Heartwood (A Read with Jenna Pick) by Amity Gaige

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Heartwood (A Read with Jenna Pick)

by Amity Gaige

Length 8 hours 44 minutes

Language English

Narrators Justine Lupe, Alma Cuervo, Rebecca Lowman, Ali Andre Ali, Cary Hite & Helen Laser

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Bookseller recommendation

“Wholly captivating and richly layered, Heartwood follows a missing hiker, a determined game warden, and a retired birdwatcher turned sleuth. A heartfelt story with a thriller twist, it explores motherhood, resilience, and the call of the wild.”
— Erica • Author's Note

Bookseller recommendation

“This book caused me anxiety. I laughed and I cried. It took my breath away at times. All the things a great book does. It is a beautiful story. ”
— Christi • Red Fern Booksellers

Bookseller recommendation

“While a little slow and it could use some editing around some of the secondary characters, it’s a moving story and some terrific prose. ”
— Madeline • The Living Room Bookstore & Cafe

Bookseller recommendation

“The woods can be unforgiving, and when experienced hiker Valerie Gillis vanishes on the Appalachian Trail, the search for her becomes a race against time. Heartwood is a gripping thriller with true-crime elements. Told through transcripts, messages, and poetic letters, it follows a desperate search, led by a determined game warden and an unlikely armchair detective. Suspenseful, immersive, and beautifully written—this is a must-read for adventure lovers and true-crime fans alike. ”
— Kristina • Bookshop Santa Cruz

Bookseller recommendation

“The woods can change things—for the better and the worse. Amity Gaige delivers stunning multi-narrative prose in her latest novel, Heartwood, the story of a woman who goes missing while hiking the Appalachian Trail—and the women who fight to find her. I quite literally could not put this book down. It felt like being glued to a captivating story while simultaneously solving a puzzle, in the best way possible.”
— Abby • Andover Bookstore

Summary
About the author

#71 in Bestselling Audiobooks #9 in Bestselling Mystery & Thriller Audiobooks

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.

Fiction Mystery & Thriller Fiction - Literary

Heartwood is Amity Gaige’s fifth novel. It was selected by Jenna Bush Hager as a Read with Jenna pick for April 2025 and became an instant national bestseller. Amity is the author of four previous novels, O My Darling, The Folded World, Schroder, and Sea Wife. Sea Wife was a 2020 New York Times Notable Book and a finalist for the Mark Twain American Voice Award. Schroder was also a New York Times Notable Book and a best book of 2013 according to The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, among others, and was shortlisted for UK’s Folio Prize in 2014. In 2018, Amity was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Fiction. She lives in West Hartford, Connecticut, with her family and teaches creative writing at Yale.