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3.5
Heartwood
ByPublisher Description
'Heartwood is a true wilderness a missing person quest rendered in agile, extraordinary prose by a novelist at the height of her powers. I found it nearly impossible to put down' Jennifer Egan
Valerie Gillis, a 42-year-old nurse, is hiking the Appalachian Trail, a legendarily challenging route that runs from Georgia to Maine, taking in fourteen states. She has almost reached the end when she vanishes.
Beverly Miller, the first female game warden ever hired in the state of Maine, has a near-perfect record of finding lost people. She is leading a search and rescue mission through the impenetrable woods.
Meanwhile, Lena follows the case online from her retirement home, believing she might hold the key to the case.
Heartwood is a love letter to mothers, daughters, nurses, first responders, loners, and lovers of nature, and to anyone who's been lost along the way.
Valerie Gillis, a 42-year-old nurse, is hiking the Appalachian Trail, a legendarily challenging route that runs from Georgia to Maine, taking in fourteen states. She has almost reached the end when she vanishes.
Beverly Miller, the first female game warden ever hired in the state of Maine, has a near-perfect record of finding lost people. She is leading a search and rescue mission through the impenetrable woods.
Meanwhile, Lena follows the case online from her retirement home, believing she might hold the key to the case.
Heartwood is a love letter to mothers, daughters, nurses, first responders, loners, and lovers of nature, and to anyone who's been lost along the way.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesHeartwood Reviews
3.5
“This one wasn’t for me. Billed as a thriller, I found it pretty un-thrilling. There’s a bit of mystery, for sure, but it’s more just a classic fiction read. There’s quite a few characters that switch to be the main POV, but unfortunately I wasn’t really invested deeply in any of them (though Lena was my favorite). Wife, but not deep. I could see how some readers might really enjoy this one, and I liked the setting / idea, but for me this fell flat.”
“What can I say—this one just fell flat for me. The story felt weighed down by pages of filler, and I often found myself skimming or skipping entire sections because it felt like endless “yapping” without much momentum.
One storyline that really added to that feeling for me was Santos. I kept waiting for his character to serve some purpose in the larger narrative—especially thinking his story might eventually offer some insight into what happened to Sparrow—but it never really went anywhere. Instead, it mostly felt like long stretches of him rambling about his life, which made those sections feel more like a box being checked than something meaningful to the story.
There were some beautiful lines and moments of introspection, and Gaige clearly has a thoughtful writing style. Unfortunately, those moments weren’t enough to keep me invested in the story as a whole. I kept waiting for something to pull me in, but it never quite happened.
In the end, Heartwood just wasn’t what I was looking for—more of a slow, contemplative read than a compelling one. For me, it ended up being a bit of a snooze fest.”
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