Description

Selected as a Read With Jenna Today Show Book Club pick, Heartwood is an enthralling thriller that Jenna Bush Hager describes as a book you simply “will not stop reading” once you’ve opened it. Acclaimed Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jennifer Egan praises it as “a riveting wilderness suspense novel by a novelist at the height of her powers.”

Set in the deepest forests of Maine along the Appalachian Trail, the story begins when experienced hiker Valerie Gillis suddenly vanishes—still two hundred miles away from completing her trek. As Valerie fights to survive alone in the harsh wilderness, she captures her innermost hopes, fears, and memories in fragmented, poetic letters addressed to her mother.

Leading the pressing and urgent search for Valerie is Beverly, a steadfast Maine State Game Warden determined to unravel the mystery of her disappearance. Meanwhile, in a quiet retirement community in Connecticut, Lena—a keen-eyed seventy-six-year-old birdwatcher—becomes an unexpected amateur detective from afar. As the perspectives of these intertwined lives unfold, intriguing new revelations suggest Valerie’s disappearance might not have been accidental.

Described by Megan Majumdar, New York Times bestselling author of A Burning, as a “gem of a thousand facets—suspenseful, transporting, tender, and ultimately soul-mending,” Heartwood captures readers not just through its intense exploration of a missing hiker’s desperate struggle, but also by vividly illuminating each character’s personal discoveries and emotional journey. At its heart, the novel thoughtfully contemplates how easily we can become lost—whether literally or emotionally—and highlights how, eventually, we find our way back.

Richly crafted, deeply emotional, and gripping until the final page, Heartwood is a profound, elegantly-written narrative of resilience, redemption, and humanity.