Heartwood by Amity Gaige was just the kind of book I’d been looking for: one I couldn’t put down. Gaige’s writing hooked me from the very first paragraph. Consider: “You could read the weather like a poem.” This is written by Valerie Gillis, also known by her Appalachian Trail name “Sparrow,” in a letter to her mother.
Valerie has been hiking the AT for the past three months and is now lost in Maine’s North Woods. Rather than simply chronicling what’s happening in a journal, Valerie addresses her entries as letters to her mom. This helps sustain her; it’s evident through her writing, that Valerie has deeper bond with her mother than with anyone else.
Lt. Bev Miller is the Game Warden who oversees the search, formally known as the Incident Management Team, for Valerie that spans a 12-day period. Throughout a stellar career, Bev has worked her way up the ladder to her current position, something fraught with sexism.
The letters/Valerie and Bev’s perspectives are told through first person voices. A third, critical character is Lena, a resident in a senior care facility in Connecticut. The story alternates among these three. What they initially have in common is determination in their quest for Valerie’s survival. Through their backstories, mother/daughter relationships are revealed as another similarity, which vary among them.
The three women are distinct, representing different phases of life and experiences. A handful of other interesting characters populate the novel. Gaige imbues the story with humor, tension and intrigue.
Heartwood
Four-and-a-half Bookmarks
Simon & Schuster, 2025
309 pages
The Blue Page Special 