Lene Fogelberg

Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author

Out Now

The Lightning Tree

Flora Reed discovers a lifeless body in her front yard the morning after the last day of her junior year of high school. Matters get worse when more people from her small town are found dead under mysterious circumstances and police take an interest in the boy next door, Carl. Flora is convinced that Carl is innocent. Instead, she suspects that the deaths are somehow connected to her younger sister Fauna’s tragic accident a year earlier. What she learns changes everything and she has to race against time to prevent the killings from spreading. Flora and a small group of friends soon find themselves at the onset of an apocalyptic battle between man and nature, with no one believing their story.

The Lightning Tree is the first installment of The Natural Intelligence Revolution Trilogy

Fogelberg presents an exciting story… The story delves into classic SF themes regarding environmentalism and humans’ abuse of the planet’s resources, but it feels very original at the same time. Flora’s feelings of being an outsider due to her accident and her family situation feel genuine, and young readers will certainly be able to relate to her anxieties. A brisk, thrilling novel of humankind versus nature… it’s a fast-paced, intriguing story that will likely appeal to young and older adults alike and keep them turning pages.

Kirkus Reviews
Lene Fogelberg’s masterful debut novel tells an epic tale of love, loss, and profound connection. With lyrical prose and heart-racing action, The Lightning Tree captivated me, beginning to end, and its crucial themes of stewardship, responsibility, and deep interconnectedness between humanity and nature stayed with me long after the story ended.

Terri Giuliano Long, author of USA Today bestseller In Leah’s Wake
Captivating. With lyrical prose and an engrossing combination of supernatural mystery and slow-burn romance, The Lightning Tree takes readers on an emotional journey as Flora Reed’s dedication to her sister leads to a most unlikely discovery about her family’s traumatic past and the future of the planet.

Amalie Jahn, author of Phoebe Unfired and The Next to Last Mistake
At the heart of Fogelberg’s beautifully woven narrative The Lightning Tree, is the need to make sense of a world that doesn’t make sense anymore. By pushing the boundaries of reality and presenting the natural world as a key protagonist, she turns its fight for survival into our own. The Lightning Tree is perfect for fans of Susan Beth Pfeiffer’s Life as We Knew It and Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam series.

Madeleine White, author of Mother of Floods
We are at a tipping point in history and must heed that fact or accept the consequences. In The Lightning Tree, Fogelberg distills this message into a timely and important novel that compels the reader to confront a broken relationship with nature.

David Massey, award-winning author of Torn and Taken
This book was amazing. I loved not only themes of ecology, but of compassion, family, trust, loyalty, and recovering from traumas and dealing with external judgment. The writing style had me hooked from page one with excellent descriptions and emotions portrayed on each page. I loved the friendships formed, the beginning of a romance, the secrets revealed, and the darker side of the “natural revolution”. This was parts murder mystery, parts fantasy, parts YA, parts family drama, and parts romance and I was here for every bit of it.

Micaela Michalk, Living for Literature
Such a wild and engrossing genre-bending story! The Lightning Tree blends YA coming-of-age, magical realism, murder mystery, apocalyptic sci-fi, conspiracy theory, environmental thriller, and campy horror. If you mixed A History of Wild Places, The Year of the Witching, and Stranger Things, the result would be something like The Lightning Tree.

Caroline, Caro Library
This book captured my interest from page one. I loved the relationships, characters, plot, and multiple POVs. Flora and Fauna’s dual POVs were both intriguing and haunting. Their relationship as sisters was so strong and powerful! I definitely found the “nature strikes back” twist to be interesting! This made nature my favorite character! Honestly, I enjoyed the creepiness of it all! It was heartbreaking, but also added a great mystery. I was surprised by the ending which has made me incredibly anxious for book two!

Erica Factor, OverBookedWithErica
The Lightning Tree is unlike anything I’ve ever read, which is rare in YA. It is an environmental thriller interlaced with tragically separated sisters, burgeoning romance, and elements of true horror. Lene Fogelberg is a refreshing new voice and I can’t wait to see where the series goes next!

Carolyn Cohagan, author of The Time Zero Trilogy
Mysteries unfold one after the other in this gripping, fast-paced novel. The plot is fast, mysterious, and exciting. The characters are super likeable. It is written in a first-person narrative that I don’t normally like, but Fogelberg is a gifted author and this book is very easy to read. I enjoyed this book so much, that I practically inhaled it!

T N Traynor, award-winning author of The Born to Be series