Nominee for Readers’ Favorite Mystery & Thriller (2025)
Book Blurb:
Deep in the Maine woods, an experienced hiker goes missing. She is forty-two-year-old Valerie Gillis, who has vanished 200 miles from her final destination. Alone in the wilderness, Valerie pours her thoughts into fractured, poetic letters to her mother as she battles the elements and struggles to keep hoping.
At the heart of the investigation is Beverly, the determined Maine State Game Warden tasked with finding Valerie, who leads the search on the ground. Meanwhile, Lena, a seventy-six-year-old birdwatcher in a Connecticut retirement community, becomes an unexpected armchair detective. Roving between these compelling narratives, a puzzle emerges, intensifying the frantic search, as Valerie’s disappearance may not be accidental.
My Review:
Gees, I manage to find books with a related theme, from the AT (Appalachian Trail) to the Pacific Coast Trail and back again to the AT (literally across the entire US from each other). This one is the AT. I used to love to hike when younger and we did do more than a few hikes, one in particular with our two kids, where we got caught on the top of a mountain at about 6500-7,000 ft above Grover Hot Springs with our two kids and Muffin, our dog. When the rain hit so hard that it started movement in gravel and rocks, I worried about our little shelter in place that we chose for cover.
This novel, however, follows the POV of three persons: Valerie Gillis, the hiker who vanishes off the trail; Lieutenant Beverly Miller, the Maine State Game Warden who leads the search; and Lena, a senior birdwatcher living in a retirement community who has a secret friend online. The latter is a bit weird, but Lena has come to depend on their common communications, his knowledge of birds and the outdoors a bit superior to her own.
When Valerie (her trail name is Sparrow) goes missing, a massive hunt is launched. Lena is third introduced, then goes quiet, and I wondered what her inclusion would eventually mean.
The author’s build of suspense is compelling. Valerie, a burned-out frontline nurse during the pandemic is seeking answers, as might many who attempt the trail be as well. Lieutenant Bev is not new to the business of finding missing hikers and is generally successful with a high percentage of found survivors. She knows the stats of hikers missing for more than three days. Lena is beyond bored with her life in the retirement community and finds no challenge at all in the usual activities provided. So when she finds compatibility online, she eagerly awaits their communications. All three characters are well developed.
Bits of humor lighten the mood:
“Yo, Cody, if you’re not supposed to eat after 8 p.m., why’s there a light in the fridge?”
And the prose flows freely:
“A Polish proverb rings in her mind. ‘Where an angel builds a church, the devil builds a chapel.’”
“Looking up at the stars,
I know quite well,
That for all they care,
I can go to hell.”
Only the tip of the whole poem (uncredited), which is beautiful and food for thought, not the first or only.
As time wears on, a number of theories begin to manifest. Her husband? Her trail buddy, Santo? Suicide? There are a number of themes explored among the descriptive prose, including loneliness, motherhood, familial relationships, grief.
I loved the location of the Maine wilderness and the mystery. The emotions got heavy a few times but I enjoyed the narrative on the whole. Definitely met my expectations and offered another author I can read with relative confidence. It’s a cleaned-up version of Wild by Cheryl Strayed with more suspense, and a more feminine trail tale than the testosterone-driven A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson.
I might even recommend this one over the other two.
Many thanks to my local library for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book. The thoughts expressed here are my own.
Rosepoint Rating: Four point Five Stars 
Book Details:
Genre: Women Sleuths, Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Literary Fiction, Mothers & Children Fiction
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 978-1668063620
ASIN: B0DJRN4YF9
Print Length: 320 pages
Publication Date: April 1, 2025
Source: Local Library
Title Link(s):
Amazon-US | Amazon-UK | Barnes & Noble | Kobo
The Author: I am the author of five novels, O My Darling, The Folded World, Schroder, Sea Wife, and Heartwood. Sea Wife was a 2020 New York Times Notable Book and a finalist for the Mark Twain American Voice Award. Schroder was also a New York Times Notable Book and a best book of 2013 according to the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, among others, and was shortlisted for UK’s Folio Prize in 2014. Heartwood was a Read with Jenna pick for April 2025 and a national bestseller. Heartwood has been called the best thriller of 2025 by The Boston Globe, and a Best Book of the Year So Far by The New York Times and Amazon. I live in West Hartford, Connecticut with my husband and two kids, and I teach creative writing at Yale. In 2018, I was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Fiction.
©2026 V Williams
Rosepoint Publishing 