Heartwood (A Read with Jenna Pick)

ΓÇ£The best thriller of 2025.ΓÇ¥ ΓÇöThe Boston Globe * ΓÇ£Genius.ΓÇ¥ ΓÇöThe Washington Post ΓÇ£A literary thriller of the highest orderΓÇ¥ (Elin Hilderbrand,New York Times bestselling author of The Perfect Couple)Heartwood takes you on a gripping journey as a search and rescue team race against time after a woman mysteriously disappears on the Appalachian Trail. Deep in the Maine woodsan experienced hiker goes missing. She is forty-two-year-old Valerie Gilliswho has vanished 200 miles from her final destination. Alone in the wildernessValerie pours her thoughts into fracturedpoetic letters to her mother as she battles the elements and struggles to keep hoping. At the heart of the investigation is Beverlythe determined Maine State Game Warden tasked with finding Valeriewho leads the search on the ground. MeanwhileLenaa seventy-six-year-old birdwatcher in a Connecticut retirement communitybecomes an unexpected armchair detective. Roving between these compelling narrativesa puzzle emergesintensifying the frantic searchas ValerieΓÇÖs disappearance may not be accidental. Heartwood is a ΓÇ£gem of a thousand facetsΓÇösuspensefultransportingtenderand ultimately soul-mendingΓÇ¥ (Megha MajumdarNew York Times bestselling author of A Burning) that tells the story of a lost hikerΓÇÖs odyssey and is a moving rendering of each characterΓÇÖs interior journey. The mystery inspires larger questions about the many ways in which we get lostand how we are found. At its coreHeartwood is an ΓÇ£unputdownableΓÇ¥ (Real Simple) and redemptive novelwritten with both enormous literary ambition and love.