Reverend Erasmus Sunderly--a man of God and of science in Victorian England--is forced to leave his hometown when his most recent fossil research is revealed to be falsified. With his wife and two children in tow, Sunderly attempts to start afresh on the island of Vane, only to be exposed again, and further reviled. When his lifeless body is discovered not long after, his 14-year-old daughter, Faith, resolves to investigate her beloved father's suspicious death. She finds clues in his papers that lead her to the fantastical Lie Tree from southern China, which "would only flower or bear fruit if it was fed lies." Ingesting that precious fruit would grant the liar valuable secret knowledge. Faith seeks to find just how many lies her father was willing to risk to partake of the forbidden fruit.
In this thrillingly subversive read, Frances Hardinge (Fly by Night; The Lost Conspiracy; Cuckoo Song) explores not only the unpredictable, runaway nature of untruths, but age-old, hotly contested themes. She pits religion and creationism against science and evolution. And while her male characters often make pronouncements akin to insults--"too much intellect would spoil and flatten [the female mind], like a rock in a soufflé"--Hardinge slyly empowers her female characters as they repeatedly prove society's artificial limitations are meant to be challenged, and ultimately transcended.
History, mystery and fantasy intermingle in this fiercely emotional, lusciously descriptive morality tale, murderous thriller and dysfunctional family epic, chosen as the U.K.'s 2015 Costa Book of the Year. --Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon