Beekeeper Fiction

Beekeeper Beckett Walsh was living her dream working alongside her father on their small farm until his unexpected death thrusts a new part-owner into her world. Callie Peterson threatens not only her livelihood, but her beliefs about the goodness of the man she'd always perceived to be her kind and faithful father.

The Music of Bees follows three lonely strangers in a rural Oregon town, each working through grief and life's curveballs, who are brought together by happenstance on a local honeybee farm where they find surprising friendship, healing--and maybe even a second chance--just when they least expect it.

Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily's fierce-hearted Black "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily decides to spring them both free. They escape to Tiburon, South Carolina--a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. Taken in by an eccentric trio of Black beekeeping sisters, Lily is introduced to their mesmerizing world of bees and honey, and the Black Madonna. This is a remarkable novel about divine female power, a story that women will share and pass on to their daughters for years to come.

A member of the lowest caste in her orchard hive, Flora 717, due to her courage and strength, finds her way into the Queen's inner sanctum where she discovers secrets about the hive that cause her to challenge authority and perform unthinkable acts.

It's been more than a decade since the world has come undone, and Sasha Severn has returned to her childhood home with one goal in mind-find the mythic research her father, the infamous Last Beekeeper, hid before he was incarcerated. There, Sasha is confronted with a group of squatters who have claimed the quiet, idyllic farm as a way to escape the horrific conditions of state housing. While she feels threatened by their presence at first, the friends soon become her newfound family, offering what she hasn't felt since her father was imprisoned: security and hope. Maybe it's time to forget the family secrets buried on the farm and focus on her future. But just as she settles into her new life, Sasha witnesses the impossible. She sees a honeybee, presumed extinct. People who claim to see bees are ridiculed and silenced for reasons Sasha doesn't understand, but she can't shake the feeling that this impossible bee is connected to her father's missing research.

England, 1852. William is a biologist and seed merchant, who sets out to build a new type of beehive--one that will give both him and his children honor and fame. United States, 2007. George is a beekeeper fighting an uphill battle against modern farming, but hopes that his son can be their salvation. China, 2098. Tao hand paints pollen onto the fruit trees now that the bees have long since disappeared. When Tao's young son is taken away by the authorities after a tragic accident, she sets out on a grueling journey to find out what happened to him. Haunting, illuminating, and deftly written, The History of Bees joins these three very different narratives into one gripping and thought-provoking story that is just as much about the powerful bond between children and parents as it is about our very relationship to nature and humanity.

Attracted to an artists' colony on a drought-stricken honey farm where residents are offered free room and board in exchange for hard labor, a wide-eyed poetry graduate falls for a fellow artist and begins to notice tensions linked to ominous events and her hostess's past.

May has arrived in the tiny hamlet of Glenville, Vermont, bringing with it currents of rejuvenation and rebirth. For 3 families, though, the year ahead will prove to be a roller coaster of life-changing events, promises, and tragedies. Liquid, Fragile, Perishable unspools via a chorus of unforgettable voices: an old-school Christian beekeeping family and newly transplanted New Yorkers; a trio of teenage girls and a deeply rooted family of ne'er-do-wells; and one woman who just wants to live alone in the woods. The shifting set of relations among the citizens of this community encompasses teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, poverty--and a cavalcade of thwarted dreams, young love in bloom, and poignant missed connections.

Olivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over. Her picture-perfect life-living in Boston, married to a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon, raising a beautiful son, Asher-was upended when her husband revealed a darker side. She never imagined she would end up back in her sleepy New Hampshire hometown, living in the house she grew up in, and taking over her father's beekeeping business.   One day, Olivia receives a phone call: her son is being questioned by the police. Olivia is adamant that her son is innocent. But she would be lying if she didn't acknowledge the flashes of his father's temper in him, and as the case against him unfolds, she realizes he's hidden more than he's shared with her.

"From the day that old Nana Reja found a baby abandoned under a bridge, the life of a small Mexican town forever changed. Disfigured and covered in a blanket of bees, little Simonopio is for some locals the stuff of superstition, a child kissed by the devil. But he is welcomed by landowners Francisco and Beatriz Morales, who adopt him and care for him as if he were their own. As he grows up, Simonopio becomes a cause for wonder to the Morales family, because when the uncannily gifted child closes his eyes, he can see what no one else can -- visions of all that's yet to come, both beautiful and dangerous. Followed by his protective swarm of bees and living to deliver his adoptive family from threats -- both human and those of nature -- Simonopio's purpose in Linares will in time, be divined.

Nuri is a beekeeper; his wife, Afra, an artist. They live a simple life, rich in family and friends, in the beautiful Syrian city of Aleppo--until the unthinkable happens. When all they care for is destroyed by war, they are forced to escape. But what Afra has seen is so terrible she has gone blind, and so they must embark on a perilous journey through Turkey and Greece towards an uncertain future in Britain. As Nuri and Afra travel through a broken world, they must confront not only the pain of their own unspeakable loss, but dangers that would overwhelm the bravest of souls. Above all, they must journey to find each other again.