Heartwood A novel

A 42-year-old hiker goes missing from the Appalachian Trail in Maine in Gaige's (Sea Wife, 2020) suspenseful, wrenching novel. In July 2022, Valerie has been hiking the trail, starting in Virginia, for three months. A nurse who was devastated by working during the pandemic, she frequently meets up with her husband, Gregory, who follows her by car and refreshes her supplies. When she doesn't show up at a planned meeting place, Gregory reports her missing, and the investigation is taken up by Bev, a thirty-year veteran of the Maine warden's service. Meanwhile, at a retirement community in Connecticut, 76-year-old loner Lena becomes determined to help solve the case. As the days tick on and Valerie's fate looks more dire, Gaige moves between Bev's increasingly desperate attempts at a rescue, Lena's surprising online discoveries, and letters Valerie writes to her mother from the clearing where she has set up her tent. 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 three main characters, the novel tightens its grip as it moves toward uncovering its central mysteries.

A woman vanishes near Maine's 100-Mile Wilderness in this uneven literary thriller from Gaige (Sea Wife). At first, Gregory Bouras doesn't worry when his wife, Valerie, fails to meet him at a Maine trailhead for a scheduled resupply during her hike of the Appalachian Trail; she's been walking for three months now and has been routinely waylaid. After 24 hours without word, however, Gregory calls the authorities. Lt. Beverly Miller of the Maine Warden Service has led several dozen successful searches for off-course thru-hikers every year, but when a massive, multiday effort turns up no sign of Valerie, Bev fears the worst. Meanwhile, in a Connecticut retirement community, disabled septuagenarian Lena Kucharski learns of the search from a Mainer she met on a foraging subreddit who believes Valerie stumbled upon a secret military training facility. Gaige interweaves Bev's first-person narration with chapters from Lena's perspective, letters a lost Valerie writes to her mom, and transcripts of hotline tips and recorded interviews with people following the case. The preposterous, unfocused plot disappoints, but multifaceted characters and poetic prose enhance Gaige's tender meditations on aging and mother-daughter relationships. It's a mixed bag. Agent: Kimberly Witherspoon, InkWell Management. (Apr.)