- NATIONAL BESTSELLER
- Featured in the New York Times "33 Novels Coming This Summer"
- An Apple Book Of The Month
- An Amazon Editors’ Pick
- An Apple Audio Book Must-Listen
- An Indie Next Pick! Chosen by Independent Booksellers across the country
- National Earphones Award winner for audiobook
- Top billing in VOGUE "Heavy Hitters" for August
- Featured in PEOPLE Magazine
Every year, Jess and Storey have made an annual pilgrimage to the most remote corners of the country, where they camp, hunt, and hike, leaving much from their long friendship unspoken. Although the state of Maine has convulsed all summer with secession mania — a mania that has simultaneously spread across other states — Jess and Storey figure it’s a fight reserved for legislators or, worse-case scenario, folks in the capital.
But after weeks hunting off the grid, the men reach a small town and are shocked by what they find: a bridge blown apart, buildings burned to the ground, and cars abandoned on the road. Trying to make sense of the sudden destruction all around them, they set their sights on finding their way home, dragging a wagon across bumpy dirt roads, scavenging from boats left in lakes, and dodging armed men — secessionists or U.S. military, they cannot tell — as they seek a path to safety. Then a startling discovery drastically alters their path and the stakes of their escape.
Drenched with the beauty of the natural world and attuned to the specific cadences of male friendship, even here at the edge of doom, Burn is both a blistering warning about a divided country’s political strife and an ode to the salvation found in our chosen families.
Praise & Reviews for Burn
Heller’s Burn is unforgettable in its tenderness, its power, and its warning. Prepare for a shattered heart and a shaken confidence in where this nation might go next.
A secessionist page-turner? Peter Heller’s riveting and closely observed new novel, Burn (Knopf), tells the story of two old friends on a hunting trip who hike out of the woods of northern Maine and into a drastically altered America… Heller, as he’s shown in previous, celebrated novels like The Last Ranger and The River, is a literary novelist with a talent for suspense who writes about the natural world as well as anyone. In Burn a pot of campfire coffee is as vividly described as a surprise helicopter attack, and Jess and Storey’s fight for survival exposes their all too human frailties— and the hidden truths that define their friendship.
— Taylor Antrim, Vogue
Heller is masterful at describing the feeling of being surrounded by nature. At one point in Burn, I likened the reading experience to sticking my face into the rust-colored bark of a Ponderosa pine to come away with the faintly sweet vanilla scent — something expected and decidedly human sprung from the rocky edges of the wilderness. Coincidentally, at the close of the book, Heller’s Jess does just that to a birch tree (which I learned smells minty). Either way, you walk away from Burn with the forest in your nose and a bit of uneasiness in your gut about the plausibility of things falling apart.
— Alison Borden, The Denver Post
Heller paints the looming dread surrounding the men’s mission like a master minimalist. But he makes you see the setting’s natural beauty, too, and that tragic juxtaposition really amps up the emotion. We also learn a lot about Storey and Jess’s past along the way — though Heller never lets the tension go slack for even a second. This white-knuckle read will keep you on edge.
— Apple Book Of The Month
“Despite the high stakes, Heller gives the narrative plenty of space to breathe, allowing him to cast a haunting, immersive spell as his heroes traverse the ruined landscape. Painterly descriptions of nature and sparkling philosophical ruminations (“You are alone under the wheeling seasons, and the best memories are drained by loss”) elevate the proceedings. The result is a wilderness adventure with real emotional depth. ”
— Publishers Weekly
“The power of the unspoken is deafening in Peter Heller’s powerful and rewarding tour de force, Burn. Two best friends on an extended hunting trip in rural northern Maine find themselves trapped behind the lines of a violent secessionist movement. The book is filled with exceptionally well rooted nature writing and a narrative intensity driven by the slowly unfurling mystery and danger of Jess and Storey’s circumstances. Yet, as the pieces slowly fall into place, all these strengths primarily serve to heighten and illuminate Burn’s core narrative, an exploration of what we owe each other, what our interpersonal responsibilities are and how the way we handle that responsibility defines the horizons of our personal narratives.”
— Kenny Brechner at Devaney Doak and Garrett Booksellers, Farmington ME
Peter Heller’s seventh novel, Burn is one of his best: It’s full of heart and soul amid the bleak landscape (be forewarned, there are numerous bodies). In fact, even those who don’t normally turn to dystopian novels are likely to be completely captivated. Heller excels at writing about the wilderness, showcasing its might and beauty amid deadly situations, as he’s done before in books like The Last Ranger, The Guide and The River…Burn is a propulsive tale that will keep readers on the edges of their seats from beginning to end.
— BookPage
“Heller…highlight[s] the unique importance and strong bond of male friendship. He excels at nature writing too, with lush, sensuous descriptions of beautiful rural landscapes that are illustrative of an author clearly at home in the outdoors.”
— Booklist
Storey and Jess are on a hunting trip in Maine when secessionists in the statespark a civil war. Peter Heller’s page-turners, typically set in the wild, peek beneath the hood of rugged masculinity.His complicated heroes fight to uphold human decency.
— The Christian Science Monitor
“If he writes it, I will read it! This is my mantra regarding author, Peter Heller. Burn is the story of two lifelong friends that emerge from the deep woods after a long hunting trip only to find a dystopian scene. Secessionists have taken control of Maine and have left grave destruction in their wake. This page turner is a story of survival, shock, friendship, morality and the risks of polarization. You will fly through the pages but the story will linger with you for a very long time.”
— Fran Ziegler, Titcomb’s Bookshop
“I could not put this book down, and finished the entire thing one morning. Told in tension filled prose, Heller takes us through the Maine woods during a rogue militia takeover where the hunters come upon burned villages, corpses, dead dogs, only boats left rocking in the lake breeze. Their lives are at stake and only their bravery, intuition and risk can save them. What a thrilling ride!”
— Annie Philbrick, Bank Square Books
Fast-paced, intense, shocking, and relevant, Heller grabs his readers and throws them down a path of chaos and political turmoil.
— Miriam Roskam, Mountainshire Books
“Burn” grabs you from its first chapter — in which Jess and Storey wander into an abandoned town where the torched buildings are still smoldering — and never lets go. Heller doesn’t provide many signs that his warring factions can come to an understanding but, as in all of his books, he offers comfort in the goodness of (some) people and the very human instinct to keep each other safe.
— Chris Hewitt, Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Every fall childhood friends Jess and Storey spend a few weeks hunting and hiking in the woods of Northern Maine. This year when they emerge it’s into an eerily silent and changed world of burned and destroyed towns largely devoid of people. Has Maine succeeded from the Union? A civil war? Burn by Peter Heller is a riveting and chilling novel of survival and friendship set in a very possible near future. Highly recommended!”
— Caitlin Baker/Island Books/Mercer Island, WA
Peter Heller’s portrayal of thoughtful, sensitive, and intelligent men grows richer with each new novel, andBurn is exceptional. Two longtime friends are on a hunting trip in Maine when they find themselves in a freshly erupted war zone. US troops are fighting local secessionists. The friends try to escape the battle, but they are forced to engage, Past traumas are reawakened, and new ones are formed. Unputdownable and unforgettable.
— Kay Wosewick, Boswell Book Company
Heller shares that rare kind of friendship that can only exist between people who communicate with few words. A friendship forged over time and replete with memories. A friendship able to survive secrets.
Suspended between heartbreak and hope, Jess unfolds a past rife with loss, regret, and questions about existence… but also filled with love and belonging. His character development throughout the novel is masterfully subtle. He and Storey perform a give-and-take over decisions of survival at every step; their bond feels visceral.
With strikingly tactile imagery peppered throughout scenes of profound emotional trauma, BURN presents the frightening scenario of a nation irrevocably divided, and two friends caught in the crosshairs. “So what do the flags mean?” The question chills.
A novel impossible to put down, BURN consumed me.
— Laurel McHargue, award-winning author of the Waterwight series; Alligator Preserves podcast host
The two friends, used to taking cues easily and silently from one another, react out of instinct yet in tandem in a way that underlines the strength of their relationship and also the increasingly clear nature of their differences — differences that in an indefinable way create tension while increasing their chances of survival. As they jointly navigate the frightening hellscape in which they find themselves, we are perched on the edge of our seats, riveted by the action yet simultaneously trying to make sense of a world beyond reason or sense, a world uncomfortably close to the one in which we live.
— Betsy Burton/TKE/SLC
Peter Heller’s new novel, Burn, is a tenacious page turner that National Writers Series staff could not put down, with most of the team reading it in a 24-hour period!
— Noelle Riley, Marketing and Communications Director, National Writers Series
Peter Heller is an award winning fiction writer and the author of acclaimed novels The Dog Stars, The River, Celine, and The Last Ranger, among others. He is a longtime contributor to NPR, and a former contributing editor at Outside Magazine, Men’s Journal, and National Geographic Adventure. An award winning adventure writer, he is the author of four books of literary nonfiction. Heller was born and raised in New York. He attended high school in Vermont and Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. At the Iowa Writers Workshop he earned an MFA in both fiction and poetry, and was awarded the prestigious Michener Fellowship for his narrative poem The Psalms of Malvine. He is a passionate outdoorsman and lives with his wife in Colorado.
NYT Bestselling Author | National Bestselling Author | Reading the West Book Award Winner
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AN INDIE NEXT PICK FOR AUGUST 2023
“Chosen by independent booksellers across the country as a recommended read”
Officer Ren Hopper is an enforcement ranger with the National Park Service, tasked with duties both mundane and thrilling: Breaking up fights at campgrounds, saving clueless tourists from moose attacks, and attempting to broker an uneasy peace between the wealthy vacationers who tromp through the park with cameras, and the residents of hardscrabble Cooke City who want to carve out a meaningful living. When Ren, hiking through the backcountry on his day off, encounters a tall man with a dog and a gun chasing a small black bear up a hill, his hackles are raised. But what begins as an investigation into the background of a local poacher soon opens into something far murkier: A shattered windshield, a series of red ribbons tied to traps, the discovery of a frightening conspiracy, and a story of heroism gone awry.
Populated by a cast of extraordinary characters-famous scientists, tattooed bartenders, wildlife guides in slick Airstreams-and bursting with unexpected humor and grace, Peter Heller masterfully unveils a portrait of the American west where our very human impulses-for greed, love, family, and community-play out amidst the stunning beauty of the natural world.
Praise & Reviews for The Last Ranger
“Heller writes in lean, descriptive, contemplative prose that often reflects a spirit of solitude…Ren, like his literary creator, is a philosopher at heart; you get the feeling he’d do just fine hanging with Thoreau at Walden Pond…The thrills of The Last Ranger…should resonate with any thoughtful reader who considers the human relationship to the world that was here before we arrived, and, hopefully, will be here after we shuffle off this mortal coil.”
— The Boston Globe
“Heller’s best books…have a lickety-split pace and archetypal characters whose behavior makes sense to us partly because he keeps them mysterious, forcing us to fill in their motivations.…Throughout the novel there’s a sense that good and evil aren’t as easy to separate as we’d like to believe. Maybe Heller’s point is that the ‘good guys’ are the mountains and the streams and the ‘bad guys’ are all the people who think those things were put here for us.”
— Minneapolis Star Tribune
When describing wildlife and landscapes, he deploys the precision and cadence of Ernest Hemingway…Heller’s swift…thriller reminds us that humans are the most successful predators-but not the only predators.
— BookPage
A good story that’s intertwined like leaves afloat in a river with the current of Heller’s descriptive powers.…Filled with Heller’s lush writing, The Last Ranger is a simple but powerful story.
— The Denver Post
Heller offers an immersive story of a dedicated Yellowstone park ranger and the threats he faces down.…Strong characterizations, a vivid sense of place, enough wolf lore to fill several NatGeo specials, and a Boy Scout Handbook’s worth of wood-crafting tips. Fans of fiction about the outdoors are well served.
— Publishers Weekly
Peter Heller’s adventurous novel centers on a Yellowstone National Park ranger with a poet’s heart and a troubled past. The ranger’s endeavors to solve mysteries, keep the peace, and safeguard a cherished friend are reverence in action. Heller’s lyrical prose captures gorgeous natural landscapes, captivating wildlife facts, wolf folklore, and a vibrant community of characters.
— Christian Science Monitor
Fast-paced, elegantly written.…Along with evocative descriptions of Yellowstone’s stunning beauty, Heller efficiently creates a small cast of fully realized characters … Life and death in nature are close companions in a fast-moving and lyrical story.
— Kirkus
“Heller’s lyrical prose captures gorgeous natural landscapes, captivating wildlife facts, wolf folklore, and a vibrant community of characters.”
— The Christian Science Monitor
“A warning about man’s encroachment on the Western wilderness and another variation on the solitary-man theme [Heller] does so well.…It contains some wonderful writing about endangered wolves and the obsessive behaviorist who studies them.”
— Lisa Henricksson, Air Mail
“Heller is back to creating natural vistas that make a reader want to grab a fishing rod and plunge deep into a grove of aspens and fish an isolated creek deep in the mountains. Where the problems of the world are winnowed down to getting a trout to set on a fly you tied yourself.…The Last Ranger is once again Peter Heller at his best. I’m not a fisherman, but Heller makes me wish I was one.”
— Drew Gallagher, The Free-Lance Star
“The rugged nature of Yellowstone permeates every page of the latest outdoors adventure from Heller, a tale populated with lyrically defined characters.…This is wilderness noir at its best, a novel that will please fans of C. J. Box, Craig Johnson, and the legions of admirers of the television series, Yellowstone.”
— Booklist
“Fast-paced, elegantly written.…Along with evocative descriptions of Yellowstone’s stunning beauty, Heller efficiently creates a small cast of fully realized characters, most notably Ren, who’s still struggling with grief over the death of a mother who introduced him to the natural world before abandoning her family. But as the author displays in a thrilling climactic chase scene, he doesn’t neglect his obligation to bring what at heart is a nature adventure story to a satisfying conclusion.…Life and death in nature are close companions in a fast-moving and lyrical story.”
— Kirkus Reviews
“When describing wildlife and landscapes, [Heller] deploys the precision and cadence of Ernest Hemingway.…In a subplot, Heller also dramatizes another threat to our national parks: militias and business interests who want to turn public land into private holdings. Heller’s swift environmental thriller reminds us that humans are the most successful predators — but not the only predators.”
— Bookpage
