“Heartwood” by Amity Gaige is a wilderness suspense novel about a lost hiker and the massive search to find her alive. The story is told from many perspectives, including the head game warden, fellow hikers, the hiker’s husband, a resident in an assisted living community, and the lost hiker herself. I loved experiencing the search from all of those points of view!
Valerie Gillis, who is known by her trail nickname “Sparrow,” is a 42 year old nurse hiking the Appalachian Trail. She has gone missing in Maine after not arriving at a planned checkpoint. Valerie has barely enough supplies to survive a week and is not a seasoned outdoors person. Bev Miller, a Maine game warden, has devoted her life to the job she loves and is determined to find Valerie. But as days go by, and tips come in, the searchers can’t seem to find her. Was foul play involved? Is Valerie injured? Is she still alive? And why can’t anyone find a trace of her? While the search goes on, Lena Kucharski, a 76 year old bird watcher/forest forager in a retirement community hears of the missing hiker and becomes interested in the search. The lost hiker reminds her of her daughter and Lena decides she might be of help in this search.
“Heartwood” is a ‘Read With Jenna Pick.’ The chapters involving Valerie’s hike and Bev’s team searching for her are so descriptive and hard to put down! I felt like I was in those woods myself! The chapters involving Lena are a little confusing, but pull together in the end and bring out the relationships between mothers and daughters with all of the female characters in the novel. I will never hike the Appalachian Trail, but I loved the time I spent exploring this adventure in “Heartwood”!
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