The Lie Tree

By Author / Illustrator

Frances Hardinge

Genre

Adventure

Age range(s)

11+

Publisher

Pan Macmillan

ISBN

9781447264101

Format

Paperback / softback

Published

07-05-2015

Synopsis

Winner of the Costa Book of the Year 2015.

The Lie Tree is a wonderfully evocative and atmospheric novel by Frances Hardinge, award-winning author of Cuckoo Song and Fly By Night.

Faith's father has been found dead under mysterious circumstances, and as she is searching through his belongings for clues she discovers a strange tree. The tree only grows healthy and bears fruit if you whisper a lie to it. The fruit of the tree, when eaten, will deliver a hidden truth to the person who consumes it. The bigger the lie, the more people who believe it, the bigger the truth that is uncovered.

The girl realizes that she is good at lying and that the tree might hold the key to her father's murder, so she begins to spread untruths far and wide across her small island community. But as her tales spiral out of control, she discovers that where lies seduce, truths shatter . . .

Reviews

I was really looking forward to reading this as I loved Frances Hardinge's earlier novel, Cuckoo Song. I wasn't disappointed; the story was gripping and dark. It tells the story of Faith and her family who move to the remote island of Vane to escape a scandal surrounding her father's career. Reverend Erasmus Sunderly was a renowned naturalist and slowly Faith finds out his dark secrets and tries to take control of one of them for herself, with devastating results. Thrilling and gothic in style, I loved this book. 416 pages / Ages 12+ / Reviewed by Amanda Allen, librarian.

Suggested Reading Age 11+

From a new Carnegie-shortlisted author comes some clever, well-researched and careful writing which tells the story of Faith's hunt to gain her father's favour and then to solve the mystery of his secret work and who wanted him dead to gain his secrets. Set in Victorian times, feisty Faith is a girl well beyond her time and years, and Hardinge has much to say through her protagonist of the potential of young women and their historical fight for equality, which should resonate well with her young teenage readers. However I feel it is probably better suited to younger but more capable readers than the 14-year-old Faith. Hardinge manages to weave Biblical themes of truth and creation into her work without being too obvious, providing a moral platform for her readers to think about whether telling lies is ever a good thing to do. Fans of Ibbotson's Journey to the River Sea and Pullman's Ruby in the Smoke will enjoy this. 416 pages / Ages 12+ / Reviewed by Helen Swinyard, school librarian.