Here's what various members of the V-60 Book Group in Devon felt about this book, which we've read in the run-up to the Bailey Prize: But Flora cannot help but break the most sacred law of all, and her instinct to serve is overshadowed by a desire, as overwhelming as it is forbidden… Tweet Then she finds her way into the Queen’s inner sanctum, where she discovers secrets both sublime and ominous.Įnemies roam everywhere, from the fearsome fertility police to the high priestesses who jealously guard the Hive Mind. And while mutant bees are usually instantly destroyed, Flora is reassigned to feed the newborns, before becoming a forager, collecting pollen on the wing. Yet Flora has talents that are not typical of her kin. Living to accept, obey and serve, she is prepared to sacrifice everything for her beloved holy mother, the Queen. Longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize for New Fiction 2015Įnter a whole new world, in this thrilling debut novel set entirely within a beehive.īorn into the lowest class of her society, Flora 717 is a sanitation bee, only fit to clean her orchard hive. Shortlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction 2015 This review is by The Borrowers Book group at Kesgrave Library.Buy this book from or .uk to support The Reading Agency and local bookshops at no additional cost to you. One will never look at a bee in the same way again! Recommendation: An enjoyable and very different choice for a book group.
The book is beautifully descriptive and captures the relationships between bees and flowers poetically. The plot includes tender and loving sequences as well as the brutal rejection of being different, idolatry of the Queen Bee, the outrageous sexual behaviour of the drones and the violence in ensuring that the survival of the hive is supreme.
Funny, enjoyable and entertaining, it is a combination of Disney, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, science fiction and Attenborough’s ‘Life on Earth’ and is creatively imagined.Īlthough biologically correct and informative, the blur between the life of real bees and the hive of Flora 717 is hard to accept until one gets drawn in by the main character, Flora 717, who is very kind, determined and attractive and one feels compelled to follow her journey.
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