Faith Sunderly is not your average polite, only-speaks-when-spoken-to young woman. She is too curious for her own good and she can’t help but sneak around and poke her nose into other people’s business.
All of a sudden, Faith and her family find themselves moving from their comfortable and dignified home to a desolate house on Vane which is a small island in the middle of nowhere. Faith’s mother is shocked to find there are hardly any servants, and she is not best pleased. But being a good woman and wife, she doesn’t ask too many questions.
Faith is the opposite. She goes through her father’s scientific papers, sneaks into the servants’ quarters and eavesdrops on people’s private conversations. Faith is determined to find out what brings her and her family to this lonely island.
This book was really intriguing. It’s a murder mystery novel set in an olden time period with parts that tackle controversial areas of science. The plot is well structured, the characters are well developed and the ending is satisfying.
There are some great plot twists which keep the reader hooked- this book is definitely a page turner. The Lie Tree really does have a unique concept and I’ve never read a book quite like it.
The relationships between the characters are really good. I particularly liked the relationship between Faith and Paul Clay –the son of the curate on Vane – who hate each other when they first meet and dare each other to do awful things in an attempt to prove who is braver. Towards the end of the novel, they learn to tolerate each other and become partners in crime, though still keep up a pretence that they hate each other.
I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a brilliant read who doesn’t mind some complex vocabulary and the fact that this book is quite long. But every page is definitely worth reading. This book is on the shortlist for the 2015 Costa Children’s Book Award, and having read all the other books on the shortlist, I think that this book is the most complex.
Believe me when I say this is honestly such a good book and one that I will definitely be wanting to read again.
- Buy this book at the Guardian Bookshop
