Mad Honey

Description

Melissa Makepeace poured herself into running the family farm when her boyfriend, and head beekeeper, vanished on an early spring day, silently absorbing yet another man disappearing from her life. But three months later Beck Wise reappears – thin, pale, with no idea what day it is and filled with strange memories of bees – and Melissa finds herself unravelling multiple mysteries. What had happened to Beck? Where did her father go? How can she keep the farm together? With gorgeous descriptions, deft characterizations and a page-turning plot, Mad Honey immerses the reader in a search for truth bounded by the everyday magic of beekeeping, of family and of finding peace, all while asking how much we really understand the natural world. Review: Katie Welch's Mad Honey: A mystery and pastoral, cleverly and carefully written - Katie Welch’s Mad Honey is a beautiful novel, a mystery and pastoral, cleverly and carefully written with a tangle of mysteries–like how one can metamorphose into a hive of bees–that satisfyingly and naturally unwind themselves. The characters are well-constructed and the reader develops an emotional attachment to the main protagonists, Melissa and Beck. It’s one of those novels that elevate you beyond the mundane. Very highly recommended. Review: The ending makes it worth it - An unusual, descriptive novel that brings the hive of honey bees to life, as the characters seek out answers to two secrets. One that has been a mystery for years and one that happens one summer to the disbelief of all. Once I'd learned that the author of Mad Honey lives in BC and the location of the novel takes place in Ontario, I knew I had to see what this one was about! Although the start was a bit hard to get into for me, my fascination with bees and honey had me wanting more, despite it being a tad confusing. The story takes off with Melissa, the main character frustrated that her boyfriend, Beck, has dissapeared for the summer, leaving her with one less person to help run the farm. When he returns he tells the oddest tale of having been "bees". Melissa is in disbelief and angered by the lack of help during her busy summer maintaining the farm. Melissa also wants to know where her father has disappeared to 12 years prior, and why. By the middle of the novel I was hooked! All I wanted to know was why Beck couldn't remember where he had been, why he is emanciated, with no strength. An odd, kooky elderly lady that lives close by ends up playing a large part in Beck's story. When she passes away, they discover that Beck had been her capture and drugged with a certain type of honey, called Mad Honey. She would lure him in with this honey and it would create hallucinations and leave him incapable of discerning reality or escaping. At first I thought this was a book of magical realism, based off of the first half of the novel so when I reached the ending and discovered the reasoning behind Beck's traumatic experience it made for a great ending.