Simon & Schuster | Book Chatter

Heartwood
By Amity Gaige
Simon & Schuster, April 2025, 320pp.

The Short of It:

Riveting story with characters you wanna root for.

The Rest of It:

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. ~ from the publisher

I picked this book up on a whim. It was a late Thursday evening, and I had just turned the last page of my current read, so I went looking for something to quickly dive into. Heartwood was it.

Books set outdoors always appeal to me. I’m a desk jockey at work, so the idea of traipsing through a forest or along a trail makes my heart sing, especially when it’s happening in my imagination and there are no mosquitoes to deal with. Heartwood delivered that feeling beautifully.

From the start, there’s a very real sense of time slipping away. Valerie only has so much of it out on that trail. Lost, alone, and with limited supplies, the people searching for her are highly experienced, but they also know that with every passing day, every ticking minute, the chances of rescuing her alive grow slimmer. Very slim.

Beverly, a Maine State Game Warden, leads the search team on the ground. Then there’s Lena. At 76, she lives in an independent senior community, keeping mostly to herself and avoiding the other residents. But Valerie’s case catches her attention because the missing woman reminds her so much of her own daughter—whom she hasn’t seen in decades. Soon, Lena becomes an armchair detective, piecing together clues with the help of an anonymous online friend.

Friend? Or someone hiding behind a carefully constructed online persona?

I found this story to be just the right mix of personal backstories and the heart-pounding urgency of a clock running out. I flipped through the pages as fast as I could. What a satisfying read.

These days, with everything going on in the world, satisfying reads can be hard to come by. They have to compete with our busy minds and the constant stream of bad news around us. But Heartwood? It checked all the boxes.

Highly recommend.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Bookshop.org affiliate links.

The Ten Year Affair
By Erin Somers
Simon & Schuster, October 2025, 304pp.

The Short of It:

Compelling and thoughtful.

The Rest of It:

When Cora meets Sam at a baby group in their small town, the chemistry between them is undeniable. Both are happily married young parents with two kids, and neither sees themselves as the type to engage in an affair. Yet their connection grows stronger, and as their lives continue to intertwine, the romantic tension between them becomes all-consuming—until their worlds unravel into two parallel timelines. In one, they pursue their feelings. In the other, they resist. ~ from the publisher

I saw The Ten Year Affair on the Tournament of Books 2026 shortlist and was immediately intrigued. Luckily, I found it quickly on Libby and blew through it. It’s an amazing read in that you absolutely feel the conflict between these characters as well as the temptation. Oh boy, the temptation.

Cora is happily married to her husband. But is she really happy? Things have gotten rather safe. Her husband spends a lot of time smoking weed on the balcony while the kids sleep. The weed, well, it affects things in the bedroom. He’s struggling at work and she’s just miserable doing the same thing over and over both at work and at home.

Sam, is the dad of dads. His wife is an overachiever and very successful. He holds down the fort but is this his life now? Going to daddy and me classes and running the kids back and forth?

Sam and Cora end up at one of those baby and me classes and there is an instant attraction. Sam listens to Cora in the way that her husband does not. The two forge an immediate bond. Friendly, sweet. They decide to bring their significant others into the mix, signifying a platonic friendship, just looking for a little parental support.

That’s how it starts out.

Then, Cora begins to imagine an alternate reality. In that timeline, she and Sam are seeing each other. In the real world she refrains, they both do, but in that other timeline, things get serious pretty fast. The story bounces back and forth between the imagined timeline and what is actually happening until the two blur together and then there is only one timeline.

This is an intense read. Sam and Cora’s “relationship” spans ten years. Ten years of wishing, and hoping and then pulling the trigger. How does such a relationship affect these two families. How is it right, when two marriages are at stake? But it FEELS right. That’s the conflict. Erin Somers writes a story that has you going one way and then the other. Cora isn’t in the wrong. She’s not getting the attention she needs. And then, how could Cora do that? How could they start something while still fully involved with their spouses?

I would hazard to guess that anyone who has been married for say 15+ years or more, has experienced some of these feelings. Somers has created real, flawed, characters but ones that you root for even though what you are rooting for is potentially a marriage break-up. That’s conflict to the highest degree. If I had to assign a song to this book, it would be Depeche’s A Question of Lust.

Highly recommend. I went digging around to see what else she’s written and I see one other book, Stay Up with Hugo Best and I will for sure find a copy.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Bookshop.org affiliate links.

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