The Lie Tree

Author(s): Frances Hardinge

YA Fiction

The Lie Tree is a wonderfully evocative and atmospheric novel by award-winning author Frances Hardinge.


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...


 


Product Information

Winner of The Costa Book of the Year 2015

'The Lie Tree is brilliant: dark, thrilling, utterly original. Everyone should read Frances Hardinge. Everyone. Right now.' -- Patrick Ness

'It is part horror story, part detective story and part historical novel. The tone throughout is extremely accurate, not only is it cleverly the voice of a 14-year-old girl ... but it is also the voice of a precociously intelligent girl within what is a very male-dominated society.' --chair of Costa judges, the former bookseller James Heneage. 

"A hugely talented writer of tireless invention and prose" --Guardian

"A sinuously beguiling tale of faith, science and murder" --Sunday Times News Review

"This historical fantasy, written with Hardinge's rare precision and originality of language, illuminates the Victorian age and resonates for ours." --Nicolette Jones, The Sunday Times Children's Book of the Year

"Throwing evolution, feminism and revenge tragedy together, The Lie Tree is a thrilling, gleamingly involving novel that anyone might enjoy, with gorgeous, lush writing matched by a vividly hooking plot." --Philip Womack, The Literary Review

Frances Hardinge spent a large part of her childhood in a huge old house that inspired her to write strange stories from an early age. She read English at Oxford University, then got a job at a software company. However, a few years later a persistent friend finally managed to bully Frances into sending a few chapters of Fly by Night, her first children's novel, to a publisher. Macmillan made her an immediate offer. The book went on to publish to huge critical acclaim and win the Branford Boase First Novel Award. The Lie Tree is Frances's seventh novel.

General Fields

  • : 9781447264101
  • : Pan Macmillan
  • : Macmillan
  • : September 2014
  • : United Kingdom
  • : May 2015
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Frances Hardinge
  • : Paperback
  • : Main Market Ed
  • : en
  • : 823.92
  • : 416