About this Audiobook: Dora Minor, a quirky and fiercely courageous girl growing up on a remote Virginia mountain, belongs to a family of outliers thanks to their Quaker beliefs that all people are born equal. After her mother's death, her indomitable grandmother Alma--a revolutionary in her own right, becomes her primary caregiver and protector. Alma, with her strong moral compass, and Watcher James, an eccentric woodsman who talks to Nature spirits, shape her worldview and guide her to reject the status quo. When Dora's father and formerly enslaved Ginny Dudley open a school for Black children, it sparks a violent backlash. After her father's death and then a lynching, Dora is forced to face hard truths about her neighbors and her family's past.
A post-Civil War novel that opens just as Reconstruction is falling apart, What the Trees Remember depicts a time of extreme social unrest and the birth of Jim Crow. Through the loss of loved ones, the destruction of the comfortable lives their known, and Nature's wrath, Dora and Alma rise above their trials by drawing strength from the natural world and never losing faith in themselves.
About the Author: Abigail Cutter bases her novels on extensive historical research, but she isn’t a professional historian. She started out as an artist/printmaker with an MFA from George Washington University, teaching art and showing work in galleries. During a long stint at the National Endowment for the Humanities, she developed a deep love for American history. She also married a man who came with an 18th-century farm in the mountains of Virginia. Also the author of The Last of What I Am, Cutter currently lives with her family both at the farm and in the small historic town of Waterford, VA.
Author: Abigail Cutter
Narrator: Emily Martz, Ian Bedford
Publisher: She Writes Press
Copyright: 2026 Abigail Cutter
Audiobook Release Date: 2026-09-08
Original Book Release Date: 2026-07-21
Running Time: 10:31:33
Track Count: 58
Word Count: 94,000
Audiobook ISBN: 9781971980461
