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The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge (review)

Fourteen-year-old Faith Sunderly bears the misfortune of being a girl with a bent toward the natural sciences and a fierce intelligence in the nineteenth century, when the job of a woman was to be quiet and ornamental. Her father has an impressive reputation as the discoverer of a fossil that proves that the Nephilim referred to in the Bible were real, a find that many of his admirers latched onto in the wake of the recent publication of Darwin’s theories of evolution. However, the Sunderlys have had to depart London under a cloud of suspicion that his fossil is a hoax. Faith’s, er, faith in her father is unwavering despite his dismissal of her gender, so when he asks for her help in relocating a mysterious plant specimen to a cave accessible only by a treacherous passage through the sea, she is elated; when he is found dead the following morning, she is determined to uncover what drove them to their new island home and led to her father’s death. 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. KC