Historical Trees

From the best-selling author of Longbourn, a haunting new novel of spies and artists, passion and danger, hope in the face of despair Paris, 1939. The pavement rumbles with the footfall of Nazi soldiers marching along the Champs-Élysées. A young, unknown writer—Samuel Beckett—recently...

Their lives were forever changed when a widow with seven children, married a widower with seven children. Three step sibling marriages are arranged to benefit from a dowry that was doubled by their filial unions. The way in which their lives intertwine is the grist for Twisted Trees. It is a story of one man's ambition to rise above the oppressive class system, where men were judged by their heritage and not their ability; where women often endured loveless marriages rather than face the stigma of divorce.

Maine, 1969. After losing her parents in a car accident, aspiring artist Annalisa Mancuso lives with her grandmother and their large Italian family in the stifling factory town of Payton Mills. Inspired by her mother, whose own artistic dreams disappeared in a damaged marriage, Annalisa is dedicated only to painting. Closed off to love, and driven as much by her innate talent as she is the disillusionment of her past, Annalisa just wants to come into her own.

"Somebody’s daughter; Somebody’s sister; Somebody’s wife. Who am I in all of this?" She is Deborah, adopted daughter of a Jewish carpenter; sister to a crucified holy man and wife of Judah of Kerith—later to be known as Judas Iscariot. Those men are gone; their stories have been told. But Deborah’s destiny is just beginning to unfold. Where the men work openly, women work in secret. When it is made clear to her that there is no place for her in the new movement that heralds Christianity, Deborah leaves her native land for Alexandria with its great library and schools of mystical thought.

In 1918, World War One and the Spanish Flu left unimaginable numbers of orphaned children. In every corner of the planet, one person in 20 perished. Emma Taylor is a 12-year-old girl living on a farm in Indiana. Her mother is taken by the flu, and her father dies in The Great War. Children left without their parents due to war or influenza do not fare well.

1914: Sixteen-year-old Etterly, running from something, hides inside the trunk of a tree and disappears. The police search but find no trace. Her family and friends wrack their brains but come up with nothing. And so slowly life returns to normal. The hole in the tree is boarded up, and the village of Sackwater moves on. Only Etterly's best friend, Betty, clings to hope, insisting she can hear her friend calling for help. 1940: A skeleton is discovered buried in the woods....

Adelaide, a young midwife in an 1833 Ohio village, overhears a stranger charge Josef, the town's autocratic leader, with fraud. The next day the stranger is found murdered, and soon the sheriff arrives to arrest Josef. Without Josef there telling the villagers what to do, chaos ensues.

A government forestry camp set deep in the mountainous forests of the Pacific Northwest might not seem the likely place to find redemption, but in 1935, Park Hardesty hopes for just that. Blaming himself for the fiery accident that caused his brother's disfigurement and the death of the bootlegging woman he loved, planting trees, building bridges, and mentoring tough, homesick New Jersey boys brings him both penitence and the renewal of his own self-worth.

The Tree of Heaven follows the fortunes of the Harrison family as the children grow up in the shadow of the First World War and Dorothy's brothers go off to the trenches, while she becomes involved with the suffrage movement, and later joins a version of the Women's Social and Political Union.

When her favourite beech tree is felled in a storm, Ann feels as if someone has died. But when long-hidden seed packets are found inside the trunk, Ann realizes there are more memories than her own lurking within the ancient tree. A century earlier, head gardener William Hatherwick and Hester Mordaunt, mistress of Beechgrave, share a love for the mighty estate - and an undeclared love for each other. But when war breaks out, William is sent to the battlefields of France, and as the conflict rages on, Hester grieves beneath the tree.

London, the 1720s. Welcome to Romeville, the underworld of that great city. The financial crash caused by the South Sea Bubble sees the rise of Jonathan Wild, self-styled Thief-taker General who purports to keep the peace while brutally controlling organised crime. Only two people truly defy him: Jack Sheppard, apprentice turned house-breaker, and his lover, the notorious whore and pickpocket Edgworth Bess.

In 1947, American historian and World War II veteran Martin Mitchell wins a Fulbright Fellowship to document the end of British rule in India. His wife, Evie, convinces him to take her and their young son along, hoping a shared adventure will mend their marriage, which has been strained by war. But other places, other wars. Martin and Evie find themselves stranded in a colonial bungalow in the Himalayas due to violence surrounding the partition of India between Hindus and Muslims.

A story of slaves. Based on fact, embellished in empathy. Main character Nicholas. Born on a plantation in 1767. Taken from his mother aged seven, by his Masters’ worker Barn, who heads up the boys for the Moloch cult. Nicholas is initiated. Seeds are sown for Nicholas to become a deranged psychotic. He has a penchant for white females.

As the daughter of the chief, Marion McEwan has no say in who her husband will be—a troublesome fact when the one man she doesn’t wish to marry, her awful cousin Simon, is the leading contender for her hand. So when Marion’s father hosts a gathering for the purpose of choosing her husband, she welcomes the broader selection. He invites a few select men—her cousin included—to participate in a series of contests to test their strength, fortitude, and worthiness. The victor will win her hand in marriage.

A story about the hunger for food, life, and opportunity. After stealing a loaf of bread, Edward was running to escape when he slammed into Dorothy. In that moment, fate intervened, and a love began that would span the years. Desperate to make a better life for himself and be a man worthy of Dorothy, Edward takes a job in the mines. When catastrophe strikes, he finds his world in a state of upheaval once more.

In the spring of 1949, Stella O'Riain flees her home - a sheep property on the barren edge of the Strzelecki Desert. She leaves behind the graves of her husband Joe and her baby daughter. With no money and limited options, Stella accepts her brother-in-law Harry's offer to live at the O'Riain cane farm in the Richmond Valley. There she hopes to get answers to the questions that plague her about her marriage. However Harry refuses to discuss Joe or the family's secrets, even forbidding her to speak to the owner of the neighbouring property.

When Pearl’s grandmother Nell dies unexpectedly, she and her family - mother Diana, sister Lucy - return to Kangaroo Island to mourn and say farewell to her. Each of them knew Nell intimately but differently, and each woman must reckon with Nell’s passing in her own way. But Nell had secrets, too; and as Pearl, Diana and Lucy reflect on their feelings about the island, Pearl starts to pull together the scraps Nell left behind - her stories, poems, paintings - and unearths a connection to the island’s early history.

Days after barely escaping 1889 with their lives, the Carsons, siblings from the present day, resume their search for their missing parents in 1918. While Adam and his pregnant wife, Bridget, settle in Minnesota, unaware of a wildfire that will kill hundreds, Greg seeks clues in his great-grandparents' Mexico, where he finds love, danger, and enemies. At the same time, Natalie, the ambitious journalist, follows a trail to World War I France, and teen twins Cody and Caitlin rekindle a friendship with an old Pennsylvania friend haunted by her past.

Harris County, Georgia, 1912. A White man, the beloved nephew of the county sheriff, is shot dead on the porch of a Black woman. Days later, the sheriff sanctions the lynching of a Black woman and three Black men, all of them innocent. For Karen Branan, the great-granddaughter of that sheriff, this isn't just history; this is family history.

Consie is home for a funeral when she stumbles upon a family letter sent from Germany in 1945, which contains staggering news: Consie's great-uncle Hermann, who was transported to Auschwitz with his wife and three daughters, might have escaped. This seems improbable to Consie. Did people escape from Auschwitz? Could her great-uncle have been among them? What happened to Hermann? Did anyone know? These questions are at the root of Consie's excavation of her family's history as she seeks, 70 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, to discover what happened to Hermann.