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	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
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Fiction & Related items

HEARTWOOD

Amity Gaige

An entrancing literary mystery about a hiker who is lost in the woods and the indomitable women who set out to find her.

A hiker is lost in the Maine woods. She is 42-year-old Valerie Gillis, a nurse who is taking a post-Covid sabbatical by hiking the legendary Appalachian Trail. She is almost to the northern terminus 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 sets out to find Valerie, leading a search and rescue mission through the impenetrable woods. Meanwhile, Lena, an elderly birdwatcher living in a retirement facility, signs on as internet sleuth, suspecting she might have the key to the case. At the center of this story are the poetic letters that Valerie writes to her mother as she awaits rescue, facing hunger and battling the elements. Her epic battle to stay alive requires her to find strength even when rescue seems impossible. Her story explores how being lost changes us, and how we psychologically survive it. With a flavor of grassroots feminist spirit, each of these three women is unforgettable and unshakeable. Heartwood is a poem to mothers, daughters, nurses, first responders, loners, and lovers of nature, and to anyone who's been lost along the way, as Amity Gaige fuses style with great storytelling, creating a novel of breathtaking dexterity. Amity Gaige is the author of O My Darling, The Folded World, Schroder, and Sea Wife. Sea Wife was a 2020 New York Times Notable Book and an Elle Best Book of 2020. Her previous novel, Schroder, was named one of Best Books of 2013 by The New York Times Book Review, Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, among others, and was shortlisted for The Folio Prize in the UK (2014). Sea Wife and Schroder have been translated into a combined 18 languages. Amity is the winner of a Fulbright Fellowship, fellowships at the MacDowell and Yaddo colonies, and a 2016 Guggenheim Fellowship in Fiction. Her writing has appeared in publications such as The New York Times, The Guardian, Harper's Bazaar, and elsewhere. She lives in Connecticut with her family and teaches creative writing at Yale.

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Book Published 2025-04-01 by Simon & Schuster

Comments

Rights have sold to Fleet/LBUK, Meulenhoff/Holland, Gallmeister/France and NN Edizioni/Italy.

Heartwood by Amity Gaige shines as a gritty, evocative and heart-stopping wilderness thriller. Yet this journey into the harshness of nature and the horror of being lost, is also a beautifully crafted eulogy to human survival and an ode to the power of the spirit as it echoes between the generations. An unforgettable treat from first page to last.

Heartwood is a true wilderness thriller: 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.

Heartwood is a gem of a thousand facetssuspenseful, transporting, tender, and ultimately soul-mending, a novel as curious about birds and moss as it is about the innermost hearts of mothers and daughters. I read it at lightning speed, and now I treasure how the woods of this book persist in my mind.

Heartwood is a masterfully multi-layered novelat once a propulsive, nail-biting missing person thriller, an inspiring wilderness survival tale, and a deeply moving exploration of the complexities of mother-daughter bonds. With eloquence, insight, and grace, Amity Gaige uses gorgeous prose and the perfect structure to create one of the most emotionally satisfying and heartwarming stories I've read in a long time. I loved this book.

I can't recall the last time I've been so dazzled by a novel. Heartwood is a literary thriller of the highest order. Amity Gaige's writing is both eloquent and authoritative. This is an ABSOLUTE MUST-READ. You will thank me.

Heartwood is that rare unicorn of a book: A gripping page-turner of great beauty and insight. Amity Gaige's latest is a story about survival and resilience, but also about the bonds between mothers and daughtersa book that is at once intimate and expansive. I couldn't put it down even as it tore my heart apart.