The History of Bees by Maja Lunde

Divided into three sections, this dystopian novel looks at beekeeping from three different vantage points–Victorian England, America circa 2007, and China circa 2098.

While ostensibly focusing on bees, the novel examines the tensions that exist between family members, especially fathers and sons. This is true for the Victorian century beekeeper, William, and his son, Edmund, and in his American descendants, George, and his son, Tom circa 2007.

The sons in each case want nothing to do with father’s dream of harvesting honey and raising bees. William Savage is not only estranged from his son but also becomes more and more alienated from his mentor, Rahm. The only child who understands William’s dream is Charlotte yet he coldly dismisses her achievements. She is the wrong gender.

In the last time period, which takes place in China, bees and other pollinators are extinct. Their absence which leaves a void in the world further alienates family members. Without bees, everyone is undernourished and forced to work long hours hand painting pollen onto flowers.

In this horrific time, parents can only see their children one day a week. Children are forced to leave school and work as pollinators at younger and younger ages. Tao and Kuan can barely speak to each other, especially after their son disappears. Tao leaves her husband and goes off into unsafe areas of Beijing in search of her child, Wei-Wen.

Tied into all three stories is The History of the Bees, a book written by Thomas Savage who is distantly related to the Victorian bee keeper. Tao read the book and insists that the leader of the Committee, Li Xiara, read it as well.

The army and Chinese government finds a new colony of bees near the site where Wei-Wen goes missing. Knowing and acknowledging the past, however, is necessary before they can move forward. Tao’s boy becomes a symbol of hope.

What is fascinating is the way Lunde compares the disappearance of bees, also known as colony collapse disorder, with the disintegration of family and natural bonds. This is a chilling speculative novel about what may happen if red flags about pollinators and the climate are ignored.

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow.

Bi-racial January has always felt out-of-place and ignored by her beloved father, Julian, who is a field agent for Mr. Locke, head of the New England Archaeological Society. Julian travels the world looking for rare objects for his benefactor and boss yet he rarely spend time with his daughter.

Lacking a father’s love and support, January turns to Mr. Locke. Though she tries to be Mr. Locke’s “good” girl, she has a taste for adventure that is abhorrent to him. While staying in Kentucky, January walks through a timber frame painted blue. Briefly, against all logic, she experiences a sea-swept world.

Though she does not know it yet, the world is rich with these “doors” that leak revolutionary ideas, people and objects. Mr. Locke and his society know about these doors, which they call aberrations, yet they are determined to close them. When January tries to revisit the world she encountered in Kentucky, she finds that the portal has mysteriously closed.

Harrow describes two warring factions–one open to new ideas and possibilities–and the other adamantly opposed to them. The novel is also a coming-of-age story, a love story and a thriller. January must escape from a number of her adopted father’s goons. Her courage and tenacity are tested to the limits after she is placed in one confining place after another, including an asylum. In the end, she must renounce her surrogate father who thinks of her as merely a “perfect specimen.”

She must find her own power that is separate from Julian’s. Julian, her true father, gives her the book, The Ten Thousand Doors which opens her eyes. He, however, believes once a door is closed, its closed forever. January must find a way to re-open the closed doors, find her real father, and sail her own ship. What a delightful and empowering read!

Alix E. Harrow’s most recent book is Starling House.

Little Eve by Catriona Ward

Little Eve is Catriona Ward’s terrifying second novel. The setting is a remote Scottish island–Altnaharra–where a terrible incident has taken place. Jaime McRaith stumbles upon bodies laid out ritualistically in the form of a star, near the island’s standing stones.

The island’s occupants have always been a source of mystery; the four children attended school briefly and then disappeared. Though everyone believes that they are orphans, adopted by the kindly Uncle, they are actually adherents of a cult.

In this lyrical and profound novel, war alters and misfigures. The Uncle’s godly power causes the children to jostle for attention and love but ultimately destroys.

The novel is both a Gothic novel filled with secret hiding places and dungeons–the Wane–and also a high caliber mystery. The two protagonists, Eve and Chief Inspector Black, challenge and test each other to the bitter end.

Little Eve is a masterful dark mystery and suspense story that asks more questions than it answers. The novel demonstrates how cults can warp an individual’s identity and his or her understanding of family, friendship, and love.

Lily Renee: Escape Artist by Trina Robbins.

This exciting graphic novel will pique kids’ interest in Lily Renee Wilhelm, a heroic Holocaust survivor and a pioneering comic book artist.

In 1939, at just aged 14, Lily Renee was separated from her family. After arriving in England by Kinder transport, Lily Renee faced many hardships. Prior to Hitler’s rise to power, Lily Renee’s family had been exceptionally wealthy. As a refugee, she took any domestic job she could find.

Even though England accepted Jewish refugees, there was still a lot of distrust. Sadly, Lily Renee was declared a “enemy alien” simply for owning a camera.

Anne Timmons and Mo Oh, illustrators, capture the protagonists expressions expertly.

Wilhelm found success by creating comic book characters who would defeat Nazi villains. Possibly there’s no more perfect format than a graphic novel for her biography.

The Tuscan Child by Rhys Bowen.

Bowen’s historical novel, The Tuscan Child, is a gratifying read. 

The Tuscan Child by Rhys Bowen

Joanna and her father, Sir Hugo, couldn’t be more different. After his death, Joanna is startled to find a love letter to a woman in Italy. 

Intrigued, Joanna goes to San Salvatore in Italy, to discover more about her father’s life. She knew he had crashed while serving in World War II but she had not known the exact location, San Salvatore, a hill town in Tuscany.

Though there are no hotels in San Salvatore, Joanna finds a comfortable place to stay. She feels at home with Paola’s family until a strange event occurs. Someone has drowned one of the local men in the well near Joanna’s rented room.

Police think Joanna, a foreigner, is suspicious, even though she insists she has nothing to do with the man’s murder.

Renzo, the son of a rich landowner in San Salvatore, has a connection to her father and the woman he names in the letter, Sofia Bartoli. Is he the “beautiful boy” her father mentions in the same letter?

The novel takes many twists and turns and Joanna learns what’s true and what’s false. 

At the Corpus Christi festival she beings to see Renzo in a new light.  Though she does not trust Renzo, something is drawing her and him together.

This is a charming World War II story with light intrigue and light romance.

Quality of Silence by Rosamund Lupton

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This is a novel that pulls readers in immediately because there’s so much at stake for Yasmin and her daughter, Ruby. The pair hope to rescue Matt, Yasmin’s husband and Ruby’s father, from an outpost in Northern Alaska that burned to the ground.

Despite a terrible childhood, Yasmin has found the love of her life in Matt whose adventurous spirit matches her own. Even with a few challenges–like her daughter’s disability and Matt’s tendency to wander, Yasmin believes in his love.

Police, however, have decided there are no survivors. Refusing to give up hope, Yasmin and Ruby make their way North by convincing a truck driver to take them to DeadHorse. From there they hope to take a taxi plane to Anaktue.

Yasmin takes matters into her own hands when he becomes ill; she drives the truck herself across dangerous icy roads.

Fans of psychological suspense will love Lupton’s foray into the world of ice trucking. This is a complex novel about motherhood, disability, and ethical choices.

On one hand, Yasmin has felt that becoming a mother (especially a mother to a child who is so vulnerable) has made her invisible:

“It shocked her to realize that for years she’d felt bland, dull even to herself. Around her, everyone else’s characters were clearly defined, the borders of their personalities etched sharply, but not hers. She’d had tasks and chores and love for Ruby, huge love for her, but how would she have described who she was? Somewhere along the line she’d lost the idea of herself.”

Thus, the mother’s dangerous quest to find her husband is also quest to find her lost self. Yasmin endures the bitter cold of the Dalton highway, a possible stalker and the hazards of trucking during a storm.

Equally brave, Ruby decides how and when she’ll use her voice. Despite her mother’s repeated requests that she use her real voice, Ruby uses “Voice Magic” and twitter. In one courageous move at the end, Ruby uses this technology to thwart the evil doers who wish to harm her family.

Inheritance by Dani Shapiro

Inheritance: a Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro

Inheritance by Dani Shapiro

This memoir, which is in four parts, is Dani Shapiro’s most intimate memoir to date. Shapiro who has always considered herself her father’s daughter is devastated to learn that he is not her biological father.

Despite clues along the way, nothing clicks until she takes a DNA test. She expected to find that she is 100% Jewish but the test reveals something else altogether. She is biologically related to her mother but not to her father. 

Gradually, more details come to light. Before Shapiro was born, her parents had visited an infertility clinic known to mix sperm. Though she hopes her parents had not concealed anything from her, it becomes obvious they knew she was donor-conceived. 

Shapiro claims she had always known something was amiss. For Shapiro, who was devoted to her father, but always felt at odds with her family, the DNA results answer many troubling questions. The DNA results opens old wounds, leaving Shaprio completely unmoored. 

She describes how lost she feels in poetic language:

“I am the black box, discovered years–many years–after the crash. The pilots, the crew, the passengers have long been committed to the sea. Nothing is left of them. Fathoms deep, I have spent my life transmitting the faintest signal…I am also the diver who has discovered the black box…I had been looking for it all my life without knowing it existed.”

Eventually, she has a meeting with her biological father whom she strongly resembles. They are brought together through the magic of social media.
Shapiro digs deeper, investigating the way cryobanks currently operate. She interviews dozens of donor-conceived individual who feel just as exiled and lost as she does.

As she forges deeper relationships with her biological family, however, Shapiro begins to see everything in a new light: as a blessing.  

Shapiro, who was raised as an orthodox Jew, is peppered with Jewish phrases and expressions. Her identity is still firmly Jewish, even if she is half Christian.

She puts all of her previous writings in perspective, realizing nearly all of her works were about family secrets.

Though she gives her social father “kol hakavod” (all the honor), she comes to cherish her biological one as well.

Shapiro’s story is so important in this age when DNA kits are becoming more and more recreational. As more and more individuals have genetic testing done, more connections will be made. The likelihood of family secrets becoming accidently unearthed–as Shapiro’s had–will increase over time.