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Loading... The Hanging Tree: A Novellaby Michael Phillip Cash
   None No current Talk conversations about this book.  juliecracchiolo | Mar 2, 2018 |   The location, Long Island. The setting, beneath the legendary Hanging Tree. The characters. Arielle, a seventeen year old girl. Frustrated and angry at her parents, she sneaks off to the tr to meet Chad. Chad, one year older than Arielle, is there for her. Understands her. Cares about her. He meets her under the tree. The tree. A local legend and truly haunted. The inhabitants of the tree. Spirits, young and old, angry and sad, despairing and hopeful. And one more thing. Watch out for the cat! This was a short story but so well written. The characters, alive and dead, were so captivating. Arielle and Chad had me feeling their pain, their hope. And the spirits in the tress. Well, most of them really creeped me out. How the author presents the spirits and their ties to the Hanging Tree is quite creative and eerie. Now I look twice when I see one of the massive Live Oaks that grow everywhere in the south. Their twisted branches, some growing right along ground are how I pictured the Hanging Tree. I wonder if they have spirits lingering, attaching to those branches, just waiting for someone to come along. I still think about this story. About choices I’ve made. About choices I will make in the future. (  ) laura-thomas | Feb 2, 2016 |  ) Loriel143 | Nov 25, 2014 | Michael Phillip Cash is a good storyteller and with his first novella (a mere 74 pages), he tells stories of witches, ghosts, spells and relationships. Yet, I felt that I’ve heard this tale once before (maybe with different characters), so it doesn’t stand out or is exceptional. I read this in under two hours and left with no lasting emotion. Oh, well. That’s my two cents and three star rating. (  ) grumpydan | Sep 26, 2014 | I enjoyed the story very much especially exploring the relationship with the teen girl, Arielle, and her parents as she gains independence and has to make important decisions. The bitterness and hatred that has carried over generations takes this story to fascinating places. I thought that The Hanging Tree came full circle and ended with a satisfying conclusion. This is a quick and fun read and would also be a great starter book if you haven’t read any of the other Michael Philip Cash book. ( ) Tmtrvlr | Jul 11, 2014 | no reviews | add a review
Enter a world where spirits roam the earth in Michael Phillip Cash's haunting new novella, The Hanging Tree. Set amid the eerie backdrop of Long Island, an area famously steeped in old legend, two young would-be lovers contemplate their future while visits from those who have come before them reveal the lure of fate...and the power of free will.At seventeen years old, Arielle's relationship with her parents is slowly deteriorating. Angry and defiant, she is at a loss on how to cope with the tumultuous situation in which she finds herself. Arielle's only comfort is Chad, an eighteen-year-old young man who seems to truly understand her struggles.Arielle and Chad meet beneath the low-hanging branches of what the local community has nick-named the "Hanging Tree". An ancient and majestic landmark, it has long been rumored that the tree is haunted by ghosts. These ghosts span various centuries and vary wildly in age, but each one of them has one thing in common: their deaths are all somehow connected to the tree itself.As Arielle and Chad commiserate over their current situation and their precarious nature of their future, the spectral inhabitants of the Hanging Tree witness their conversation. One by one,the ghosts begin reminiscing about their own lives-and deaths- as they examine the inner demons with which their human forms long struggled.An eerie meditation on the oft-overlooked power of choice, Cash's The Hanging Tree will stay with readers long after they turn out the light. No library descriptions found. |
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Wikipedia in English
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Arielle, seventeen years old in contemporary times, is fighting off her boyfriend, Chad, the hottest and handsomest guy in school. Chad is going everything he can to get in her pants. Arielle is doing everything she can to thwart him. The setting is Long Island, New York, beneath its infamous hanging tree.
But the two are not alone. Sitting on the branches, watching the action below, are the spirits of Goody Bennett and other members of the Harmond family. Goody Bennett can’t decide if she should interfere with the couple, while others urge her in both directions (she should/she shouldn’t).
The plot shift between the present and the past, giving readers a sense of how those that haven’t yet left this earth got there.
It’s an interesting story/ I give it 4 out of 5 stars…mainly because I wasn’t satisfied. I wanted more, especially those souls in the trees. The novella should have been a novel, and maybe someday author Cash will pursue that thread. (