Frances Hardinge is the winner of the Costa Book of the Year and Costa Children&s Book Awards for The Lie Tree. She is the author of several books for children, including Cuckoo Song (five starred reviews, shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal), The Lost Conspiracy (five starred reviews, Los Angeles Times Book Award Finalist), Fly by Night (shortlisted for the Guardian Children&s Book prize), Well Witched (SLJ Best Book of 2008), and Fly Trap (shortlisted for the Guardian Prize, longlisted for the Carnegie Medal). She lives in England. www.franceshardinge.com.
**STARRED REVIEW**
"Everything in this audacious novel is on the cusp or in limbo,
setting up delicious tensions and thematic riches. The time is
nineteenth-century England just after Darwin's theory of evolution
has thrown the scientific world into turmoil; the setting is the
fictional island of Vane, between land and sea; the main character
is a fourteen-year-old girl caught between society's expectations
and her fierce desire to be a scientist... Hardinge maintains
masterful control of the whole complex construct: everything from
the sentence level on up to the larger philosophical and political
questions. A stunner."-- "The Horn Book"
**STARRED REVIEW**
"Hardinge, who can turn a phrase like no other, melds a haunting
historical mystery with a sharp observation on the dangers of
suppressing the thirst for knowledge, and leaves readers to wonder
where science ends and fantasy begins... Smart, feminist, and
shadowy, Hardinge's talents are on full display here."-- "School
Library Journal"
**STARRED REVIEW**
"Hardinge's characteristically rich writing is on full
display--alternately excoriating, haunting, and darkly funny--and
the novel also features complex, many-sided characters and a
clear-eyed examination of the deep sexism of the period, which
trapped even the most intelligent women in roles as restrictive as
their corsets."-- "Publisher's Weekly"
**STARRED REVIEW**
"Mystery, magic, religion, and feminism swirl together in
Hardinge's latest heady concoction... Hardinge creates a fierce,
unlikable heroine navigating a rapidly changing world and does it
all with consummate skill and pitch-perfect prose, drawing readers
into Faith's world and onto her side and ultimately saying quite a
lot about the world. Thematically rich, stylistically impressive,
absolutely unforgettable."-- "Kirkus"
**STARRED REVIEW**
"The elements of the mystery are masterfully keyed to the concerns
of the Victorian time period, and its unfolding is handled with a
dexterity that never loses sight of the gender problem; the book
also directs its light onto matters of faith and doubt, and the
issue of lies and truth in the pursuit of science. The excitement
and danger, coupled with Faith's intrepid though morally flawed
pursuit of justice, call to mind Hardinge's Fly by Night (BCCB
9/06); give this to readers unafraid to think disquieting thoughts
as they race through a breathtaking, action-packed adventure."--
"BCCB"
**STARRED REVIEW**
"There is an effortless beauty to Hardinge's writing, which ranges
from frank to profound. Though layered, the plot refuses to sag,
driven as it is by mystery, taut atmosphere, complex characters,
and Faith's insatiable curiosity... It is a book in which no
details are wasted and each chapter brings a new surprise. Readers
of historical fiction, mystery, and fantasy will all be captivated
by this wonderfully crafted novel and the many secrets hidden
within its pages."
-- "Booklist"
"In 19th-century Britain, the study of natural history was reserved
for gentlemen. Unlucky enough to be born female, science-minded
Faith, the heroine of this dark and captivating period novel, can't
hope to follow in her naturalist father's footsteps. Yet when those
footsteps lead to his suspicious death, Faith turns her "weakness"
into an advantage. Underestimated by everyone, from her father's
colleagues to the servants to her own mother, she embarks on an
investigation that propels her into the scandal that ruined her
father's reputation and entices her to adopt his morally
questionable research methods."The Lie Tree" shares the rich,
cerebral atmosphere and feminist bent of Andrea Barrett's
history-of-science-inspired fiction for adults, weaving it all
together with gossamer fairy-tale thread. The book's title refers
to a plant -- Faith's father's secret discovery -- that withers in
the light and feeds off of lies. Faith believes that reason and
logic must hold the explanation to the Lie Tree's puzzling
attributes, since, for her, "'magic' was not an answer; it was an
excuse to avoid looking for one." Nonetheless, she can't deny that
when she whispers untruths into its leaves, things happen: Both the
plant and Faith's covert power start to grow.Hardinge's gorgeous
descriptive language is charged with menace and meaning. Lying in
bed one night, Faith imagines "her lie spreading silently like dark
green smoke, filling the air around the house like a haze, spilling
from the mouths of those who whispered and wondered and feared ...
soaking like mist into waiting leaves, seeping like sap down
gnarled slender stems, and forcing itself out into a small, white
spearhead of a bud." "The Lie Tree" is a murder mystery that
dazzles at every level, shimmering all the more brightly the deeper
down into it you go."--Christine Heppermann "Chicago Tribune"
"Over the last decade or so, Frances Hardinge has joined the ranks
of those writers of young-adult fiction, like Philip Pullman, whose
approach to fantasy proves so compelling that they quickly develop
an adult following, and The Lie Tree is a good demonstration of why
this is so... It's a rather stunning page-turner of a performance,
and an excellent introduction to Hardinge's increasingly important
body of work."-- "Locus"
Ask a Question About this Product More... |