Heartwood

'One of my favourite recent reads' BARBARA KINGSOLVER, GUARDIANIn 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 centre of the search is Beverly, the determined Maine State Game Warden tasked with finding Valerie, who managing the search on the ground. While Beverly is searching, Lena, a seventy-six-year-old birdwatcher in a 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.

I am the author of five novels, O My Darling, The Folded World, Schroder, Sea Wife, and Heartwood. 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. Heartwood was a Read with Jenna pick for April 2025 and a national bestseller. Heartwood has been called the best thriller of 2025 by The Boston Globe, and a Best Book of the Year So Far by The New York Times and Amazon. I live in West Hartford, Connecticut with my husband and two kids, and I teach creative writing at Yale. In 2018, I was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Fiction.