What the Trees Remember is an engaging historical novel about a young woman’s extraordinary life in post-Civil War Virginia.

In 1969, elderly Dora lives alone in her family’s home on Horseshoe Mountain. After a devastating storm, she reminisces about her childhood and young adulthood during the 1890’s.

Dora is raised by her father Tom and grandmother Alma after her mother died shortly after giving birth. Tom and Alma teach black children and press the community to establish more equitable schools for them.

After Tom dies under mysterious circumstances, Dora befriends Watcher, youngest brother of racist moonshiners, who teaches her about tracking. When a young black boy is lynched, Dora, Watcher, and the boy’s father discover the culprits and exact revenge. Meanwhile, Alma learns a shocking secret about Dora’s mother that would change everything if Dora were to find out.

The characters are well-drawn and absorbing, from Tom, determined to improve the lives of black people, to Watcher, who creates shrines in the forest for spirits while also dreaming about Jesus. Dora and Alma shine throughout, with Alma worried about Tom’s activism but also proud of his work and Dora preferring to explore the natural world to dressing “ladylike”; she reads through her encyclopedia devoutly, focusing on the “I” section, as her mother claimed to be Italian.

The novel expertly weaves history into the story. Black people are in a perilous state, freed but far from equal; any talk of funding and building more schools for them is vehemently opposed. Indeed, one candidate running for school superintendent suggests public education for blacks is unnecessary. Dora even learns about phrenology, how the shape and size of a person’s head supposedly determines their personality and intelligence, and how it was used to justify discrimination against blacks. The writing flows easily and each chapter includes the year.

Readers looking for a historical novel with a lesser-known setting and fleshed out characters trying to do the right thing, will enjoy this story.

Also available as an ebook.