If you had told me last year that I would fall head over heels in love with a dystopian novel about bees, I would have said you were off your rocker, but gosh darn it, that’s exactly what happened! Flora was one of the many who stood transfixed by the blissful sense of being loved—until the divine surge began to ebb away. They keep a statue of the "Black Mary", or "Our Lady of Chains", which was actually a figurehead from the bow of an ancient ship, and August tells the story of how a man by the name of Obadiah, who was enslaved, found this figure.

But there is more to Flora 717 than to any other bee in the Hive - something which can upset the very root of society that she came to inhabit. While The Bees is a beautifully written book, with scenes that are quite lovely in their composition, I felt the author lacked conviction and an overall commitment to just what kind of story she was telling. You give a baby up for adoption, you hope it goes to a good family and sometimes you’re disappointed. Because in another country they could plausibly “fly beneath the radar” and be seen as eccentric foreigners rather than lesbians. And to top it off we are led through this journey by a character who, while far from perfect, is a very good egg, or was.

Much of Lily's life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. I was lead to believe this book was something fresh, and due to it being centered around a beehive, well, this encouraged me to pick it up. Although the novel does include the underlying theme of the civil rights movement, USA Today felt the novel focused more on Lily's journey towards "self-acceptance, faith and freedom". The great wasp lay dead, and so did hundreds of brave sisters closest to her, killed by the colossal heat.

There is a lot of action and fights in this book (makes you feel sorry for the real bees), yet, the ending was also surprisingly emotional.From siting hives and reassuring the neighbours, to combating interference from wind, artificial light and predators, this one-stop reference takes the urban beekeeper from set-up to first honey harvest.