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The Tree
With only two months to save his country, Josiah believe he has been dealt an impossible hand: he must find a myth... if a myth can be found. Setting out into hostile wilderness with a man who serves the queen--but is the King's man--Josiah begins crossing into the wilds of his own soul... and into a realm beyond reason.
As masks begin to slip, Rianne's aristocratic life is revealed as all but secure. Believing herself to stand alone against a master thespian and murderer, caught between the treacherous past and a bleeding future, she is forced to wonder if darkness has the power to consume the light.
As masks begin to slip, Rianne's aristocratic life is revealed as all but secure. Believing herself to stand alone against a master thespian and murderer, caught between the treacherous past and a bleeding future, she is forced to wonder if darkness has the power to consume the light.
498 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2014
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55 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
February 17, 2020
Wow. The beginning was slow at first for me and I struggled to get into the story but once I was in, I was hooked. I loved the rawness of the story and the surprisingly deep theological insights throughout it (it was so interesting to see Catholicism portrayed in a fantasy setting!). It was beautifully told and very moving. Also the ending was 😍⭐️
August 31, 2018
One of the best books I have ever read!
October 21, 2024
BE WARNED, THIS REVIEW HAS SOME BIG SPOILERS
(Near the bottom of my review there is a short content warning section with parts that one may want to know about before they choose to read this book)
I'm disappointed with this book.
I really enjoyed most of the story. For about three fourths of the book it was great, and I looked past the occasional part that didn't make sense, because over all it was a good story.
But by the time the last fourth rolled around, it just crashed and burned.
There are many elements in "The Tree" that I feel were not finished or dealt with properly.
First of all, the ending was extremely underwhelming, especially the evil queen's fate.
The queen is very evil. Very, VERY evil. She murders people, tortures them, starves them, taunts them, imprisons them, and is generally very mean and sadistic. Obviously, she deserves some form of punishment for her actions.
However, the main character Rianne wants to show her God's mercy and love. It is reveled that the queen was really hurt as a child, and Rianne wants to show her God's healing. (The trauma she experienced is, I THINK, supposed to be the reason she became evil. Lots of people who are hurt don't retaliate by becoming monstrous tyrants, but apparently the queen needs a reason for healing.)
I was wondering how the author was going to work out the complex situation she had created. Showing someone both justice and mercy. Justice for the evil she has done, while still showing her God loves her. It seemed like a difficult thing to resolve, but I was curious how it would play out.
And then it went nowhere. Instead of facing judgement, and playing out how all of the characters are going to navigate the new elements added, it's just mentioned in the epilogue that the queen killed herself before anyone could do anything.
It literally is all tied up in a single sentence saying that before she could even be arrested, she whipped out a knife and killed herself.
I was irritated by this ending. First of all, I hate when the villains kill themselves anyway, but secondly, it seemed like the lazy way out of the conflict the author had created. Instead of actually addressing the points brought up and showing the characters communicate mercy while still balancing the justice deserved, the queen commits suicide so no one has to deal with the different elements. They are never addressed again. It's stressed for almost two chapters, and then disappears in the epilogue.
I was not pleased by that. I'm wondering why the author even bothered to bring in the backstory and forgiveness if it wasn't going to go anywhere.
The ending fell so flat. Even disregarding the ignored elements, it was just very unsatisfying that she killed herself. It would have been a better, more rounded ending if justice prevailed and the queen was executed for her crimes.
The part where the lords and soldiers turned on the queen also fell flat. I felt like there were so many opportunities for the protagonists or the lords to kill or overthrow the queen, and they just didn't. They could have tried to stop her and they don't, so when finally the time comes that people realize "we're following a lunatic who is shorter and weaker then us" and they rebel, it felt too little too late. For a couple of chapters they ignored chances to stop her, even when she was very clearly evil. So when they eventually do stand up, instead of thinking "Yes!" I was thinking "Why didn't you do this days ago?"
There is violence in the book.
Swords, knives, horse chases, falling off cliffs. For the first half it's not too bad, just typical action adventure stuff.
However, the book got rather dark near the end. The scenes where Rianne was in jail were beginning to feel long and rather intense, with her being starved and breaking her wrist. It was also dark how the queen tortured Rianne's mom in front of her, and then made Rianne watch as she slowly died of her wounds in a jail cell.
The worst part though, was the queen's backstory where she is raped by her father as a child. It doesn't actually go into detail, but I was disgusted that it was even in the book. Yes, sin is very dark and ugly, but the book didn't need to be dark and ugly. Before that I was thinking I'd recommend the book to my friends, now I'm not recommending it to anyone. I felt that part was extremely unnecessary.
There are parts of the book where a plot point would be introduced, and then completely forgotten about. Rianne concludes that the queen sold her soul to the devil, because she finds a room with a lock of the queen's hair on an altar, and then she's attacked by the devil. (That part was kind of confusing, as it's unclear if it was a physical attack or just a strong spiritual attack.) So anyway, Rianne concludes this and later she's thinking "why did she do that?" There is a fairly big deal made around the mystery of why the queen sold her soul, but it's never resolved. That part kind of disappears, and instead the queen's evilness is supposed to be because of her trauma or something.
I don't really know why the whole evil altar scene was there and not explained.
The queen's motivation keeps changing throughout the book. First, you think it's because she's Anaic, but then the whole sold-her-soul thing appears, and then at the end it's because she's angry at God for letting bad things happen to her. I still don't quite know what it was.
A couple of things change throughout the book, actually. One of them is about the Tree.
At the beginning, I was under the impression that the Tree could grant wishes to whoever ate its fruit, and that's why the queen wanted it, which I suppose is a good reason for wanting the Tree. So for several chapters I thought it was a wishing tree, until Josiah and Remus find basically a shrine an ancient person had built for the Tree after he found it.
They read his diary and realize the Tree corrupted him and he used its power to control people. This makes sense so far, but then after reading a single line "I'm surrounded by voiceless men" they immediately jump to the conclusion the the Tree gives you the ability to mind control people.
I was slightly mystified as to where this bizarre conclusion came from. They knew the Tree gave power to people, and mind control was not hinted about at all before. Why would they think "I'm surrounded by voiceless men" means mind control? Couldn't the ancient guy have just been writing about the power he wished for or something? Anyway, they assume mind control out of nowhere and it turns out they were right, the Tree gives you mind control, not wishes. This is established, and later ignored.
Josiah finds the Tree and gives into the temptation of eating the fruit so he can mind control the queen and save everyone. So he eats the fruit, the fruit that when you eat it, gives you mind control.
And then he doesn't get mind control, or at least he never uses it. Neither he nor Remus even think about just giving it a TRY when all seems lost and the queen is going to kill them. It's never mentioned again, just disappears. I don't know where that plot point was going. I suppose it's possible that the reason Josiah didn't get mind control could be because it seems he rejected the Tree afterwards, but that's not actually stated. For all we know, either the Tree never gave him that, or he just never thought to use it.
(It's also not made entirely clear if the Tree was evil. I assume it was, but characters talk about it in contradictory ways.)
The oddest part of the book wasn't actually the plot lines that go nowhere, it was the strange way Catholicism was talked about, especially in the last quarter of the book.
This story is set in a fantasy world, but it is a Christian fantasy world. I have no problem whatsoever with that idea, and think it's actually really cool. The odd part is that to make it fit into a fantasy world, it's Catholicism using fantasy terms. During the first part of the book, it wasn't that bad. The author used Latin and Hebrew words instead of English (for instance "Cephas" instead of "Peter"). I can kind of see why the other might change certain things to make it more fantasy sounding, and using other languages seemed to be a good way to do it. I think St. Peter got a reasonable name change. I can't say the same about everyone.
For example, St. Michael is called Bellator. Now when I looked it up, Bellator is Latin for warrior. I can see the connection, but I think it's going a bit far. "Michael" is a pretty good fantasy-sounding name. (The whole St. Michael scene was a bit confusing.) Also, St Anthony's name is changed to Gan. Gan, as far as I know, doesn't have a linguistic connection to St. Anthony, and Anthony already seems like a fantasy name anyway.
The very strange part came, however, when the book started making things up and replacing the real thing with a made up fantasy thing.
For example, when Josiah gets baptized, it's a totally made up rite. The Holy Spirit is called the Holy Breath, and it goes"I restore your soul" instead of "I baptize you." (Josiah was not validly baptized) Why not just have the proper rite?
Even worst then the baptism though, is the fantasy equivalent of the Eucharist. Instead of having what it actually is, eating bread that's truly transformed into our Lord's Body, the Catholics in this world touch a miraculous flame that is actually transformed into God's love, and that's how thy receive this equivalent. This was certainly the weirdest change. I don't see the point. Why include these things if you're going to change them? If you want to include the Eucharist in the Catholic fantasy world, just have the Eucharist. That whole thing was just strange, to me at least.
Before I close, I'd just like to mention a few more things.
Rianne's good friend Peter has a servant named Trayton. Now, Rianne and Peter are Catholic and normally act kindly to people like they're supposed to. But they strangely seem to have it in for Trayton.
For example, the book says Trayton silently brings some drinks to Peter and Rianne.
Peter says "You are quiet this afternoon, Trayton." Trayton responds with "I didn't think you'd appreciate the noise, but now that you've broken the silence yourself, I may as well mention that your countenance is longer then usual." Then Peter says "Can you never hold your tongue?" Trayton says "Yes sir." and then Peter dimisses him with a flick of his wrist while thinking "Why do I put up with him?"
Why is Peter being so rude? Trayton was being quiet. Peter asks him a question and then when Trayton answers, Peter asks him if he can ever stop talking and thinks "why do I put up with him?"
Peter also insults Trayton's intelligence several times, and after Trayton gets beat up by some soldiers for defending Catholicism, Rianne calls him a idiot for drawing attention and twice punches his injured leg. In a flash-back to when she was a kid, she kicked Trayton because he said a sarcastic thing to her. Why on earth are Rianne and Peter so darn mean to him? They're nice to everyone else. Was it supposed to be humorous? I thought at first that would be part of Rianne's journey to becoming a better person, but she never stops to think that she treated Trayton badly.
Strange.
One thing that I found kind of interesting is the countries. The world is pretty much a typical fantasy world, based off of mostly Medieval culture in countries that vaguely correspond to places in real life, except for one country that is literally just Russia under a different name. It's a northern country ruled by a tzar. The inhabitants have actual Russian first and last names and are described like how Russians look. Their architecture includes colorful onion-domed roofs, they are noted for their religious icons, and "yes" and "no" in their language is literally "da" and "nyet".
I do not know why one country was totally based of a real world country while the others weren't, but it's interesting.
CONTENT WARNING:
I will put a content warning of things in the book that people may want to be aware of. I may have forgotten things, but there wasn't a whole lot to be concerned about.
#1. There is the rape scene, which I think was very unnecessary.
#2. When Rianne tells the queen God can heal her pain from what happened to her as a child, the queen gets so mad she basically orders a soldier to rape Rianne, but the soldier doesn't.
#3. There are mentions of brothels.No details, but the word is used as an insult and there is a mention Josiah once went to one when he was depressed, though he realized that wasn't good.
#5. Josiah, in a flash-back to before he is Christian, wants to behave immorally with his Christian girlfriend, but she tells him not to sin.
I understand the book is about healing and forgiveness from sin, so that's why most of this is in the book. There is really no graphic or explicit detail, but I still would have preferred if what I listed above wasn't in the book. I think the message still could have gotten across, and it would have been better, and nicer to read.
The majority of the book does not have this stuff. It's only short parts. Most of the book is a fun adventure story with a nice religious element. You might just want to be aware of these things in gauging what age is good for reading it. Solely because of what is in the content warning, I'd say around 15 years old. If that wasn't in here I'd say 11 and up.
Now from reading everything I just wrote above, you might think I hated this book and that its awful. That's not true, I actually REALLY liked most of the book and thought it was enjoyable, well written and had great religious insight for three fourths of the story. For three fourths of the story I would 100% recommend The Tree and rate it four or five stars. Its just the last fourth of the book that seemed much more unpolished, disappointing and unsatisfying. Its the last fourth of the book that makes me rate it three stars and hesitate to advise someone to read it. Which is really too bad, because it was a nice for most of the story.
It had full, three-dimensional characters and character arcs which were interesting to read, an exiting plot that had me engaged in the story, well written plot twists, and I really liked the religious aspects and the journeys the characters had.
One quote I especially liked: "I don't believe in God." Josiah said. "That's too bad." said Remus. "He believes in you."
(Near the bottom of my review there is a short content warning section with parts that one may want to know about before they choose to read this book)
I'm disappointed with this book.
I really enjoyed most of the story. For about three fourths of the book it was great, and I looked past the occasional part that didn't make sense, because over all it was a good story.
But by the time the last fourth rolled around, it just crashed and burned.
There are many elements in "The Tree" that I feel were not finished or dealt with properly.
First of all, the ending was extremely underwhelming, especially the evil queen's fate.
The queen is very evil. Very, VERY evil. She murders people, tortures them, starves them, taunts them, imprisons them, and is generally very mean and sadistic. Obviously, she deserves some form of punishment for her actions.
However, the main character Rianne wants to show her God's mercy and love. It is reveled that the queen was really hurt as a child, and Rianne wants to show her God's healing. (The trauma she experienced is, I THINK, supposed to be the reason she became evil. Lots of people who are hurt don't retaliate by becoming monstrous tyrants, but apparently the queen needs a reason for healing.)
I was wondering how the author was going to work out the complex situation she had created. Showing someone both justice and mercy. Justice for the evil she has done, while still showing her God loves her. It seemed like a difficult thing to resolve, but I was curious how it would play out.
And then it went nowhere. Instead of facing judgement, and playing out how all of the characters are going to navigate the new elements added, it's just mentioned in the epilogue that the queen killed herself before anyone could do anything.
It literally is all tied up in a single sentence saying that before she could even be arrested, she whipped out a knife and killed herself.
I was irritated by this ending. First of all, I hate when the villains kill themselves anyway, but secondly, it seemed like the lazy way out of the conflict the author had created. Instead of actually addressing the points brought up and showing the characters communicate mercy while still balancing the justice deserved, the queen commits suicide so no one has to deal with the different elements. They are never addressed again. It's stressed for almost two chapters, and then disappears in the epilogue.
I was not pleased by that. I'm wondering why the author even bothered to bring in the backstory and forgiveness if it wasn't going to go anywhere.
The ending fell so flat. Even disregarding the ignored elements, it was just very unsatisfying that she killed herself. It would have been a better, more rounded ending if justice prevailed and the queen was executed for her crimes.
The part where the lords and soldiers turned on the queen also fell flat. I felt like there were so many opportunities for the protagonists or the lords to kill or overthrow the queen, and they just didn't. They could have tried to stop her and they don't, so when finally the time comes that people realize "we're following a lunatic who is shorter and weaker then us" and they rebel, it felt too little too late. For a couple of chapters they ignored chances to stop her, even when she was very clearly evil. So when they eventually do stand up, instead of thinking "Yes!" I was thinking "Why didn't you do this days ago?"
There is violence in the book.
Swords, knives, horse chases, falling off cliffs. For the first half it's not too bad, just typical action adventure stuff.
However, the book got rather dark near the end. The scenes where Rianne was in jail were beginning to feel long and rather intense, with her being starved and breaking her wrist. It was also dark how the queen tortured Rianne's mom in front of her, and then made Rianne watch as she slowly died of her wounds in a jail cell.
The worst part though, was the queen's backstory where she is raped by her father as a child. It doesn't actually go into detail, but I was disgusted that it was even in the book. Yes, sin is very dark and ugly, but the book didn't need to be dark and ugly. Before that I was thinking I'd recommend the book to my friends, now I'm not recommending it to anyone. I felt that part was extremely unnecessary.
There are parts of the book where a plot point would be introduced, and then completely forgotten about. Rianne concludes that the queen sold her soul to the devil, because she finds a room with a lock of the queen's hair on an altar, and then she's attacked by the devil. (That part was kind of confusing, as it's unclear if it was a physical attack or just a strong spiritual attack.) So anyway, Rianne concludes this and later she's thinking "why did she do that?" There is a fairly big deal made around the mystery of why the queen sold her soul, but it's never resolved. That part kind of disappears, and instead the queen's evilness is supposed to be because of her trauma or something.
I don't really know why the whole evil altar scene was there and not explained.
The queen's motivation keeps changing throughout the book. First, you think it's because she's Anaic, but then the whole sold-her-soul thing appears, and then at the end it's because she's angry at God for letting bad things happen to her. I still don't quite know what it was.
A couple of things change throughout the book, actually. One of them is about the Tree.
At the beginning, I was under the impression that the Tree could grant wishes to whoever ate its fruit, and that's why the queen wanted it, which I suppose is a good reason for wanting the Tree. So for several chapters I thought it was a wishing tree, until Josiah and Remus find basically a shrine an ancient person had built for the Tree after he found it.
They read his diary and realize the Tree corrupted him and he used its power to control people. This makes sense so far, but then after reading a single line "I'm surrounded by voiceless men" they immediately jump to the conclusion the the Tree gives you the ability to mind control people.
I was slightly mystified as to where this bizarre conclusion came from. They knew the Tree gave power to people, and mind control was not hinted about at all before. Why would they think "I'm surrounded by voiceless men" means mind control? Couldn't the ancient guy have just been writing about the power he wished for or something? Anyway, they assume mind control out of nowhere and it turns out they were right, the Tree gives you mind control, not wishes. This is established, and later ignored.
Josiah finds the Tree and gives into the temptation of eating the fruit so he can mind control the queen and save everyone. So he eats the fruit, the fruit that when you eat it, gives you mind control.
And then he doesn't get mind control, or at least he never uses it. Neither he nor Remus even think about just giving it a TRY when all seems lost and the queen is going to kill them. It's never mentioned again, just disappears. I don't know where that plot point was going. I suppose it's possible that the reason Josiah didn't get mind control could be because it seems he rejected the Tree afterwards, but that's not actually stated. For all we know, either the Tree never gave him that, or he just never thought to use it.
(It's also not made entirely clear if the Tree was evil. I assume it was, but characters talk about it in contradictory ways.)
The oddest part of the book wasn't actually the plot lines that go nowhere, it was the strange way Catholicism was talked about, especially in the last quarter of the book.
This story is set in a fantasy world, but it is a Christian fantasy world. I have no problem whatsoever with that idea, and think it's actually really cool. The odd part is that to make it fit into a fantasy world, it's Catholicism using fantasy terms. During the first part of the book, it wasn't that bad. The author used Latin and Hebrew words instead of English (for instance "Cephas" instead of "Peter"). I can kind of see why the other might change certain things to make it more fantasy sounding, and using other languages seemed to be a good way to do it. I think St. Peter got a reasonable name change. I can't say the same about everyone.
For example, St. Michael is called Bellator. Now when I looked it up, Bellator is Latin for warrior. I can see the connection, but I think it's going a bit far. "Michael" is a pretty good fantasy-sounding name. (The whole St. Michael scene was a bit confusing.) Also, St Anthony's name is changed to Gan. Gan, as far as I know, doesn't have a linguistic connection to St. Anthony, and Anthony already seems like a fantasy name anyway.
The very strange part came, however, when the book started making things up and replacing the real thing with a made up fantasy thing.
For example, when Josiah gets baptized, it's a totally made up rite. The Holy Spirit is called the Holy Breath, and it goes"I restore your soul" instead of "I baptize you." (Josiah was not validly baptized) Why not just have the proper rite?
Even worst then the baptism though, is the fantasy equivalent of the Eucharist. Instead of having what it actually is, eating bread that's truly transformed into our Lord's Body, the Catholics in this world touch a miraculous flame that is actually transformed into God's love, and that's how thy receive this equivalent. This was certainly the weirdest change. I don't see the point. Why include these things if you're going to change them? If you want to include the Eucharist in the Catholic fantasy world, just have the Eucharist. That whole thing was just strange, to me at least.
Before I close, I'd just like to mention a few more things.
Rianne's good friend Peter has a servant named Trayton. Now, Rianne and Peter are Catholic and normally act kindly to people like they're supposed to. But they strangely seem to have it in for Trayton.
For example, the book says Trayton silently brings some drinks to Peter and Rianne.
Peter says "You are quiet this afternoon, Trayton." Trayton responds with "I didn't think you'd appreciate the noise, but now that you've broken the silence yourself, I may as well mention that your countenance is longer then usual." Then Peter says "Can you never hold your tongue?" Trayton says "Yes sir." and then Peter dimisses him with a flick of his wrist while thinking "Why do I put up with him?"
Why is Peter being so rude? Trayton was being quiet. Peter asks him a question and then when Trayton answers, Peter asks him if he can ever stop talking and thinks "why do I put up with him?"
Peter also insults Trayton's intelligence several times, and after Trayton gets beat up by some soldiers for defending Catholicism, Rianne calls him a idiot for drawing attention and twice punches his injured leg. In a flash-back to when she was a kid, she kicked Trayton because he said a sarcastic thing to her. Why on earth are Rianne and Peter so darn mean to him? They're nice to everyone else. Was it supposed to be humorous? I thought at first that would be part of Rianne's journey to becoming a better person, but she never stops to think that she treated Trayton badly.
Strange.
One thing that I found kind of interesting is the countries. The world is pretty much a typical fantasy world, based off of mostly Medieval culture in countries that vaguely correspond to places in real life, except for one country that is literally just Russia under a different name. It's a northern country ruled by a tzar. The inhabitants have actual Russian first and last names and are described like how Russians look. Their architecture includes colorful onion-domed roofs, they are noted for their religious icons, and "yes" and "no" in their language is literally "da" and "nyet".
I do not know why one country was totally based of a real world country while the others weren't, but it's interesting.
CONTENT WARNING:
I will put a content warning of things in the book that people may want to be aware of. I may have forgotten things, but there wasn't a whole lot to be concerned about.
#1. There is the rape scene, which I think was very unnecessary.
#2. When Rianne tells the queen God can heal her pain from what happened to her as a child, the queen gets so mad she basically orders a soldier to rape Rianne, but the soldier doesn't.
#3. There are mentions of brothels.No details, but the word is used as an insult and there is a mention Josiah once went to one when he was depressed, though he realized that wasn't good.
#5. Josiah, in a flash-back to before he is Christian, wants to behave immorally with his Christian girlfriend, but she tells him not to sin.
I understand the book is about healing and forgiveness from sin, so that's why most of this is in the book. There is really no graphic or explicit detail, but I still would have preferred if what I listed above wasn't in the book. I think the message still could have gotten across, and it would have been better, and nicer to read.
The majority of the book does not have this stuff. It's only short parts. Most of the book is a fun adventure story with a nice religious element. You might just want to be aware of these things in gauging what age is good for reading it. Solely because of what is in the content warning, I'd say around 15 years old. If that wasn't in here I'd say 11 and up.
Now from reading everything I just wrote above, you might think I hated this book and that its awful. That's not true, I actually REALLY liked most of the book and thought it was enjoyable, well written and had great religious insight for three fourths of the story. For three fourths of the story I would 100% recommend The Tree and rate it four or five stars. Its just the last fourth of the book that seemed much more unpolished, disappointing and unsatisfying. Its the last fourth of the book that makes me rate it three stars and hesitate to advise someone to read it. Which is really too bad, because it was a nice for most of the story.
It had full, three-dimensional characters and character arcs which were interesting to read, an exiting plot that had me engaged in the story, well written plot twists, and I really liked the religious aspects and the journeys the characters had.
One quote I especially liked: "I don't believe in God." Josiah said. "That's too bad." said Remus. "He believes in you."
November 18, 2022
1.5 stars
I spent this entire book writing in it, breaking down story science, and why I really did not like it. Do I have time to write it all out? I think maybe I'll save it for when someone asks because I have 498 pages to talk about in one review.
I spent this entire book writing in it, breaking down story science, and why I really did not like it. Do I have time to write it all out? I think maybe I'll save it for when someone asks because I have 498 pages to talk about in one review.
September 29, 2017
Beautiful imagery and well crafted, intriguing storyline! Recommend highly!
June 22, 2023
Loved it. Excellent story. Loved the characters.
April 14, 2016
From the moment I picked up The Tree, I could not put it down. The writing was superb and the tone was entertaining. I loved the parallels to early Christianity, though sometimes it was a little too similar. I was also highly impressed with the book's symbolism. What most impressed me, however, was the depth of knowledge and understanding of the human person that Mallett shows in her characters. A great story and treasure. I would highly recommend it.
April 1, 2022
A wonderful story of faith found. Once again, the truth of God triumphs over evil! This is a book I will read again and again!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews