The Secret Life of Bees: The stunning multi-million bestselling novel about a young girl's journey; poignant, uplifting and unforgettable - Softcover

Monk Kidd, Sue

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0747266832 ISBN 13: 9780747266839

Publisher: Tinder Press, 2003

Synopsis

The multi-million-copy bestselling novel about a young girl's journey towards healing and the transforming power of love, from the award-winning author of The Invention of Wings.

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 there Lily starts a journey as much about her understanding of the world as about the mystery surrounding her mother.

'A wonderful book, by turns sad, full of incident and shot through with grown-up magic reminiscent of Joanne Harris' Daily Telegraph

'Charming, funny, moving' The Times

'Wonderfully written, powerful, poignant...read it' Joanna Trollope

What readers are saying about The Secret Life of Bees:

'One of the most poignant and heart tugging books I have ever read' Amazon reviewer, 5 stars

'Emotional and heart-breaking, yet full of hope and love. I laughed and cried equally through the book. This wonderful book will stay with me for a long time to come' Amazon reviewer, 5 stars

'One of the best books I've read in a while. Touching, well-written, beautiful, full of expression, insightful' Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars

'A beautifully written masterpiece. I loved the writing, the descriptions, the humour sprinkled through the story. There was sadness and love, hope and forgiveness. I highly recommend this book' Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars

About this title

Review

I am amazed that this moving, original, and accomplished book is a first novel. It is wonderfully written, powerful, poignant, and humorous, and takes a line which is - refreshingly - strongly female without being cliche-feminist. It is also deliciously eccentric, which lifts it out of the usual category of a rite-of-passage novel into the realms of real distinction. Do read it (Joanna Trollope)

Charming, funny, moving and unmistakeably from the American South... a story that whips together heat, violence, eccentricity, madness and the Gothic (The Times)

Lily is a wonderfully petulant and self-absorbed adolescent, and Kidd deftly portrays her sense of injustice as it expands to accomodate broader social evils...August and her sisters, June and May, are no mere vehicles for Lily's salvation; they are individuals as fully imagined as the sweltering, kudzu-carpeted landscape that surrounds them (New York Times Book Review)

This is a wonderful book, by turns funny, sad, full of incident and shot through with grown-up magic reminiscent of Joanne Harris. (The Daily Telegraph)

Eccentric, inventive, and ultimately forgiving... a truly original Southern voice (Anita Shreve)

Sue Monk Kidd... Illuminates what is beautiful... THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES is a gift, filled with hope (Luanne Rice)

This is the story of a young girl's journey toward healing, and of finding, at its end, not only wholeness, but the intrinsic sacredness of living in the world. I think it is simply wonderful (Anne Rivers Siddons)

A wonderfully written debut novel (Kirkus Reviews)

With imagination as lush and colorful as the American South, a clutch of deliciously eccentric characters, and vivid prose, Sue Monk Kidd creates a rich, maternal haven in a harsh world (Christina Schwarz)

As original as its title and rivetingly so... It is one of the most inventive books I have read in a long time, and utterly compelling... This book demands to be read again and again, for it is not so much the solving of the mystery that is compulsive, but the gentle, sensitive, humorous and intensely colourful creation of a world far from our own (Oxford Times)

Book Description

The multi-million-copy bestselling first novel from the author of THE INVENTION OF WINGS. THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES was a New York Times bestseller for over two years, was made into an award-winning film and was long-listed for the Orange Prize.

About this edition

• Publisher: Tinder Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0747266832
• ISBN 13: 9780747266839
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384