A NATIONAL BESTSELLER
A READ WITH JENNA TODAY SHOW BOOK CLUB PICK!
“You will open this book and you will not stop reading.” —Jenna Bush Hager
“A riveting wilderness suspense novel by a novelist at the height of her powers” (Jennifer Egan, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Candy House), Heartwood takes you on a gripping journey as a search and rescue team race against time when an experienced hiker mysteriously disappears on the Appalachian Trail in Maine.
In the heart of the Maine woods, an experienced Appalachian Trail hiker goes missing. She is forty-two-year-old Valerie Gillis, who has vanished 200 miles from her final destination. Alone in the wilderness, Valerie pours her thoughts into fractured, poetic letters to her mother as she battles the elements and struggles to keep hoping.
At the heart of the investigation is Beverly, the determined Maine State Game Warden tasked with finding Valerie, who leads the search on the ground. Meanwhile, Lena, a seventy-six-year-old birdwatcher in a Connecticut retirement community, becomes an unexpected armchair detective. Roving between these compelling narratives, a puzzle emerges, intensifying the frantic search, as Valerie’s disappearance may not be accidental.
Heartwood is a “gem of a thousand facets—suspenseful, transporting, tender, and ultimately soul-mending,” (Megan Majumdar, New York Times bestselling author of A Burning) that tells the story of a lost hiker’s odyssey and is a moving rendering of each character’s interior journey. The mystery inspires larger questions about the many ways in which we get lost, and how we are found. At its core, Heartwood is a redemptive novel, written with both enormous literary ambition and love.
"[T]he best thriller of 2025 . . . A knock-out of a book, perfect for fans of Liz Moore’s God of the Woods."
—THE BOSTON GLOBE
"A novelistic cousin to Strayed’s best-selling 2012 memoir of tackling the Pacific Crest Trail after her mother’s death, it’s the story of three woodsy women each lost in her own wilderness, and the gnarled roots between mothers and daughters."
—NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
“Gaige’s ability to introduce suspense and build it continuously, page after page, is astonishing…. [A] complex, thrilling work.”
—MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE
“A terrifically moving and tense thriller…genius.”
—THE WASHINGTON POST
"Satisfying... Ms. Gaige’s restrained style and psychological acuity ensure that Heartwood never takes the obvious road."
—WALL STREET JOURNAL
"A crackling adventure story, a meditation on the fraught human connection to nature, and a subtle examination of the rocky relationships between mothers and daughters that shape the lives of its women characters, the novel tightens its grip as it moves toward uncovering its central mysteries."
—BOOKLIST, Starred Review
“A winning portrait of a woman, and community, in peril.”
—KIRKUS REVIEWS
“Unputdownable.”
—REAL SIMPLE
"Multifaceted characters and poetic prose enhance Gaige’s tender meditations on aging and mother-daughter relationships."
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
