachian Trail, can’t be easily explained without taking away some of the experience of this book. I recommend you read it and see if you agree. Amity Gage has done it again!

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for the ARC and the opportunity to write this independent review.

If you enjoyed Liz Moore's THE GOD OF THE WOODS or Chris Whitaker's ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK, OR you just want an atmospheric novel set in the wilderness of Maine, you'll want to make sure you put this gorgeous literary thriller at the top of your TBR for 2025. Told from multiple perspectives, HEARTWOOD follows a search and rescue team in a race against time to find an experienced hiker who has mysteriously disappears on the Appalachian Trail.

Wow! I never would've normally chose a book like this, and I am so grateful to Netgalley for that exact reason. It offered me something outside of my usual choice, and it was fantastic.

This book is extremely well written, and the concept is fascinating. I had no idea people went missing on the Appalachain Trail at all, let alone the countless ways that happens (ie. getting lost due to disorientation, breaking a bone and becoming immobile where no one knows you are, falling down a mountain after trying to get higher for cell phone service).

The story is gripping. The characters are well developed and with depth. Highly recommend.

A fascinating literary thriller/survival tale. I really enjoyed the take on the mother-daughter relationship and felt especially connected to Lt. Bev's storyline. I would read a whole book of Bev! I really enjoyed reading this and did gulp it down in just a few days. I 100% would suggest people read this, especially those interested in "survival" tales with emotional weight and strong writing.

Ugh, I wanted to love this so bad! But I felt like I just slogged through most of it. Throughout the story, I felt just as lost as the hiker (and not in a good way). It was slow most of the time and so many different characters and it was just too much going on without the payoff I was hoping for in the end.

The story revolved around a missing hiker named Valerie who went missing off the AT in Maine. I feel like the main character was moreso Lt. Bev who was the state game warden charged with the task of the search. Throughout the book, there are interviews with potential "suspects" and journal entries of Valerie, and also a random lady named Lena who you really don't know has a connection to this search for most of the book. Throughout the book, there were themes of love and loss and motherhood. And then a small but weird take on a government conspiracy/mental illness storyline with a kid named Daniel that just didn't flesh out well for me. The book did start picking up around the 65-70% mark. but that's partially due to me wanting to just finish it haha. I did appreciate the ending though.

I WILL SAY - I wanted to read this because I'm obsessed with Maine and the backwoods and all the dangers and mystery it entails. This part of the story did not disappoint. I loved hearing Bev's perspective on why she loves the backwoods, the descriptions of the wildness of Maine. I loved that part. Mainly why I gave the book 3 stars.

So, I'm a bit disappointed because I had such high hopes going into this book, but there was just too many storylines that dragged on for me to love it the whole way through.

Heartwood by Amity Gaige is a breath-taking novel about a search for a missing hiker on the Maine portion of the Appalachian Trail. The hiker, Valerie Gillis, is a registered nurse who is seeking solace from the trauma of caring for Covid patients. As she observes toward the end of the book, “I am crushed between empathy and impotence.” Several characters play important roles in the search for Valerie, including a Maine State Game Warden and her staff, an elderly woman in a Connecticut retirement community and an overweight man from the Bronx who hiked much of the trail with Valerie. Like Valerie, each of these characters is searching for solace in their own way. Gaige does an excellent job describing the ardors of hiking such a challenging trail (and distance) and an equally fine job portraying the rigors of searching thousands of miles of wilderness. All the major characters are well-developed and likable, and the plotting is propulsive. There is nothing not to like about Heartwood.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the eARC in exchange for this review.

What would you do if you were lost deep on the trail? Would you know how to survive? This story was very believable and it was well told. Most rangers don't want to live in the far reaches of Maine but it works for hiding from your family until a high profile missing woman's case ends up in your backyard. As the woman in the wilderness stays lost, the harder the entire team must look to make it a search instead of a recovery. Based on a true story, this book definitely makes you think twice about taking a walk in the woods

This had that element that I was looking for and enjoyed the use of the wilderness and how it created a suspenseful atmosphere. The plot had everything that I was looking for and enjoyed the overall feel going on. The characters worked overall in the story and I cared about what was happening. Amity Gaige has a strong writing style and was invested in what was happening.

This is a gripping, suspenseful and propulsive story about Valerie who gets lost on the Appalachian Trail. The head of the search party is the Maine warden, Beverly. Lieutenant Beverly organizes a search and rescue mission. There are several points of view that are shared. Valerie‘s point of view is depicted in the letters she writes to her mother during this ordeal. The search and rescue process is fascinating. As the days slip by, you can feel the increased urgency and diminishing hope that they will find Valerie alive. The threat is palpable. I strongly recommend this book.

Many thanks to NetGalley, and Simon & Schuster for the advance reader copy.

Amity Gaige has written a novel I can't assign to one genre as it combines aspects of literary fiction, thriller, and a loving homage to Maine.

Bev is a Maine State Game Warden who is assigned the task of finding 42 year old Valerie Gillis who is lost somewhere in Maine on the Appalachian Trail. Valerie is an experienced hiker who is well-liked by others who have been traveling with her. Her trail name is 'Sparrow'. Bev has an excellent record of finding lost people on the trail, at least until now. As the days go by, and all sorts of ground and air searches come up empty, the searchers are tired and at a stalemate. Usually, missing people are found within the first 48 hours. Valerie has now been missing for over a week. Can she survive the hard conditions of the Maine forest? Does she have food or shelter? There are no answers to these questions as the search progresses.

Bev is a devoted game warden. She was the first, or one of the first, female game wardens to be hired in Maine. She loves her job and it defines her life. She can't give up hope of finding Valerie. She consoles Valerie's family and husband despite having doubts about the outcome. The part of the Appalachian Trail that ends up in Maine is a very difficult challenge, The woods. are so thick with trees and brush that it is difficult for the sun to come through. Is Valerie lying somewhere injured or is there something sinister about her disappearance?

Lena is a 72 year old woman living in a Connecticut retirement community. She chats on the internet multiple times a day with a 'friend' in Maine. This interaction is the high point of her constricted life, Does her 'friend' know something about Valerie's disappearance? Who is he in real life, off the internet?

Valerie, meanwhile, is fighting for her life in an unfriendly and inhospitable environment. She spends time writing in her journal in the form of letters to her mother. The connection of Valerie to her mother is very loving and poignant. It is very different from the mothering that Bev had as a child, Bev's mother was emotionally absent and Bev's role was to parent her two younger sisters.

The narrative in Heartwood is presented in different points of view. Some POV's are interviews by the game wardens as they contact people who were with Valerie on the trail and might have some clue as to what has happened with her. Other POV's are letters from Valerie to her mother, Bev's emotions and actions as she seeks to find Valerie and end this search successfully, and Lena's contacts with a mysterious person in Maine who may have a connection to Valerie's disappearance.

I enjoyed this novel very much but was sometimes frustrated by the multiple narratives which were sometimes difficult to connect. The description of the Maine forest transfixed me, both in its beauty and darkness. I thank NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for an Advanced Review Copy of Heartwood.

Thanks so very little for making me want to cry. I miss my mom. I miss my mom everyday. If my mother made me the person I am today don’t thank her for that either.

It’s a great read. There were some portions where I deeply hoped that Valerie’s disappearance was not going they way I feared it might. And it didn’t. Still, it did end in poignancy for me. ‘Cause I miss my mom. 💧

I give lousy book reviews, sorry about that.

In this search for a lost hiker, we are introduced to the mechanics of a search and rescue mission. We see all the different points of view, from the lost hiker, to her loved ones, to those searching, right down to the general public. The author did a great job of capturing the hope of the searchers as well as their desperation as the time stretches on. We feel the sense of loss and impotence that plagues Jessica's family. We also get to see how terrible people are - those who are not involved but feel the need to project themselves into the spotlight. I have great respect for SAR personnel and don't feel that they should be criticized, and this story parallels what transpires during long searches. There were components of the story that did not seem to be related, such as Lena, but all is explained in the end. There is also a lot of practical information sprinkled into this tale that I will keep in mind. I enjoyed getting to know all of the characters, but I was transfixed by Bev and the realities of the SAR mission. This tale reads so much like a real-life account that it will leave echoes in my soul.

Thank you to NetGalley and to Simon & Schuster for the ARC of Heartwood by Amity Gaige.

Heartwood is a mystery-ish, suspense novel about a woman, Valerie, who is reported lost on the Appalachian Trail in the Maine wilderness; Valerie has a POV perspective in the novel as we read through the journals she is writing as she is lost. Bev, a Maine State Game Warden, is tasked with finding Valerie through Search and Rescue efforts. Meanwhile, Lena, an older woman in Connecticut, believes she may know more about the case as it hits the news cycle. It's a heartpounding search story to find Valerie in time.

I have been searching and searching for what feels like years to find more wilderness suspense novels that truly acknowledge the absolute beauty and danger of nature. Please note, this comment is a generalization from other stories and is not focused on the plot of Heartwood - it's just been my general frustration that has become more obvious since the man vs bear conversation took hold last year. So often a story is framed as wilderness suspense, but quickly turns into something else where the wilderness is just background in the end and it's more about literary fiction/reflections of character, or, worse, it becomes a crime novel, focused on horrible things humans do to other humans as opposed to the horrible things nature can do all on its own.

To me, this story felt like it was fighting to choose between telling a concise, gripping story about the search for Valerie and what may have happened to her/what is happening to her through her letters vs trying to create a strong interior reflection for Valerie, Bev and Lena on what it means to be lost.I felt like it couldn't choose strongly enough, or it couldn't transition well enough for me to ever feel emotionally connected to either of the three more than I cared about the mystery of whether or not they would find Valerie. I found those interior scenes and reflections to be strongly structured around motherhood-daughterhood, but while that may have been a strong emotion for each of these female characters, it didn't really line up for me as consistent across their life situations, so while it was a shared-ish experience, to me it didn't add anything to the overarching story of Valerie's disappearance.

I did really like the connections and reflections on hiking the AT during/after the pandemic, both with Valerie's reflections as a healthcare frontline worker, and with the conversations of those she met and the struggles they faced from the pandemic as well, like Santo with his antivax father. We saw the same with Lena as well when she reflected on nursing home deaths and not being able to eat with others and that enduring loneliness. I think the levels of feeling lost from that experience were more powerful than those around family that seemed to be the larger focus.

I also really liked the detail and the focus of the searching/search techniques/investigation -- I would read a whole Bev series of her finding people, I think that may have been more of what I was looking for with this book as opposed to the more literary elements -- which there is nothing wrong with and I can see why many people identify with them and feel strongly about them and their connection with the book, they just didn't land for me with this one.

When 42 year old Valerie Gillis goes missing on the Appalachian Trail in Maine, a frantic search begins. Our only perspective from Valerie herself comes from letters she writes to her mother as she tries to survive. There are other perspectives told in this book, Bev, the Maine Warden in charge of the search, and Lena, a crime obsessed bird watcher in Connecticut, and Valerie's trail hiking buddy Santo. I really liked this book in the beginning, but I felt it really slowed down and the story got away from itself in the middle and the end. I could have cut a POV or two and focused more on Valerie herself, but the setting of this book was really enjoyable and I liked learning more about AT hiking.