Wild meets The Wife Between Us in this page-turning thriller, set in the treacherous final stretch of the Appalachian Trail – an addictive tale of passion, betrayal, control and what it means to survive.

Emma Sharp knows the rules of survival. From being raised by a doomsday-fearing father and hardened by the startup world, she has learned how to endure – especially in her marriage to Logan Grant, a charismatic tyrant who keeps her under tight control. To Emma, her marriage is a cage: it keeps you in, but it also keeps you safe. Until it doesn’t.

When Emma forms an unexpected bond with Logan’s former girlfriend, the two women form a plan to help Emma reclaim her life. Destination: the punishing final stretch of the Appalachian Trail.

After all, bad things happen in the woods all the time.

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As the three venture deeper into Maine’s back country, desire and dread curdle into something unpredictable, dark and deadly. Someone is lying. Someone is watching. And in the remote heart of the forest, someone is about to be lost . . . or found.

How to Survive in the Woods is a heart-stopping knockout of a novel, by turns smart, psychologically rich and deliciously dark. In her masterful hands, Kat Rosenfield asks us to consider what it means to be a survivor – and what, or who, you would sacrifice to stay alive.

My Review

The book starts with Emma Sharp in hospital, having tried – and failed – to take her own life. She’s had some kind of breakdown, which we know nothing about initially. All will be revealed later.

She is ‘rescued’ by handsome, charismatic Logan Grant, with whom she forms a relationship, and they get married. He keeps her on a tight leash, which is what she thinks she needs at this point in her life. It prevents her from going off the rails. She knows so little about him until she meets and becomes friends with his ex, Taylor.

As we discover more about Emma, we realise she’s not very nice. Her wealthy father was a ‘doomsday-fearing’ prepper, who taught her from a very early age how to survive in a dangerous world, and be prepared for Armageddon. He had rules, which he trained her to follow, the first of which was: ‘Nobody is coming to save you’. But Emma likes the last one best: ‘Never point a weapon at anything you are not willing to destroy‘. Both will be useful at some point.

Now believing that Logan is more dangerous than she at first thought, she and Taylor form a plan to help Emma escape her prison. It involves hiking the final stretch of the Appalachian Trail. And this is where everything changes. Because who is really lying, and who is telling the truth? And neither Logan nor Taylor have a clue what Emma is actually capable of.

A real roller coaster of a ride with plenty of exciting moments. I just feel there was too much musing about her life from Emma which held up the action at times. But the characters are brilliantly written and full of depth, even if mostly hateful.

Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours

About the Author

Kat Rosenfield is the author of six books, including No One Will Miss Her (Edgar Award nominee for Best Novel), and the New York Times-bestselling A Trick of Light, co-authored with the late, great Stan Lee.

A former reporter for MTV News and current columnist for The Free Press, her essays and cultural criticism have appeared in The Boston Globe, Vulture, Wired, AirMail, and The New York Times. She lives in Connecticut.