Rather than moving solely to explore a dig site, the family has moved to evade questions about the authenticity of his fossil. After her family settles into their new home on the island, Faith’s own scientific curiosity leads her to believe things may not be as they seem with their father. Erasmus has recently landed a place in the spotlight for his discovery of the fossil of a winged man. In their 1860s world, the scientific community is still coming to terms with the theory of evolution, trying in different ways to fit it in with its adamant Creationist religious beliefs. Faith Sunderly, the fourteen-year-old protagonist, is reluctantly traveling with her parents to Vane, ostensibly to allow her father, the Reverend Erasmus, to help out with an archaeological site. The book begins on a damp and bleak journey through the English Channel by boat to the island of Vane. Along the way, Sunderly finds a magical tree that consumes people’s whispered lies, converting them into truths, and resolves to save her family’s reputation and fortune. She tries to find out what happened to her father and to learn more about the natural sciences for which he had a passion soon, she learns that the reason for her family’s abrupt move was to escape a mounting scandal about his scientific findings. Set in the patriarchal, scientific society of the Victorian era in Great Britain, it follows Faith Sunderly, a teenager whose father dies of unknown causes when the Sunderly family relocates from Kent to the remote island of Vane. The Lie Tree is a children’s fantasy novel published by Frances Hardinge in 2015.

The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge