Burning the Raven Tree Extras

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Book Club Discussion Questions

1. Several characters withhold the truth—not always to deceive, but to survive. At the same time, the town knows more than it admits. When, if ever, is silence justified, and when does it become complicity?
2. Burning the Raven Tree resists clear heroes and villains. Which character did you find most morally complex, and why? Which character did you identify with most?
3. Many characters feel trapped by circumstances, family, or the past. Who do you think held the most real power in the story—and who only appeared to?
4. The novel suggests that belonging should not require self-erasure. What does the story say about belonging—and who ultimately belongs on their own terms?
5. Fire appears as destruction, exposure, and transformation. How did your understanding of fire’s meaning change over the course of the book?
6. The novel suggests that it’s not the things we fear that break us, but the things we do in that fear that destroy us—and that our minds hide what they cannot manage. How do fear, memory, and survival intersect in the characters’ choices?
7. The novel blends psychological tension with mythic imagery. How did this affect your understanding of what was “real”? Did it change how you interpreted characters’ actions?
8. How did the portrayal of mental health care and institutionalization shape your understanding of who is labeled “dangerous,” and how fear influences control and care?
9. Did the ending feel like resolution, reckoning, or something else entirely? What questions, if any, did it leave you with?
10. Do you believe justice is ultimately served in this novel? Why or why not?

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Burning the Raven Tree Press Release

Conversation Points

Set in northern Michigan in 1965, Burning the Raven Tree explores how fear, silence, and the stories people choose to believe can shape identity and justice. Blending historical suspense, psychological tension, and Slavic folklore, the novel asks who is believed, who is protected, and what happens when both institutions and communities fail the vulnerable.

Suggested Topics

1. The hidden cost of deinstitutionalization
   The mid-1960s brought urgently needed reforms to America’s mental-health system—but too often without the community care, housing, or oversight necessary to support those released from state hospitals. The novel explores both the harm committed inside institutions and the harm caused when vulnerable people were left with nowhere to go.
2. Women, mental health, and the “witch” label
   Distressed, abused, or unconventional women have long been branded hysterical, unstable, dangerous—or even witchlike. Burning the Raven Tree examines how quickly a community can turn a misunderstood woman into a monster, particularly when trauma complicates her ability to tell her own story.
3. Child welfare, family privacy, and hidden abuse
   As child-welfare and juvenile-court systems evolved, abused and neglected children could still fall between the cracks. The novel considers how ideas about family privacy, parental authority, and “discipline” allowed communities and authorities to ignore what they suspected—or already knew.
4. Silence: survival or complicity?
   Silence can protect someone who has survived trauma, but it can also shield an abuser or make an entire community complicit. The novel asks when silence is an act of survival, when it becomes a moral failure, and what breaking it may cost.
5. Trauma, memory, and competing versions of truth
   Traumatic memory is often fragmented, suppressed, or reshaped as the mind tries to survive. Through an ancient oak that remembers what humans cannot—or will not—the novel explores the distance between what happened, what is remembered, and what people choose to believe.
6. Folklore as a keeper of cultural memory
   The novel draws on Slavic traditions—including Baba Yaga, the Zorya sisters, the world tree, Perun, and Veles—as well as the real shoe-tree legends of Michigan. These myths are not simply decorative; they shape how the characters understand protection, sacrifice, evil, and their own identities.

Bibliography

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