Description

A compulsive, mesmerising and wildly imaginative novel in the vein of Pan’s Labyrinth and Station Eleven from the award-winning author of The Girl with Glass Feet

There came an elastic aftershock of creaks and groans and then, softly softly, a chinking shower of rubbled cement. Leaves calmed and trunks stood serene. Where, not a minute before, there had been a suburb, there was now only woodland standing amid ruins…

There is no warning. No chance to prepare. The trees arrive in the night: thundering up through the ground,
transforming streets and towns into shadowy forest.

Adrien Thomas has never been much of a hero. But when he realises that no help is coming, he ventures into this unrecognisable world. Alongside green-fingered Hannah and her teenage son Seb, Adrien sets out to find his wife and to discover just how deep the forest goes. Their journey will take them to a place of terrible beauty and violence, to the dark heart of nature and the darkness inside themselves.

Publisher Review

The Trees does for trees what Hitchcock did for birds. You have been warned * Irish Times, 'Books to Watch Out For in 2016' * The strength of the novel is in the visceral descriptions of the forest: the reader feels, smells and hears the trees, convincingly portrayed as sinister, formidable and with unnerving intentions of their own. Shaw gradually builds up a sense of the supernatural, including "whisperers" ... A bold, intriguing conceit for a dystopian environmental novel ... A valiant exploration into notions of power and leadership, and what humans can do when tested to their limits * Observer, Paperback of the Week * Strange and brilliantly unsettling, it's a vivid look at a world gone to the wild * Mail on Sunday, 'The Best New Fiction' * A strange and vivid journey into an ancient forest that has taken over the world with force. The Trees is a thought-provoking meditation on what it means to be wild. Death, darkness and eerie creatures lurk among the branches, but it's the human characters that surprise the most ... Ali Shaw once again weaves a fantastical and haunting story * Eowyn Ivey, author of The Snow Child * Shaw's climax is like nothing else, crescendoing with almost CGI levels of spectacle as Tarantino meets Middle Earth * Financial Times * Brilliant ... Masterfully written and utterly enthralling ... Dark and beautiful **** * Grazia * Violent, beautiful, devastating and utterly enchanting - a triumph * Scotsman * The Trees is a stunning and vivid examination of the relationship between humans and the environment ... Shaw masterfully brings every detail of the book to life. A wonderfully imaginative story, but also a compelling social commentary * Herald * A fairy story for people who can still envisage a future that isn't completely bleak * Stanley Donwood * A compelling adventure * Marie Claire * Simultaneously bewildering and yet somehow hauntingly familiar, forcing us to consider how the natural world has become an elusive stranger to us all ... A complete triumph for Ali Shaw ***** * Western Mail, Book of the Week * A gripping journey to the heart of wilderness ... The Trees is a rarity and an absolute must-read * Yorkshire Post * An English ecological version of The Road * Guardian * Imaginative and original * Sunday Post *