The Feathered Tree is a Young Adult novel in the mythical-realist genre. It is set in a contemporary North Devon town, but has roots in the ancient and mystical past of West Country folklore.
16-year-old Polly Mutter loves nature, and her greatest friend is a beech tree, Fagus Sylvatica, which stands all alone on a small hill at the bottom of her garden. She calls it Tree, with a capital T, and she confides all her innermost secrets to it.
When Tree is brutally hacked down one stormy night, Polly’s suspicions fall on a school bully and her spiteful gang.
Despite setbacks, Polly is desperate to get to the bottom of this act of cruel vandalism, but the truths she discovers on her quest send her far beyond the world of school bullies and into a secret realm where hidden things thrive in a reality stranger than anything she could possibly have imagined.
These discoveries will change her life forever.
