Heartwood

'An unforgettable treat' JANICE HALLETT 'Beautifully written . . . moving and suspenseful' TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT ' Gripping . . . each strand adds tension and drama' GOOD HOUSEKEEPING 'One of my favourite recent reads' BARBARA KINGSOLVER, GUARDIAN In the heart of the Maine woods, an experienced Appalachian Trail 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 centre of the investigation is Beverly, the determined Maine State Game Warden tasked with finding Valerie. While Beverly is searching, Lena, a seventy-six-year-old birdwatcher in a 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. 'Fast-paced and full of grace . . . a memorable meditation on the forms of care' SARAH MOSS ' A powerful story of being lost in the wilderness' SAINSBURY'S MAGAZINE 'An absolute must-read' ELIN HILDEBRAND

'An unforgettable treat' JANICE HALLETT 'Beautifully written . . . moving and suspenseful' TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT ' Gripping . . . each strand adds tension and drama' GOOD HOUSEKEEPING 'One of my favourite recent reads' BARBARA KINGSOLVER, GUARDIAN In the heart of the Maine woods, an experienced Appalachian Trail 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 centre of the investigation is Beverly, the determined Maine State Game Warden tasked with finding Valerie. While Beverly is searching, Lena, a seventy-six-year-old birdwatcher in a 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. 'Fast-paced and full of grace . . . a memorable meditation on the forms of care' SARAH MOSS ' A powerful story of being lost in the wilderness' SAINSBURY'S MAGAZINE 'An absolute must-read' ELIN HILDEBRAND

'A riveting wilderness suspense novel by a novelist at the height of her powers' Jennifer Egan, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Candy House 'I can't recall the last time I've been so dazzled by a novel...This is an ABSOLUTE MUST-READ. You will thank me' Elin Hilderbrand, New York Times bestselling author of The Perfect Couple and Swan Song Heartwood takes you on a gripping journey as a search and rescue team race against time when an experienced hiker mysteriously disappears on the Appalachian Trail in Maine. In the heart of the Maine woods, an experienced Appalachian Trail 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. Heartwood is a 'gem of a thousand facets-suspenseful, transporting, tender, and ultimately soul-mending', (Megan Majumdar, New York Times bestselling author of A Burning ) that tells the story of a lost hiker's odyssey and is a moving rendering of each character's interior journey. The mystery inspires larger questions about the many ways in which we get lost, and how we are found. At its core, Heartwood is a redemptive novel, written with both enormous literary ambition and love.

'A riveting wilderness suspense novel by a novelist at the height of her powers' Jennifer Egan, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Candy House 'I can't recall the last time I've been so dazzled by a novel...This is an ABSOLUTE MUST-READ. You will thank me' Elin Hilderbrand, New York Times bestselling author of The Perfect Couple and Swan Song Heartwood takes you on a gripping journey as a search and rescue team race against time when an experienced hiker mysteriously disappears on the Appalachian Trail in Maine. In the heart of the Maine woods, an experienced Appalachian Trail 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. Heartwood is a 'gem of a thousand facets-suspenseful, transporting, tender, and ultimately soul-mending', (Megan Majumdar, New York Times bestselling author of A Burning ) that tells the story of a lost hiker's odyssey and is a moving rendering of each character's interior journey. The mystery inspires larger questions about the many ways in which we get lost, and how we are found. At its core, Heartwood is a redemptive novel, written with both enormous literary ambition and love.

Emmy-nominated filmmaker and University of Cambridge Environmental Psychologist Lindsay Branham invites readers into an embodied, reciprocal relationship with trees to heal our severed connections to ourselves and the earth, returning home to the living world. In the midst of the California wildfire season, Lindsay Branham was besieged by unexplainable health symptoms. Her descent into chronic illness challenged her notion of Western frameworks of "healing," compounded alongside rapid ecological loss. Through a catalytic love affair with a family of trees in the Roaring Fork Valley of Colorado, an odyssey of healing unfolds--a poetic evocation to love the Earth, and to be loved back. What if human and planetary health is connected? What if healing is an embodied ecological process, not an outcome? What if trees are our guides to connection? Through the intertwining rings of science and spirit, this is the story of how Lindsay was summoned by trees, brought together to share their enduring wisdom--we each belong to this world, and it's up to us to protect the whole of it. Heartwood conjures an invitation to go on a journey with trees; from strangers to kin because, as Lindsay lays out in detail, everything belongs, and trees in all their sentinel, entangled, alchemical generosity embody that kinship, defy domination and can help us both repair a lost relationship with the Earth and learn to embody mutuality, collectivity and care for the forest. Combining scientific research from her PhD studies at Cambridge on interoceptive awareness, our body's "eighth sense," which she suggests is the sensuous language of the Earth, readers will be walked through a step-by-step wonder-filled process of creating an intimate and reciprocal relationship with the more than human world, while learning why remembering our birthright of belonging to nature is a central antidote to mitigating climate collapse. This tender, lyrical work explores concepts such as eco-grief, reciprocity as life force, the pace of place, erotic ecology, attachment healing with nature, composting suffering, entangled futures, loving inter-species kinship and death doulaship. Heartwood speaks directly to what is the missing piece at the heart of the unfolding environmental mega-crisis: the fact that our dissatisfaction, discontent and despair are core symptoms of being separated from nature and shares exactly how to rediscover the medicine that is right under our feet.

Emmy-nominated filmmaker and University of Cambridge Environmental Psychologist Lindsay Branham invites readers into an embodied, reciprocal relationship with trees to heal our severed connections to ourselves and the earth, returning home to the living world. In the midst of the California wildfire season, Lindsay Branham was besieged by unexplainable health symptoms. Her descent into chronic illness challenged her notion of Western frameworks of "healing," compounded alongside rapid ecological loss. Through a catalytic love affair with a family of trees in the Roaring Fork Valley of Colorado, an odyssey of healing unfolds--a poetic evocation to love the Earth, and to be loved back. What if human and planetary health is connected? What if healing is an embodied ecological process, not an outcome? What if trees are our guides to connection? Through the intertwining rings of science and spirit, this is the story of how Lindsay was summoned by trees, brought together to share their enduring wisdom--we each belong to this world, and it's up to us to protect the whole of it. Heartwood conjures an invitation to go on a journey with trees; from strangers to kin because, as Lindsay lays out in detail, everything belongs, and trees in all their sentinel, entangled, alchemical generosity embody that kinship, defy domination and can help us both repair a lost relationship with the Earth and learn to embody mutuality, collectivity and care for the forest. Combining scientific research from her PhD studies at Cambridge on interoceptive awareness, our body's "eighth sense," which she suggests is the sensuous language of the Earth, readers will be walked through a step-by-step wonder-filled process of creating an intimate and reciprocal relationship with the more than human world, while learning why remembering our birthright of belonging to nature is a central antidote to mitigating climate collapse. This tender, lyrical work explores concepts such as eco-grief, reciprocity as life force, the pace of place, erotic ecology, attachment healing with nature, composting suffering, entangled futures, loving inter-species kinship and death doulaship. Heartwood speaks directly to what is the missing piece at the heart of the unfolding environmental mega-crisis: the fact that our dissatisfaction, discontent and despair are core symptoms of being separated from nature and shares exactly how to rediscover the medicine that is right under our feet.