I thoroughly enjoyed this book! The structure of the book and the writing style were excellent. My favorite chapters were Valerie (Sparrow's) chapters that included beautiful letters to her Mom during the time she was lost on the Appalachian Trail. Her story of how she went missing is told slowly throughout the book, alternating perspectives with the Lieutenant leading the search, and Lena, a woman whose storyline ties in beautifully in the last part of the book. A beautifully written literary mystery!

"Here's an idea: All emotions start out as love. Later, that love is worked on by the forces of luck and suffering. Hate is just soured love. Fear is wounded love. Longing is homeless love. Love, not pain is the mother. Love is the taproot."

A solid 4.5.

I couldn’t put this down. Read it in a day and stayed up late to finish. Thanks to Netgalley for a free advanced copy in exchange for an honest review

Heartwood took my heart, literally. It is the story of a backcountry hiker who loses her way. It is a twisty tale of suspense and intrigue. It becomes an international story and one that involves the occult, theorists of all kinds, the husband, and the Game Warden Beverly tasked at the end of her career with finding Valerie. The mystery is especially intriguing because Valerie is an experienced hiker. In an interesting turn of events days after Valerie is missing, when she is considered dead, clues finally lead to what is her final resting place. Or is it? Loved this book! Thanks to #NetGalley#Heartwood#AmityGaige for the opportunity to read and review this excellent book.

Thank you Simon & Schuster for the gifted copies!

Heartwood
Amity Gaige
Publishing Date: April 1, 2025
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

➡️ Swipe for Synopsis ⬅️

This book felt unique to me. A blend of literary fiction and mystery/thriller as we follow three female main characters throughout a missing person search, but more so on a search for self discovery and acceptance.

Valerie is hiking the Appalachian trail and goes missing, Beverly is the game warden leading the search, and Lena is a retiree who has taken on the role of armchair detective. These three women don’t know each other but their lives slowly begin to intertwine.

This novel has a sense of urgency while also being introspective and reflective. It feels like a character study while also incorporating suspense and mystery. The setting on the Appalachian trail in Maine is so atmospheric. A slower paced story that kept me engaged through my investment in the lives of these three women.

This was a really good book, although it took me awhile to get into with all the different points of view. I really liked it, its made me very curious of the Appalachian Trail.

Title: Heartwood
Author: Amity Gaige
Narrated by: Justine Lupe, Alma Cuervo, Rebecca Lowman, Ali Andre Ali, Cary Hite, Helen Laser
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Length: Approximately 8 hours and 45 minutes
Source: Review Copy from Simon & Schuster Audio. Thank-you!

What is a goal that you hope to accomplish in the next ten years? I hope to get back to the Grand Canyon so that my kids can see it for the first time.

Valerie Gillis is forty-two years old and close to finishing her goal of hiking the Appalachian Trail when she goes missing in Maine. Alone and lost, she writes her thoughts down for her mother. Maine State Game Warden, Beverly, is leading the task force looking for her. Lena is a seventy-six-year-old retired woman in Connecticut that is fascinated by the disappearance. Will her armchair sleuthing help to find Valerie?

My thoughts on this novel:
• I love, love, loved the full cast audiobook recording. There were three main points of view: Valerie, Beverly, and Lena. I also loved the interviews/conversations that popped up throughout book with her hiking buddy, Santo. The voice actor really brought Santo to life! I loved his story of being a black, “fat” hiker on the Appalachian Trail. I want a book just on Santo’s adventures.

• I enjoyed the hiking aspects of the Appalachian Trail as well as the relationships between hikers on the trail.

• Valerie’s husband, Gregory, also follows along and meets Valerie at stops along the way to keep her supplied. She decides during the hike that she no longer loves Gregory and lets him know. Did Gregory have anything to do with her disappearance?

• Valerie’s trail nickname was Sparrow. I thought the trail nicknames were interesting.

• Valerie decided to go on this hike after being burned out as a nurse during the pandemic.

• I enjoyed the guitar music at the end of the audiobook.

• Over the course of the book, I grew to love Valerie, Beverly, and Lena as well-rounded characters. I like how the book looked to the future to where their lives went after this mystery.


• The pacing of this book was slow at times, it’s not a fast-running thriller, but I was intrigued and wanted to know why Valerie was lost and whether she would be found.

• This is a Read with Jenna Book.

Heartwood by Amity Gaige was an intriguing contemporary suspense audiobook set in nature with well rounded characters. The audiobook with the full cast was a great experience.

You’re no young lass, though you’re tougher than you thought you were.
Having lived in North Carolina for a few years and visiting my daughter and sister in Tennessee as I do often, I see serious hikers that come into town, those heading for the Appalachian Trail. Not little me who hikes for the day and heads home to my creature comforts. I can imagine the desire to leave routine, the demands of modern life behind to become one with nature. The charm of how people leave provisions and supplies for strangers, but it can be daunting and swallow you as much as it heals, changes you. Lt. Beverly “Bev”, the Maine State Game Warden, says from the beginning of the novel that she is in the business of finding lost people in the woods, she has been doing so for thirty years. Valerie Gillis, a 42-yr old nurse has been hiking the legendary Appalachian trail for three months, and she vanished after saying goodbye to two friends, fellow female hikers she bonded with the night before. Her husband waited a day to report her missing, as it wasn’t unusual for her to be a day late. It is a difficult part of the trail, dangerous. It is possible she stepped off the path, became disoriented and could not get her bearings, it’s just as possible she encountered another sort of danger. It is Lt. Bev’s puzzle to solve, and time is of the essence.

The reader is privy to beautiful, emotional writings from Valerie’s time on the trail to her mother. One where she admits that romantic notions of the Appalachian Trail are nothing like physical and mental reality. Will she be found alive?

Her trail brother, for a time, is Ruben “Santo” a man from the Bronx who seems like an unlikely hiker. Overweight and burdened by his own internal struggles, he seems like a gentle man but could he know more than he is letting on? We meet Lena (76) , a birdwatcher and passionate reader, living in a retirement community who has spent her life supporting the brilliance of others rather than feeding her own insatiable curiosity. A bit of an eccentric, she understands the taste of loneliness, and though Valerie is a stranger, she is pulled into the mystery and longs to find her alive. She has a bond with another online sleuth, who has actually become her best friend in many ways, both trying to figure out where Valerie may be. Try as she might to resist, the world is pulling her back in. Her own hurt from the past, her failure as a mother, haunts her but is it possible she could have a second wind at her age? So much of her life was resigned to being the support for her ‘important’ husband, raising their child while putting her own dreams on a shelf. Lt. Bev knows about the fight it takes to work in a field dominated by men, but she has had support in one, fellow warden Mike, who saw the potential in her so long ago.

All these characters are drawn together, looking to rescue one lost woman and finding out so much about themselves. It’s a beautiful tale of finding your place in the world, feeling lost, and the bond of mothers and daughters. The writing is lovely. It would make a perfect gift for any reader on Mother’s Day.

Published April 1, 2025

Simon & Schuster

✨ The Vibes ✨
A character-driven literary mystery centered around the Appalachian Trail

📖 Read if…
✨ You like books centered in nature
✨ You prefer mysteries that prioritize character over plot
✨ You’re looking for a book that will make you emotional

Heartwood has been getting a ton of praise, and it’s all deserved. It’s well-written and emotional, full of well-developed characters, and has a unique narrative structure that propels the story. That being said, it wasn’t a book for me, but I think many, many readers will fall in love with this story.

The book follows many POVs and has a sort of mixed media element, incorporating transcripts and news stories throughout. But the main focus of the novel is three women: Valerie, a hiker who has disappeared along the Appalachian Trail; Beverly, the game warden who is searching for her; and Lena, a retired birdwatcher who becomes an online detective. The book moves swiftly between each woman’s perspective, and the POVs weave together seamlessly making what could be a slow moving literary mystery a page turner.

There’s a lot of emotion in the story, as Valerie, Beverly, and Lena are each dealing with their own burdens. It doesn’t make for a light read, but it will make you think and feel, and would definitely spark conversation among book clubs.

In terms of what didn’t work for me, I’m not an outdoorsy person at all, so all of the talk about nature and the outdoors was extremely uninteresting to me. I also struggled with the mystery element of it, as while there was suspense, it didn’t feel like a true mystery. Again, these nitpicks don’t mean the book was bad by any means, it just wasn’t my cup of tea.

Heartwood is out now (and is a Read with Jenna pick!). Thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Loved this book so much. I'm drawn to books about Maine and have a long fascination with the AT as well. This wilderness thriller was the perfect combination of genres for me. Highly recommend!

Thank you to Simon & Schuster for the advanced galley of this book. I really enjoyed this book. Much more than I thought I would. I’m not a hiker. I’m not a particularly outdoorsy person, but yet the stories of the three main characters just really spoke to me. Valerie is lost along the Appalachian Trail. She’s hiking and through a series of letters that she writes to her mother we learn about her circumstances. It is so deep and personal and I just loved the letters that she wrote. Beverly is a game warden and she is the lead in the search for Valerie. We learn about her relationships with her mother, her deceased father, her coworkers, her love of her job her trailblazing role as a woman as a warden. It’s very very good. And last we learned about Lena, this older woman who is living in a assisted living or independent living facility, she has a very estranged relationship with her adult daughter. She is a bit of a loaner among the other residence. She has an online relationship with a fellow forager and nature, lover, and Her consistent belief that Valerie is alive and that she can somehow help in this search keeps her going and it’s really interesting at times I wondered where her story was going, but I really enjoyed it. I’m giving this book 4 stars. It kept my attention and I can see why others have liked it

I absolutely loved this book. It was so well-written, I felt like I was right there on the Appalachian Trail. I loved the construction of the story viewed from various perspectives. I couldn't stop reading because I had to find the connections. And Beverly, oh Beverly! You are fabulous. If I ever get lost in the woods, I hope you are on the search team. This is the first book I've read by Amity Gaige, but I will definitely be going back to find more of her work. A story of community, family, and grit. Never give up!

Lyrical. Captivating. Mysterious. Would repeat

There was something so poetic and beautiful about this simple missing person story. I felt completely immersed in Valerie’s rescue and journey. Recommend if you need a slow literary fiction mystery.

Into the Wild was one of my favorite novels growing up -- my dog-eared paperback edition traveled from my hometown to my college dorm to off-campus apartments and the like. At 35, I still have that faithful copy displayed on my bookshelf. Needless to say, I was immediately drawn to Heartwood after reading the description. Although there was nothing nefarious about Into the Wild, I felt the same desolate wilderness involved in Heartwood, which stole the show. This was truly the definition of an atmospheric novel and a must read for 2025!

Many thanks to Netgalley and publishers for providing my review copy. There's nothing like a survival story told with a full cast of characters. I was hooked from the start!

This book was everything I look for in a book - excellent writing, beautiful character crafting, and a great story. I absolutely loved how everything came together in the end and cried at the hopefulness of it all.

Oh gosh.... I really wanted to love this one.

I have been seeing so many amazing reviews! But, I feel like this was a bit of a mess. Lots of hype with writing stories around people being lost in the woods. I was honestly pretty bored.... and was wanting a lot more from this.

Also.. that ending. This book definitely had potential but it was lacking so much depth and just a let down.

Sadly, can't recommend this one :(.

2/5 stars

Thank you to Net Galley and Simon and Schuster for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
Put aside some time because you won't be able to put this down! At its heart this is a search and rescue novel about 42 year old Valerie who is lost on the Appalachian Trail 200 miles from her destination. Realizing her plight she writes letters to her mother detailing this harrowing experience as she waits for rescue.

Beverly, a Maine State Game warden is determined to find Valerie while casting suspicion on her partner who left the trail early. Even more mysterious is Lena, a retired Connecticut woman who participates in the search from her retirement home with the use of her computer. Needless to say suspicion is cast in all directions and no stone is left unturned. To give anymore detail of the search would give away the plot. This is an edge of your seat race against the clock with an ending that you definitely will not see coming! Buckle up!!

When a person disappears, people search until they find the lost person—dead or alive. When the person is never found, that’s failure. Gaige uses the search for a missing person as a metaphor for the kind of loss of connection that frequently occurs within families. These losses are just as tragic but often no one ever searches for solutions, so they end in failure. Notwithstanding these realities, Gaige’s stories do end on hopeful notes.

Gaige uses three female protagonists in her novel. Valerie Gillis is a middle-aged nurse recovering from her horrific experience during the Covid pandemic by hiking the Appalachian Trail. Lt. Beverly Miller is at the end of a successful career finding lost people in the Maine woods as part of the Warden Service. She’s single and decidedly unfeminine. Lena Kucharski is an elderly, wheelchair-bound woman living a bland existence in a Connecticut assisted living facility. She is a retired scientist with an intense interest in foraging. Each of these women has relational problems: Valerie has grown distant from her devoted spouse and seems overly dependent on her mother; Bev’s mother is in hospice down in Massachusetts, but Bev refuses to take time off from her job to visit her; and Lena is estranged from her nurse daughter.

On its surface, the plot seems to be a run-of-the-mill search and rescue story where Valerie mysteriously disappears, and Bev leads a massive search to find her. All of the usual tropes are there including the suspense of time running out, overworked volunteers, and an abundance of conspiracy theories. Yet what makes this story compelling are the relationship problems that each protagonist faces. Initially these seem unrelated to the search plot, but Gaige cleverly weaves them into it.

In addition to the three protagonist voices, Gaige exploits transcripts from a tip line, newspaper accounts and interviews to embellish her story. Likewise, she evokes the threatening nature of the Maine woods and an off-limits SERE training sight to create a dark mood.

Her three main characters are nuanced, engaging, and believable. This is definitely a book about and for women. As good as she is with female characters, Gaige seems to stumble when it comes to the men in her story. They seem stereotypical and act primarily in a servant roles. Despite his function as Valerie’s sidekick, Santo is the only male character in the novel who seems believable and interesting.

In the final analysis, Gaige succeeds in giving her readers an engaging and suspenseful experience with an exciting search and three compelling characters. She brings the three plotlines together with a satisfying and surprising conclusion. Moreover, she ends with glimpses of hopeful futures for the three women.

Thank you @simonbooks for my complimentary copy. All opinions expressed are my own.

This well-written (slow burn) story explores the complexities of human experience against the rugged backdrop of the Appalachian Trail. The narrative unfolds through three distinct perspectives, each offering a unique lens on the central mystery of Valerie Gillis, a missing hiker.

BEV, is a Maine game warden. Her perspective adds an authoritative yet empathetic voice to the unfolding drama. VALERIE, the missing hiker, is portrayed through her poignant letters to her mother, revealing her emotional struggles as a burned-out nurse during the pandemic. Through Valerie's words, readers feel her isolation, hunger, and exhaustion, which heightens the tension surrounding her disappearance. Finally, there’s LENA, an elderly birdwatcher with her own theories about what might have happened to Valerie.

One of the novel's strengths lies in its exploration of motherhood and the inner journeys of each character.
However, I felt the pacing was slow at times. While the pacing may deter some, the intricate character studies and thematic depth make it a worthwhile read for those who appreciate a thought-provoking read.

When I saw this was about the search for a missing hiker on the Appalachian Trail I knew I had to read this! I also enjoyed Gaige’s previous book, Sea Wife. Heartwood follows a cast of different characters related to the search, including the missing hiker. A mix of lit fic and mystery, this was the perfect book to read 3 weeks postpartum and kept me interested enough even when I was reading it in the middle of the night.