This was a fantastic read with such a brilliant premise.
Set over a number of timelines this was a well written fast faced book.
A must read for fans of mysteries/thrillers.

This was such an amazing book……such well written characters who I thoroughly enjoyed reading about and visualising. The story of a camp with family history where a girl goes missing…..in similar circumstances to her brother many years before…..told in different times from different perspectives, including the young female detective on the case. An excellent read

I have a mixed history with murder mysteries, but this one was certainly one of the best that I have read. A real page turner that kept me hooked right to the end. Set over several timelines, we learn the history of the Van Laar family whose daughter Barbara has gone missing from a summer camp. Tragic enough until we learn that her brother also went missing in the same area years earlier. A mystery, a family saga. and the tale of a community. I could not put it down and will definitely be looking for more books by this author. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC of this novel in return for an honest review.

An unputdownable page turner that kept me hooked since the beginning and kept me reading even when I thought I felt confused by the multiple thread in the story.
Intriguing and a bit disturbing at times, fascinating and entertaining.
Well done, loved it
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Set in August 1975 at Camp Emerson, the story begins with the mysterious disappearance of 13-year-old Barbara Van Laar, whose family owns the Adirondack summer camp. This isn’t the first Van Laar child to vanish—Bear Van Laar's disappearance remains unsolved, fourteen years later. As the search for Barbara unfolds, law enforcement uncovers dark secrets within the Van Laar dynasty and the blue-collar community around them. Adding to the tension is a dangerous fugitive on the loose, wanted for sexual assault and murder.

Told from seven perspectives with a gripping, multi-threaded narrative, The God of the Woods immerses the reader in a tense, atmospheric mystery. The well-developed characters, plot twists, and relentless suspense kept me hooked, urgently trying to solve this complex puzzle.

This unsettling masterpiece is a must-read, delivering on every level—from its compelling cover and title to its intricate storyline and mind-bending ending.

A very well written mystery thrilling read that I found so hard to put down once I started.. You won't regret picking this book up.

What started out well...turned to meandering...with an ending, but hardly satisfying. All that said but this was well written and kept me invested throughout...not the best, not the worst, 3 ⭐️

Louise doesn't love her job as a summer camp counselor to the privileged, cossetted children of the East Coast's elite, but she does need it. Her mother is in no position to care for her younger brother, Jesse and, if Louise wants to bring him to live with her, giving him love, guidance and consistency before it's too late to make a difference, she needs the money. So when she wakes one August morning and discovers that one of her campers is missing, she knows exactly what's at stake. Because Barbara Van Laar isn't just any camper: she's the daughter of the wealthy landowners to whom the camp belongs, and who act as the main employers for the region. She's also the second Van Laar child to disappear in mysterious circumstances.

The God of the Woods is an ambitious, many layered novel which combines mystery, domestic drama and social commentary in a gripping, tightly-plotted summer thriller.

Author Liz Moore deftly dances between two timelines at Van Laar preserve in the Adirondacks - the summer of 1975, when Barbara goes missing, is the story's 'present', while the summer of 1961, when Barbara's older brother Bear vanished, looms large. As the two plots unfold, it becomes increasingly clear that, in order to find out and understand what happened to Barbara, the truth about Bear's fate must also be discovered.

The telling of the story is shared between several narrators: counselor Louise; Tracy, who is Barbara's bunkmate and closest friend; Alice, Barbara's mother; Judyta, a newly promoted investigator with the state police; Carl Stoddard, a gardener on the Van Laar preserve, and Jacob Sluitter, a notorious serial killer. Each character brings a distinctive perspective to their chapters, which elevates The God of the Woods to so much more than a dual timeline mystery novel.

As the story unfolds, the reader begins to understand how the disappearances - fourteen years apart - of the two Van Laar children reverberate through not only their own small circle of family and friends, but the wider world of Shattuck, New York. Moore writes: 'To all the residents of Shattuck, the Van Laar preserve occupied a place of importance in their lives that was simultaneously acknowledged and resented.' The eight week summer session at Camp Emerson is the period in the year during which the Van Laars, custodians of inherited wealth, rub shoulders with the working class neighbours who depend on them for employment, and a key theme of the story is class, money and how the having - or not having - of it moulds the person one becomes and decides the contours of one's life. Delphine, Alice Van Laar's older sister, muses: 'Lately I've been wondering whether having all of our material needs met from birth has been a positive aspect of our lives. It seems to me it may have resulted in some absence of yearning or striving in us. The quest, I like to call it. When one's parents or grandparents have already quested and conquered, what is there for subsequent generations to do?' This sentiment is echoed later on by Denny Hayes, the state investigator leading the hunt for Barbara, and the story certainly seems to suggest that the locals' relative poverty has caused them to develop into better people with more integrity than the Van Laars, who have never wanted for anything. The novel also explores how wealth can protect a person from dealing with the consequences of their actions, but that, ultimately, there are some things that no amount of money can insulate a person from.

Several of the narrators are blue collar workers struggling to make their paycheck cover food, clothing or medical bills, trapped in dead end jobs with no chance of advancing themselves through a college education or a family friend with connections. From the perspective of a character such as Louise or Carl, a woman like Alice Van Laar occupies a position of unimaginable privilege; she has never had to work, nor do anything much more than look pretty and be charming and unobtrusive. And yet, Alice's chapters are some of the most arresting. Moore crafts a beautiful portrait of the heartbreak of motherhood, your love for your child leaving you exposed to the potential of unbearable pain. Though Alice does not always behave sympathetically, Moore allows her to give account for herself - to show the reader how love and grief, and the way society permitted her to express or process them, warped her life and her relationship with her second child.

Invisible strings tie the characters together in ways they may not be aware of. As much as Alice has been stifled by the rigid expectations of her sex and social status, Judy has to work twice as hard to prove herself and earn respect as a young woman (with a foreign name) in a male-dominated field, while Louise's looks and background earn her a reputation for promiscuity. Even Tracy, not yet a teenager, feels like she doesn't fit in with her peers because she doesn't conform to their Upper East side ideal of feminine beauty. The female characters are written to show the depth and breadth of experience in one small corner of America, and I loved seeing how each of them survived using the tools they had available to them.

The world-building is superlative, with each setting described in such vivid detail that the reader can completely lose themselves in the dense forests of the Adirondacks, hearing the whine of the blackflies and feeling the rain in the air on the afternoon of Bear's disappearance. From the protagonists who lead us through each timeline to the most minor players, all of the characters feel like real people, complete with flaws, fears and logical motivations for their actions. Barbara, from whose POV there is but a single chapter, still feels like a living, breathing, complex teenager thanks to what we learn of her through Tracy's chapters, which themselves present a sweet, vulnerable coming of age story which provides a welcome counterpoint to the bleakness of Alice's chapters, for example.

The plot is expertly crafted, the myriad strands intertwining effectively and the narrators tapping in and out without the story losing momentum. The twists are unexpected and satisfying, and the pace ratchets up in the final quarter of the book to an exhilarating, shocking denouement. I unreservedly recommend this engrossing story of secrets and survival.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins UK for the opportunity to read and review an ARC of this book.

The God of the Woods takes place across 1950s-1970s at a summer camp in upstate New York. Two siblings from an affluent family go missing over a decade apart - are their disappearances connected? Just a co-incidence? What role, if any, does their family have in it? It is told from multiple POVs and non linear, Moore paces the reveals very nicely. I would recommend The God of the Woods if you are looking for a satisfying and literary page turner.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the eARC.

I haven't been gripped by a suspense novel like this in years. I absolutely could not put it down, and then ending had me in bits. A must read from an extraordinary novelist.

A really intriguing and gripping story. I loved the way the different chapters worked to build the story, and the way it all came together at the end! Amazing!!

Thank you to the author, publisher and netgalley for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

An incredibly well drawn story with gripping literary themes. Multiple timelines, many characters and put together in a masterful way making this such a great read. Liz Moore is such a great storyteller and drawing the mystery well. I kept turning the pages. I loved how it all came together in the end.


4.5/5

I enjoyed this intriguing mystery based around a summer camp in the US. Is history repeating itself? A child of a wealthy family goes missing 16 years after her older brother went missing in similar circumstances. However this story has many threads to it, multiple characters, interwoven stories and keeps you guessing to the end.

Thanks to Netgalley, the author and publishers for an ARC in return for an honest review.

This is an exquisitely shaped novel. A compelling story told by several voices of the same family, all wracked by the same crime - the disappearance of a little boy in the Adirondacks.

The characterization is sublime, with everyone living in their own world, their own version, of what happened. The locations, from the giant mountain lodge to the cabins under the canopies of trees and stars, are all impeccable. I felt I could hear the falling rain in the woods and smell the pine resin.

I cannot think of when I have read anything so evocative. While reading it, I found my thoughts turning to Rebecca Makkai, and then I saw that she also loved The God of the Woods. High praise indeed.

With many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me see an advance copy of this highly recommended title.

I was speaking to someone recently about what makes a good literary thriller. For me, it’s believable characters with depth, elements of darkness, and of course beautiful writing. And it has to be an absolute page turner. Pretty simple to do, huh?

Examples for me include Donna Tartt’s ‘A Secret History’ & Daphne Du Maurier’s ‘Rebecca’ is a classic of the genre; those are two off the top of my head. Recent examples that I’ve reviewed include ‘Kala’ by Colin Walsh and I also enjoyed ‘Wild Houses’ by Colin Barrett.

It’s not an easy genre to nail. But when an author gets it right, it’s a pretty unbeatable formula. I don’t think there’s too many that can do it, though I’m sure others will have their own ideas (and favourites).

Too many thrillers have paper thin characters with weak motives. Sometimes I just enjoy a thriller as a page turner, and that’s fine - it can be like wanting to grab some fast food, rather than fine cuisine. But if there’s no meat on the bone I won’t remember or recommend it. So many books gain traction down to good ‘ol simple word of mouth and I know I’m not alone when I say that’s where most of my picks come from. Like this one.

Family mystery

At the beating heart of this book is a family mystery - 15 years apart, are the cases of the two missing Van Laar children connected? I do love a big tangled mess of family relationships, and the Van Laars have that in spades.

Characters

If a book is constantly switching narrators, like this one does, it’s important for me to enjoy each voice. And it also helps that each of these characters are so distinctive, so you never get them mixed up.

There’s Alice Van Laar, the distraught mother of the missing Bear and Barbara. Lost in grief, how much can we trust her account? Alice features across a number of timelines, but it’s down to the authors skill that I always knew where I was.

Tracy is one of the campers, a slightly awkward adolescent and completely taken with Barbara and of course noticing one of the boys. She’s shy and dealing with the break up of her parents marriage. How much does she know about the night that Barbara goes missing?

Louise was one of my favourites throughout, a camp counsellor who comes from a nearby town that relies on the Van Laars for work and is dealing with a boyfriend who’s better off than she is. She really needs this job, having dropped out of college, and is worried about her brother at home with a neglectful mother.

I also really liked Judy, the young female investigator making her way in what is very much a mans world. Her story could have been cliched, but it’s not - she’s making her way in life, and trying to prove herself, not just to her colleagues but her parents.Not easy.

Setting

I do love it when I see a map at the start of a book - it really helps me establish the location in my minds eye. The Adirondack mountains are a remote and scenic location, with the summer camp cabins nestled amongst trees, beside a lake and mountains. And of course the ‘big house’ of the Van laars, looking over the scene.

I think it’s also quite smart to set a book in the seventies. There’s no satellite images or mobiles - it’s difficult for anyone to completely disappear nowadays, with CCTV, dash cam footage and locations pinging off phone masts.

Themes

The wealth of the Van Laars allows them to feel they can dictate the investigation, giving them a sense of entitlement. It’s a book about the haves and have-nots, about intergenerational trauma and the fog of grief that never lifts.

The people who are more compassionate are the investigators and the people who work the camp. With the Van Laars literally looking down on everyone else, it’s the people on the ground who are interested in looking out for the children.

Summary

I had hunches the whole way through ‘The God of the Woods’, as you do as a reader, but I was kept guessing right up to the end. You would have needed a crowbar to get his book out of my hands for the last few chapters. Hard to believe this was 448 pages long - parts of this book I just inhaled.

It’s got that lovely balance of a cracking plot, perfect landscape and characters with believable backgrounds and motives. Oh, and wonderfully written and paced. I’ll certainly be checking out ‘Long Bright World’ and ‘The Unseen world’ by the same author.

‘The God of Woods’ by Liz Moore is absolutely what I would consider to be a literary thriller, and a fine one at that. I can say safely now that this will make my best reads of 2024 list, and I'm sure I won’t be alone.

I loved this! Was different to what I was expecting, a fantastic literary thriller. I couldn’t wait to find out what happened next and thought telling the story from different POV’s worked really well and helped up the tension as everything was slowly revealed.

August 1975: Teenage Barbara Van Laar, daughter of the region’s wealthiest family, has disappeared from her summer camp bunk bed. Complicating matters severely is the fact that her family owns the camp and employs most of the region’s working-class residents. Also: Barbara’s older brother disappeared much the same way 14 years ago.

This book was something else and I’m so grateful that I got to read an advance copy. Told from several viewpoints both in character and time, the story focuses on the Van Laar family. The story is a tragedy told beautifully and realistically, I could picture Camp Emerson perfectly and the grand house Self-Reliance set in the grounds. Flicking between the 1950s, 1961 when Bear went missing and 1975 (present day in the book) when Barbara has disappeared the characters interwoven stories emerge and untangle themselves.

A true summer powerhouse novel, focusing around the lives of several women - I loved the themes of each woman’s story, Alice’s secrets, Judyta’s dreams. Combine that with the location in the Adirondacks, the historical setting, the mystery and police procedural elements and you have an outstanding read.

Louise ist Betreuerin in einem Sommer Camp. Sie ist für die Gruppe von neun 13-jährigen Mädchen zuständig. Eines Morgens beim Aufwachen fehlt eines der Mädchen. Barbara, die Tochter der Camp Betreiber. Louises 17-jährige Camp Helferin sollte über Nacht aufpassen, kam der Pflicht aber wohl nicht nach. Noch bevor sie andere informiert beginnt sie Überreste ihrer eigenen Freizügigkeit schnell verschwinden zu lassen und tut ahnungslos.

In den folgenden Kapiteln werden andere maßgebliche Figuren aus der Gruppe und dem Camp eingeführt, ihre Hintergründe werden schnell klar.

Wir bekommen mit, wie die Camp Leiterin TJ einige Wochen zuvor den Vorschlag von Barbaras Mutter, dass sie am diesjährigen Camp teilnimmt, zunächst ablehnt. Barbara hat sich in letzter Zeit als immer schwieriger gezeigt. Doch ihre Mutter möchten sie für die bevorstehende Party zum Hundertjährigen Bestehen aus den Füßen haben. Nach all den Jahren erinnert sie sich noch viel zu oft schmerzlich an ihren Sohn, der vor 14 Jahren spurlos verschwand. Manche Tage kann sie nur durch Tabletten und die zahlreichen Tipps ihres Therapeuten funktionieren.

Zunächst sucht Louise allein nach der Vermissten bevor sie die Camp Direktorin TJ informiert. Und gleich bei der ersten Rückfrage lügt sie sie an.
Auch wenn zunächst nicht viel passiert, ist das Buch spannend geschrieben. Die Atmosphäre des Camps und die Art der Reichen zu leben werden lebendig. Die Autorin kann die vergangenen Zeiten um 1961 und 1975 für die Leser neu beleben.

Durch die vielen Camp Teilnehmer und Beschäftigten und die komplexen Familienverbände gibt es zahlreiche interessante Nebenfiguren. Das und die zahlreichen Sprünge in der Zeitlinie erfordern die Aufmerksamkeit des Lesers.

Nach dem ersten Drittel wird die 26-jährige State Trooperin Judyta Luptack eingeführt. Sie ist neu aufgestiegen in das New York Bureau of Criminal Investigation. Sie wurde mit ihrem Partner und Mentor dem Vermisstenfall zugewiesen. Aber nun wird auch noch ein weiteres Mädchen vermisst. Getrennt durch verschiedene Zeitebenen und wechselnde Kapitel erleben wir parallel die Suche nach Barbara und nach ihrem jungen Bruder vor 14 Jahren. Die Autorin versetzt einen gelungen in die vergangenen Zeiten zurück.

Obwohl ich noch nie in einem Sommer Camp war, ist es der Autorin mit diesem Roman gelungen alte, verschollene, sommerliche Kindheitserinnerungen in mir wach zu rufen. Trotz der spannenden und teils erschütternden Ereignisse hat mich die Geschichte wohlig umfangen.

I found myself completely engrossed in this captivating mystery/thriller set in the 1970s. This is not typically the genre I thought I’d enjoy—historical reads just don’t do it for me. However, ‘The God of the Woods’ has destroyed this theory.

The evocative portrayal of the nostalgic summer camp atmosphere provided the perfect setting for the unfolding events, creating a sense of tension that was expertly constructed.

What truly stood out to me was the author's exceptional storytelling ability, which diverged from the usual thriller conventions. The rich dialogue and the well-developed characters make for an unforgettable read. The unexpected twists and revelations in the conclusion took me by surprise making a perfect finish.

The alternating viewpoints throughout the story were skilfully executed, seamlessly transporting me through the different decades and leaving me in awe. While there were moments when the pacing was a little too slow for my preferences, the payoff at the end made it all worthwhile.

This is undeniably a book that I would highly recommend.

“How many times in her life has she said yes to a boy or a man just because it was the easiest thing to do? How many times has she let a man take what he wanted, instead of taking something for herself?”

In 1975, 13-year-old Barbara Van Laar goes missing from the bunk bed of her summer camp. She's the daughter of the wealthy family that owns the camp, and a massive search is launched. It's an echo of a search that took place 14 years prior when Barbara's brother Bear went missing in the woods next to the camp. He was never found. Did Barbara leave of her own accord? Or is an escaped serial killer to blame?

The author gives us the perspectives of multiple people involved in the story, which also takes place across multiple timelines, for example, exploring what happened during the search for Bear. From Barbara's camp counsellor to her only friend there, her mother and one of the rangers sent to find her, Liz Moore strips the mystery down layer by layer until only a shocking truth remains.

I could not help but empathise with Barbara, whose family is largely made up of truly awful people who treat her horrendously. Then there is Louise, the counsellor, who is treated just as shabbily by the Van Laars because of her perceived low status.

I enjoyed this book immensely. The author brilliantly explores this mystery in a multi-faceted way, showing how the past is prologue, and exploring the ripple effects secrets have years later. It's about the damage families can do to each other and those around them, and about how wealth rarely protects you from tragedy.

Trigger warnings: domestic abuse