Blake Kiser is a 12-year-old boy who has given up his latest summer to help out more around the farm. It's not like he has much else to do though-his best friend, Matt, has moved away, leaving Blake more alone than ever, until Greta arrives. Gretchen Wills is a bit of an oddity, who stands out even more in the quiet country town of Hemingford, like a firefly in a dark basement. But like every firefly, shine too bright and you're bound to get caught.

Blake shows Greta some of Hemingford's local color, including the old Bradley House-a house every kid in Hemingford believes to be haunted. They are enthralled by the broken-down shack and the eerie tales that surround it-stories of the man who used to live there. But they find something much more concrete than ghosts waiting within: a crude man who becomes a very unlikely friend. But as wicked crimes are committed throughout the rural community, Blake witnesses the quiet town of Hemingford transform into something ugly he doesn't recognize-and suddenly, childish fears of ghosts and monsters seem irrelevant in the wake of true, tangible danger.

The Perfect Tree is a novel about trust, who you should and who you shouldn't, and the people who surprise you along the way. Truly, like nature, we all harbor the capacity for good, evil, and the various degrees in between.