The Promise Tree is a detective story without a detective. The heroine, Dani Lace, notices strange things happening, but it is the reader who is the detective as Nature and history try to communicate with Dani. From the very beginning, there are dozens of tiny clues which the reader can accumulate as the trees, or is it Nature as a whole, affect Dani's thoughts and behaviour. History shows her the way things were. Is it trying to tell her where Man went wrong? The story is about questions but it's up to the reader to notice them and think about them. The three women in the story, Dani, Edwina and Freda are all drawn in to what is happening, whereas the men are not, with the exception of Walter, the old country labourer, who is not so much affected by it as a part of it.