Author Guide · Literary crime
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Before she wrote novels, Liz Moore fronted a band in New York and put out an album called Backyards. She still works the way a songwriter does: no outline, no plan, roughly four years a book. Her first three novels were quiet literary fiction that few people read. Then she wrote a crime novel set in Kensington, the neighbourhood at the centre of the opioid crisis in Philadelphia, the city she lives in. Long Bright River went onto Barack Obama’s list, and the one after it, The God of the Woods, spent most of a year on the bestseller list.
By Lisanne Swart · 5 novels · Female authors · Literary crime · 2007–2024 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Liz Moore has written five novels: The Words of Every Song (2007), Heft (2012), The Unseen World (2016), Long Bright River (2020) and The God of the Woods (2024). The last two are literary crime novels and both are being adapted for television. They stand alone; below, which one to start with and what the quieter early books are like.
Where to Start with Liz Moore
If you have never read her
→ Long Bright River. The book that made her name. It works completely as a thriller, and it is about far more than the case.
If you want the recent one everyone read
→ The God of the Woods. Bigger, colder, and structurally the most accomplished thing she has done.
If you would rather have literary fiction than crime
→ Heft. Two lonely people, and no plot machinery at all.
If you like a novel about a mind
→ The Unseen World. Computers, memory and a father who was never who he said he was.
All 5 Liz Moore Books, in Order
The Words of Every Song
A novel in linked chapters moving through the New York music industry: the label executives, the session players, the almost-famous and the ones who will never be. Moore wrote it straight out of her own years fronting a band in the city, and it came out the same year as her album Backyards.
A debut that reads like what it is: someone writing down the world she has just left. Worth reading after the later books rather than before.
— LisanneHeft
Arthur Opp, a former professor, weighs several hundred pounds and has not left his Brooklyn house in a decade. Kel Keller is a gifted high-school baseball player in Yonkers whose mother is disappearing into drink. What connects them is a woman from Arthur’s past, and the novel alternates between his voice and Kel’s until their lives meet.
The book where she learned to hold two voices at once, which is the technique everything since is built on. Quietly one of her best.
— LisanneThe Unseen World
Ada Sibelius is raised inside her father’s computer science lab in 1980s Boston, taught by him and his colleagues instead of at school. When his mind starts to fail, she is left with an encrypted file and the discovery that the man who raised her was not who he said he was.
An unusual, patient novel about code, memory and what a parent is allowed to withhold. If The God of the Woods worked on you, this is the earlier version of the same instinct.
— LisanneLong Bright River
Start hereMickey Fitzpatrick patrols Kensington, the Philadelphia neighbourhood at the centre of the city’s opioid crisis. Women are being murdered on her beat, and her estranged sister Kacey, who uses and works the same streets, has gone missing. A police procedural and a novel about two sisters at once, it was on Barack Obama’s list of favourite books of 2020. Peacock adapted it as an eight-part series in March 2025, with Amanda Seyfried as Mickey and Moore as co-creator.
The one that changed her career, and it earns it. She lives in that city and it shows: the neighbourhood is written by someone who is going to have to face the neighbours afterwards.
— LisanneThe God of the Woods
NewestAugust 1975, the Adirondacks. Thirteen-year-old Barbara Van Laar disappears from Camp Emerson, the summer camp on her wealthy family’s land, fourteen years after her older brother vanished from the same estate and was never found. The case falls partly to Judy Luptack, a young investigator nobody takes seriously, and the novel moves across decades and half a dozen points of view. It spent 38 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and was a finalist for the 2025 Edgar Award for Best Novel. Netflix began filming a series in June 2026.
The best-constructed thing she has written. It is a mystery, but the real subject is class: the family who own the land and the people who work it, and what each is allowed to get away with.
— LisanneDo You Need to Read Liz Moore in Order?
There is no series and no shared characters, so read them in any order. The natural sequence is backwards: start with one of the two recent mysteries, then go back to Heft and The Unseen World, which are quieter and, once you know what she is doing, more rewarding than they look.
A sixth novel is in progress. She has confirmed it but will not describe it, saying that talking about a book before it is finished takes the wind out of her sails. If it is the sibling relationship in Long Bright River that stayed with you, my books about brothers list has the novels built on exactly that.
The years · 1983–2024
Quick facts about Liz Moore
- Known for
- Literary novels that move like mysteries, about families and the places that shape them, from Philadelphia’s Kensington to the Adirondacks
- 1983
- Born; grows up in Framingham, Massachusetts
- 2007
- The Words of Every Song, her first novel
- 2012
- Heft
- Lives and teaches
- Philadelphia, where she directs the MFA in Creative Writing at Temple University
- Before writing
- Singer-songwriter in New York; released the album Backyards in 2007
- Awards
- Rome Prize in Literature, 2014; Edgar Award finalist, Best Novel, 2025
- On screen
- Long Bright River on Peacock, 2025; The God of the Woods at Netflix, filming from June 2026
The red mark is 2024: The God of the Woods spent 38 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.
How Liz Moore Writes: No Outline, Four Years, Two Voices
She does not plan. “I never outline or pre-plan,” she has said, “which is probably why it takes me about four years to write each novel.” That is unusual for a writer whose two most successful books are structurally complicated mysteries, and it explains something about how they feel: the reveals arrive as discoveries rather than as payoffs she has been carefully withholding.
The recurring technique is the double voice. Heft alternates between a housebound man and a teenage boy. Long Bright River braids Mickey’s present-day investigation with the childhood she and her sister shared. The God of the Woods runs several timelines and half a dozen perspectives at once. She is interested in the gap between two people who grew up in the same house and remember it differently.
Place is not backdrop, it is the argument. Kensington, the Adirondack camp, the Boston lab: each is a closed system with its own rules about who belongs. For Long Bright River she spent years in the neighbourhood she was writing about, and revised after listening to people who live there.
And the crime arrived late. Three quiet literary novels came first, and the sentences in the thrillers are still those of a literary novelist: unhurried, interior, more interested in why a family behaves this way than in who did it.
Watch
Liz Moore on Kensington, and what she owed the people she wrote about
A live Q&A run by Spotlight PA, the Pennsylvania nonprofit newsroom, on 10 July 2025. She talks about researching the opioid crisis in her own city, what she changed after listening to people who live there, and about the Peacock adaptation of Long Bright River.
Frequently asked questions about Liz Moore’s books
Where should I start with Liz Moore’s books?
Most readers start with Long Bright River (2020), the Philadelphia-set literary thriller that became her breakout. If you prefer a slower, more atmospheric mystery, start with The God of the Woods (2024) instead. Her earlier novels, Heft (2012) and The Unseen World (2016), are quieter literary fiction rather than crime. The books stand alone and there is no reading order.
How many books has Liz Moore written?
Five novels, published between 2007 and 2024. She has confirmed that a sixth is in progress but has declined to describe it, saying that talking about a book before it is finished takes the wind out of her sails. She has no nonfiction books, though she now also writes and produces for television.
What is The God of the Woods about?
Set in the Adirondacks in 1975, it opens when thirteen-year-old Barbara Van Laar vanishes from Camp Emerson, the summer camp her wealthy family owns, fourteen years after her older brother disappeared from the same estate and was never found. The investigation, partly led by a young and underestimated state police investigator, Judy Luptack, pulls apart the Van Laar family’s secrets and the resentments between them and the local people who work for them. It moves across several decades and multiple points of view.
Is Long Bright River a TV series?
Yes. Peacock released it as an eight-episode limited series on 13 March 2025, starring Amanda Seyfried as Philadelphia patrol officer Mickey Fitzpatrick. Moore co-created the series with Nikki Toscano and worked on it as a writer and executive producer.
Is The God of the Woods being adapted?
Yes. Netflix greenlit a series in December 2025, written and produced by Moore with Liz Hannah. Maya Hawke plays the investigator Judy Luptack and Kerry Condon plays Alice Van Laar, and filming began in June 2026. No release date has been announced.
Did The God of the Woods win any awards?
It was a finalist for the 2025 Edgar Award for Best Novel, which went to Charlotte Vassell’s The In Crowd. It also spent 38 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and was on Barack Obama’s summer reading list in 2024.
Where does Liz Moore live?
In Philadelphia, with her husband and two children. She teaches at Temple University, where she directs the MFA in Creative Writing, and the city is the setting of Long Bright River.
Was Liz Moore a musician?
Yes. Before she published novels she was a singer-songwriter in New York, fronted her own band and released an album, Backyards, in 2007, the same year as her first novel.
Footnotes
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all hers.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“I never outline or pre-plan, which is probably why it takes me about four years to write each novel.”
— Liz Moore, interviewed by the American Booksellers Association, June 2024
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