mad honey book review new york times

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by Jodi Picoult & Jennifer Finney Boylan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 4, 2022

A well-paced story that highlights several timely issues, with a stimulating courtroom trial that makes it worth reading.

The shocking murder of a teenager thrusts a small town into the headlines and destabilizes the lives of everyone who knew her.

Olivia McAfee, a professional beekeeper and single mother, fled Boston and an abusive husband to try to give her son, Asher, a better life in small-town New Hampshire. Things go well for their first 12 years in Adams. Asher is a well-liked senior and captain of the high school hockey team; he barely remembers his abusive father; he and his mother have a great relationship; and he's preparing to go off to college. Then he meets Lily Campanello, a new girl who, like his mother, has fled a troubled past. Things get very serious quickly; then, one afternoon after they've had a fight, Asher finds Lily dead at the bottom of her basement stairs. Before he even has time to grieve, he's arrested and charged with her murder. What follows is a long and public courtroom trial in which everyone's secrets are exposed and even his own mother begins to question his innocence. Told in two storylines—one Olivia's, in the present, and one Lily's, going backward from the day of her murder—the novel is well plotted but sometimes feels long-winded, including characters who don't have much significance and details that don't seem relevant. It takes a while for the book to get moving, but once the trial begins, it becomes more compelling, and the courtroom scenes are where the writing shines brightest. The characters aren't as well developed as they should be, though, often feeling wooden or monochromatic—some always say the right thing while others always say or do the wrong thing—and the ending is predictable.

Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2022

ISBN: 978-1-9848-1838-6

Page Count: 464

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: July 12, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022

THRILLER | GENERAL FICTION

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New York Times Bestseller

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 6, 2024

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.

When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.

Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024

ISBN: 9781250178633

Page Count: 480

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023

FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | GENERAL FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION

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by Kristin Hannah

PERSPECTIVES

LONG ISLAND

by Colm Tóibín ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 7, 2024

A moving portrait of rueful middle age and the failure to connect.

An acclaimed novelist revisits the central characters of his best-known work.

At the end of Brooklyn (2009), Eilis Lacey departed Ireland for the second and final time—headed back to New York and the Italian American husband she had secretly married after first traveling there for work. In her hometown of Enniscorthy, she left behind Jim Farrell, a young man she’d fallen in love with during her visit, and the inevitable gossip about her conduct. Tóibín’s 11th novel introduces readers to Eilis 20 years later, in 1976, still married to Tony Fiorello and living in the titular suburbia with their two teenage children. But Eilis’ seemingly placid existence is disturbed when a stranger confronts her, accusing Tony of having an affair with his wife—now pregnant—and threatening to leave the baby on their doorstep. “She’d known men like this in Ireland,” Tóibín writes. “Should one of them discover that their wife had been unfaithful and was pregnant as a result, they would not have the baby in the house.” This shock sends Eilis back to Enniscorthy for a visit—or perhaps a longer stay. (Eilis’ motives are as inscrutable as ever, even to herself.) She finds the never-married Jim managing his late father’s pub; unbeknownst to Eilis (and the town), he’s become involved with her widowed friend Nancy, who struggles to maintain the family chip shop. Eilis herself appears different to her old friends: “Something had happened to her in America,” Nancy concludes. Although the novel begins with a soap-operatic confrontation—and ends with a dramatic denouement, as Eilis’ fate is determined in a plot twist worthy of Edith Wharton—the author is a master of quiet, restrained prose, calmly observing the mores and mindsets of provincial Ireland, not much changed from the 1950s.

Pub Date: May 7, 2024

ISBN: 9781476785110

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Scribner

Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024

LITERARY FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | GENERAL FICTION

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by Colm Tóibín

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• By Any Other Name
• Wish You Were Here
• The Book of Two Ways
• A Spark of Light
• Small Great Things
• Off the Page
• Leaving Time
• The Storyteller
• Between the Lines
• Sing You Home
• Over The Moon
• House Rules
• Handle With Care
• Change of Heart
• Wonder Woman
• Nineteen Minutes
• The Tenth Circle
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Jodi Picoult

Read an excerpt »

The Mad Honey Book Club Kit includes: Authors’ note, Discussion questions, Playlist, Recipes, and Resources for LGBTQ+ young people, parents, and allies,

Order your copy now!

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Signed copies!

Signed editions of MAD HONEY hardcover are available at independent stores listed here , and also at Barnes & Noble and BAM .

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United Kingdom

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New Zealand

Mad honey –co-written with jennifer finney boylan., ⭐ a good morning america book club pick ⭐ ⭐ people magazine’s book of the week ⭐.

A soul-stirring new novel about what we choose to keep from our past, and what we choose to leave behind , from the New York Times bestselling author of Wish You Were Here and the bestselling author of She‘s Not There.

Heart-pounding and heartbreaking. This collaboration between two best-selling authors seamlessly weaves together Olivia and Lily’s journeys, creating a provocative exploration of the strength that love and acceptance require. The Washington Post

Mad Honey is in development for a series/film.

MAD HONEY Book Tour »

“MAD HONEY has all of the things: alternating narratives, suspense, courtroom drama, and a love story at its core. It’s about authenticity, identity, and it explores the secrets we keep and the risks we take in order to become our true selves.”

—Jodi Picoult

Olivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over. Her picture-perfect life—living in Boston, married to a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon, raising a beautiful son, Asher—was upended when her husband revealed a darker side. She never imagined she would end up back in her sleepy New Hampshire hometown, living in the house she grew up in, and taking over her father's beekeeping business.

Lily Campanello is familiar with do-overs, too. When she and her mom relocate to Adams, New Hampshire, for her final year of high school, they both hope it will be a fresh start.

And for just a short while, these new beginnings are exactly what Olivia and Lily need. Their paths cross when Asher falls for the new girl in school, and Lily can’t help but fall for him, too. With Ash, she feels happy for the first time. Yet at times, she wonders if she can trust him completely . . .

Then one day, Olivia receives a phone call: Lily is dead, and Asher is being questioned by the police. Olivia is adamant that her son is innocent. But she would be lying if she didn’t acknowledge the flashes of his father’s temper in him, and as the case against him unfolds, she realizes he’s hidden more than he’s shared with her.

Mad Honey is a riveting novel of suspense, an unforgettable love story, and a moving and powerful exploration of the secrets we keep and the risks we take in order to become ourselves.

Read an excerpt »

Praise for Mad Honey

Gripping . . . This timely and absorbing read will make readers glad these two powerful writers decided to collaborate. Booklist (starred)

A spellbinding yarn . . . atmospheric . . . riveting . . . Overall, it’s a fruitful collaboration. Publishers Weekly

Compelling . . . A well-paced story that highlights several timely issues, with a stimulating courtroom trial that makes it worth reading. Kirkus Reviews

One of the best books of the year PopSugar

Jodi Picoult And Jennifer Finney Boylan On How A “Magical” Dream Turned Into A Book Project

Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan’s novel Mad Honey is out now, so they answered our questions about how they came to co-write a book together, becoming closer through the process, and the books they feel strongly about.

MAD HONEY book tour photos: US and Canada

AU - NZ jacket

Jodi Picoult is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 28 novels, including Mad Honey , Wish You Were Here , The Book of Two Ways , A Spark of Light , Small Great Things , Leaving Time , The Storyteller , Lone Wolf , Sing You Home , House Rules , Handle with Care , Change of Heart , and My Sister's Keeper , and, with daughter Samantha van Leer, two young adult novels, Between the Lines and Off the Page .

Picoult lives in New Hampshire with her husband. They have three children.

Jodi talks about

An excerpt mad honey, december 7, 2018.

From the moment I knew I was having a baby, I wanted it to be a girl. I wandered the aisles of department stores, touching doll-size dresses and tiny sequined shoes. I pictured us with matching nail polish—me, who’d never had a manicure in my life. I imagined the day her fairy hair was long enough to capture in pigtails, her nose pressed to the glass of a school bus window; I saw her first crush, prom dress, heartbreak. Each vision was a bead on a rosary of future memories; I prayed daily.

As it turned out, I was not a zealot . . . only a martyr.

When I gave birth, and the doctor announced the baby’s sex, I did not believe it at first. I had done such a stellar job of convincing myself of what I wanted that I completely forgot what I needed. But when I held Asher, slippery as a minnow, I was relieved.

Better to have a boy, who would never be someone’s victim.

MOST PEOPLE IN Adams, New Hampshire, know me by name, and those who don’t, know to steer clear of my home. It’s often that way for beekeepers—like firefighters, we willingly put ourselves into situations that are the stuff of others’ nightmares. Honeybees are far less vindictive than their yellow jacket cousins, but people can’t often tell the difference, so anything that stings and buzzes comes to be seen as a potential hazard. A few hundred yards past the antique Cape, my colonies form a semicircular rainbow of hives, and most of the spring and summer the bees zip between them and the acres of blossoms they pollinate, humming a warning.

I grew up on a small farm that had been in my father’s family for generations: an apple orchard that, in the fall, sold cider and donuts made by my mother and, in the summer, had pick-your-own strawberry fields. We were land-rich and cash-poor. My father was an apiarist by hobby, as was his father before him, and so on, all the way back to the first McAfee who was an original settler of Adams. It is just far enough away from the White Mountain National Forest to have affordable real estate. The town has one traffic light, one bar, one diner, a post office, a town green that used to be a communal sheep grazing area, and Slade Brook—a creek whose name was misprinted in a 1789 geological survey map, but which stuck. Slate Brook, as it should have been written, was named for the eponymous rock mined from its banks, which was shipped far and wide to become tombstones. Slade was the surname of the local undertaker and village drunk, who had a tendency to wander off when he was on a bender, and who ironically killed by drowning in six inches of water in the creek.

When I first brought Braden to meet my parents, I told him that story. He had been driving at the time; his grin flashed like lightning. But who, he’d asked, buried the undertaker?

Back then, we had been living outside of DC, where Braden was a resident in cardiac surgery at Johns Hopkins and I worked at the National Zoo, trying to cobble together enough money for a graduate program in zoology. We’d only been together three months, but I had already moved in with him. We were visiting my parents that weekend because I knew, viscerally, that Braden Fields was the one.

On that first trip back home, I had been so sure of what my future would hold. I was wrong on all counts. I never expected to be an apiarist like my father; I never thought I’d wind up sleeping in my childhood bedroom once again as an adult; I never imagined I’d settle down on a farm my older brother, Jordan, and I once could not wait to leave. I married Braden; he got a fellowship at Mass General;we moved to Boston; I was a doctor’s wife. Then, almost a year to the day of my wedding anniversary, my father didn’t come home one evening after checking his hives. My mother found him, dead of a heart attack in the tall grass, bees haloing his head.

My mother sold the piece of land that held our apple orchard to a couple from Brooklyn. She kept the strawberry fields but was thoroughly at a loss when it came to my father’s hives. Since my brother was busy with a high-powered legal career and my mother was allergic to bees, the apiary fell to me. For five years, I drove from Boston to Adams every week to take care of the colonies. After Asher was born, I’d bring him with me, leaving him in the company of my mother while I checked the hives. I fell in love with beekeeping, the slow-motion flow of pulling a frame out of a hive, the Where’s Waldo? search for the queen. I expanded from five colonies to fifteen. I experimented with bee genetics with colonies from Russia, from Slovenia, from Italy. I signed pollination contracts with the Brooklynites and three other local fruit orchards, setting up new hives on their premises. I harvested, processed, and sold honey and beeswax products at farmers’ markets from the Canadian border to the suburbs of Massachusetts. I became, almost by accident, the first commercially successful beekeeper in the history of apiarist McAfees. By the time Asher and I moved permanently to Adams, I knew I might never get rich doing this, but I could make a living.

My father taught me that beekeeping is both a burden and a privilege. You don’t bother the bees unless they need your help, and you help them when they need it. It’s a feudal relationship: protection in return for a percentage of the fruits of their labors.

He taught me that if a body is easily crushed, it develops a weapon to prevent that from happening.

He taught me that sudden movements get you stung.

I took these lessons a bit too much to heart.

On the day of my father’s funeral, and years later, on the day of my mother’s, I told the bees. It’s an old tradition to inform them of a death in the family; if a beekeeper dies, and the bees aren’t asked to stay on with their new master, they’ll leave. In New Hampshire, the custom is to sing, and the news has to rhyme. So I draped each colony with black crepe, knocked softly, crooned the truth. My beekeeping net became a funeral veil. The hive might well have been a coffin.

BY THE TIME I come downstairs that morning, Asher is in the kitchen. We have a deal, whoever gets up first makes the coffee. My mug still has a wisp of steam rising. He is shoveling cereal into his mouth, absorbed in his phone.

“Morning,” I say, and he grunts in response.

For a moment, I let myself stare at him. It’s hard to believe that the soft-centered little boy who would cry when his hands got sticky with propolis from the hives can now lift a super full of forty pounds of honey as if it weighs no more than his hockey stick. Asher is over six feet tall, but even as he was growing, he was never ungainly. He moves with the kind of grace you find in wildcats, the ones that can steal away a kitten or a chick before you even realize they’ve gone. Asher has my blond hair and the same ghost-green eyes, for which I have always been grateful. He carries his father’s last name, but if I also had to see Braden every time I looked at my son, it would be that much harder.

I catalog the breadth of his shoulders, the damp curls at the nape of his neck; the way the tendons in his forearms shift and play as he scrolls through his texts. It’s shocking, sometimes, to be confronted with this when a second ago he sat on my shoulders, trying to pull down a star and unravel a thread of the night.

“No practice this morning?” I ask, taking a sip of my coffee. Asher has been playing hockey as long as we’ve lived here; he skates as effortlessly as he walks. He was made captain as a junior and reelected this year, as a senior. I never can remember whether they have rink time before school or after, as it changes daily.

His lips tug with a slight smile, and he types a response into his phone, but doesn’t answer.

“Hello?” I say. I slip a piece of bread into the ancient toaster, which is jerry-rigged with duct tape that occasionally catches on fire. Breakfast for me is always toast and honey, never in short supply.

“I guess you have practice later,” I try, and then provide the answer that Asher doesn’t. “Why yes, Mom, thanks for taking such an active interest in my life.”

I fold my arms across my boxy cable-knit sweater. “Am I too old to wear this tube top?” I ask lightly.

“I’m sorry I won’t be here for dinner, but I’m running away with a cult.”

I narrow my eyes. “I posted that naked photo of you as a toddler on Instagram for Throwback Thursday.”

Asher grunts noncommittally. My toast pops up; I spread it with honey and slide into the chair directly across from Asher. “I’d really prefer that you not use my Mastercard to pay for your Pornhub subscription.”

His eyes snap to mine so fast I think I can hear his neck crack. “What? ”

“Oh, hey,” I say smoothly. “Nice to have your attention.”

Asher shakes his head, but he puts down his phone. “I didn’t use your Mastercard,” he says.

“I know.”

“I used your Amex.”

I burst out laughing.

“Also: never ever wear a tube top,” he says. “Jesus.”

“So you were listening.”

“How could I not?” Asher winces. “Just for the record, nobody

else’s mother talks about porn over breakfast.”

“Aren’t you the lucky one, then.”

“Well,” he says, shrugging. “Yeah.” He lifts his coffee mug, clinks

it to mine, and sips.

I don’t know what other parents’ relationships are like with their

children, but the one between me and Asher was forged in fire and, maybe for that reason, is invincible. Even though he’d rather be caught dead than have me throw my arms around him after a winning game, when it’s just the two of us, we are our own universe, a moon and a planet tied together in orbit. Asher may not have grown up in a household with two parents, but the one he has would fight to the death for him.

“Speaking of porn,” I reply, “how’s Lily?”

He chokes on his coffee. “If you love me, you will never say that sentence again.”

Asher’s girlfriend is tiny, dark, with a smile so wide it completely changes the landscape of her face. If Asher is strength, then she is whimsy—a sprite who keeps him from taking himself too seriously; a question mark at the end of his predictable, popular life. Asher’s had no shortage of romantic entanglements with girls he’s known since kindergarten. Lily is a newcomer to town.

This fall, they have been inseparable. Usually, at dinner, it’s Lily did this or Lily said that.

“I haven’t seen her around this week,” I say.

Asher’s phone buzzes. His thumbs fly, responding.

“Oh, to be young and in love,” I muse. “And unable to go thirty seconds without communicating.”

“I’m texting Dirk. He broke a lace and wants to know if I have extra.”

One of the guys on his hockey team. I have no actual proof, but I’ve always felt like Dirk is the kid who oozes charm whenever he’s in front of me and then, when I’m gone, says something vile, like Your mom is hot, bro.

“Will Lily be at your game on Saturday?” I ask. “She should come over afterward for dinner.”

Asher nods and jams his phone in his pocket. “I have to go.” “You haven’t even finished your cereal—”

“I’m going to be late.”

He takes a long last swallow of coffee, slides his backpack over his

shoulder, and grabs his car keys from the bowl on the kitchen counter. He drives a 1988 Jeep he bought with the salary he made as a counselor at hockey camp.

“Take a coat!” I call, as he is walking out the door. “It’s—”

His breath fogs in the air; he slides behind the steering wheel and turns the ignition.

“Snowing,” I finish.

DECEMBER IS WHEN beekeepers catch their breath. The fall is a flurry of activity, starting with the honey harvest, then managing mite loads, and getting the bees ready to survive a New Hampshire winter. This involves mixing up a heavy sugar syrup that gets poured into a hive top feeder, then wrapping the entire hive for insulation before the first cold snap. The bees conserve their energy in the winter, and so should the apiarist.

I’ve never been very good with downtime.

There’s snow on the ground, and that’s enough to send me up to the attic to find the box of Christmas decorations. They’re the same ones my mother used when I was little—ceramic snowmen for the kitchen table; electric candles to set in each window at night, a string of lights for the mantel. There’s a second box, too, with our stockings and the ornaments for the tree, but it’s tradition that Asher and I hang those together. Maybe this weekend we will cut down our tree. We could do it after his game on Saturday, with Lily.

I’m not ready to lose him.

The thought stops me in my tracks. Even if we do not invite Lily to come choose a tree with us—to decorate it as he tells her the story behind the stick reindeer ornament he made in preschool or the impossibly tiny baby shoes, both his and mine, that we always hang on the uppermost branches—soon another will join our party of two. It is what I want most for Asher—the relationship I don’t have. I know that love isn’t a zero-sum game, but I’m selfish enough to hope he’s all mine for a little while longer.

I lug the first box down the attic stairs, hearing Asher’s voice in my head: Why didn’t you wait? I could have carried it down for you. Glancing through the open door of his bedroom, I roll my eyes at his unmade bed. It drives me crazy that he does not tuck in his sheets; it drives him just as crazy to do it, when he knows he’s just going to crawl back in in a few hours. With a sigh, I put the box down and walk into Asher’s room. I yank the sheets up, straightening his covers. As I do, a book falls to the floor.

It’s a blank journal, in which Asher has sketched in colored pencil. There’s a bee, hovering above an apple blossom, so close that you can see the working mandible and the pollen caught on her legs. There’s my old truck, a 1960 powder-blue Ford that belonged to my father.

Asher has always had this softer side, I love him all the more for it. It was clear when he was little that he had artistic talent, and once I even enrolled him in a painting class, but his hockey friends found out. When he messed up doing a passing drill, one of them said he should maybe stop holding his stick like Bob Ross held a brush, and he dropped art. Now, when he draws, it’s in private. He never shows me his work. But we’ve also gotten college brochures in the mail from RISD and SCAD, and I wasn’t the one to request them.

I flip the next few pages. There is one drawing that is clearly me, although he’s captured me from behind, as I stand at the sink. I look tired, worn. Is that what he thinks of me? I wonder.

A chipmunk, eyes bright with challenge. A stone wall. A girl— Lily?—with her arm thrown over her eyes, lying on a bed of leaves, naked from the waist up.

Immediately, I drop the book like it’s burning. I press my palms against my cheeks.

It’s not like I didn’t think he was intimate with his girlfriend; but then again, it’s not like we talked about it, either. At one point, when he started high school, I proactively started buying condoms and leaving them very matter-of-factly with the usual pharmacy haul of deodorant and razor blades and shampoo. Asher loves Lily—even if he hasn’t told me this directly, I see it in the way he lights up when she sits down beside him, how he checks her seatbelt when she gets into his car.

After a minute, I mess up Asher’s sheets and comforter again. I tuck the journal under a fold of the linens, pick up the pair of socks, and close the door of the bedroom behind me

I hoist the Christmas box into my arms again, thinking two things: that memories are so heavy; and that my son is entitled to his secrets.

BEEKEEPING IS THE world’s second-oldest profession. The first apiarists were the ancient Egyptians. Bees were royal symbols, the tears of Re, the sun god.

In Greek mythology, Aristaeus, the god of beekeeping, was taught by nymphs to tend bees. He fell in love with Orpheus’s wife, Eurydice. When she was dodging his advances, she stepped on a snake and died. Orpheus went to hell itself to bring her back, and Eurydice’s nymph sisters punished Aristaeus by killing all his bees.

The Bible promises a land of milk and honey. The Koran says paradise has rivers of honey for those who guard against evil. Krishna, the Hindu deity, is often shown with a blue bee on his forehead. The bee itself is considered a symbol of Christ: the sting of justice and the mercy of honey, side by side.

The first voodoo dolls were molded from beeswax; an oungan might tell you to smear honey on a person to keep ghosts at bay; a manbo would make little cakes of honey, amaranth, and whiskey, which, eaten before the new moon, could show you your future.

I sometimes wonder which of my prehistoric ancestors first stuck his arm into a hole in a tree. Did he come out with a handful of honey, or a fistful of stings? Is the promise of one worth the risk of the other?

WHEN THE INSIDE of the house is draped with its holiday jewelry, I pull on my winter boots and a parka and hike through the acreage of the property to gather evergreen boughs. This requires me to skate the edges of the fields with the few apple trees that still belong to my family. Against the frosty ground, they look insidious and witchy, their gnarled arms reaching, the wind whispering in the voice of dead leaves, Closer, closer. Asher used to climb them; once, he got so high that I had to call the fire department to pull him down, as if he were a cat. I swing my handsaw as I slip into the woods behind the orchard, twigs crunching underneath my footsteps. There are only so many trees whose feathered limbs I can reach; most are higher than I can reach on my tiptoes, but there’s satisfaction in gathering what I can. The pile of pine and spruce and fir grows, and it takes me three trips to bring it all back across the orchard fields to the porch of the farmhouse.

By the time I’ve got my raw materials—the branches and a spool of florist wire—my cheeks are flushed and bright and the tips of my ears are numb. I lay out the evergreens on the porch floor, trimming them with clippers, doubling and tripling the boughs so that they are thick. In the Christmas box I carried down earlier is a long rope of lights that I’ll weave through my garland when this step is finished; then I can affix the greenery around the frame of the front door.

I am not sure what it is that makes me think something is watching me.

All the hair stands up on the back of my neck, and I turn slowly toward the barren strawberry fields.

In the snow, they look like a swath of white cotton. This late in the year, the back of the field is wreathed in shadow. In the summertime, we get raccoons and deer going after the strawberries; from time to time there’s a coyote. When it’s nearly winter, though, the predators have mostly squirreled themselves away in their dens—

I take off at a dead run for my beehives.

Before I even reach the electric fence that surrounds them, the smell of bananas is pungent—the surest sign of bees that are pissed off. Four hives are sturdy and quiet, hunkered tight within their insulation. But the box all the way to the right has been ripped to splinters. I name all my queen bees after female divas: Adele, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Whitney, and Mariah. Taylor, Britney, Miley, Aretha, and Ariana are in the apple orchard; on other contracts I have Sia, Dionne, Cher, and Katy. The hive that has been attacked is Celine’s.

One side of the electric fence has been barreled through, trampled. Struts of wood from the hive are scattered all over the snowy ground; hunks of Styrofoam have been clawed to shreds. I stumble over a piece of broken honeycomb with a bear print in it.

I narrow my eyes at the dark line where the field turns into forest, but the bear is already gone. The bees would have killed themselves, literally, to get rid of their attacker—stinging until it lumbered away.

It’s not the first time I have had a bear attack a hive, but it’s the latest it has ever happened in the beekeeping season.

I walk toward the brush near the edge of the field, trying to find any remaining bees that might not have frozen. A small knot seethes and drips, dark as molasses, on the bare crotch of a sugar maple. I cannot see Celine, but if the bees have absconded there is a chance she is with them.

Sometimes, in the spring, bees swarm. You might find them like this, in the bivouac stage—the temporary site before they fly off to whatever they’ve decided should be their new home.

When bees swarm in the spring, it’s because they’ve run out of space in the hive.

When bees swarm in the spring, they’re full of honey and happy and calm.

When bees swarm in the spring, you can often recapture them, and set them up in a new box, where they have enough room for their brood cells and pollen and honey.

This is not a swarm. These bees are angry and these bees are desperate.

“Stay,” I beg, and then I run back to the farmhouse as fast as I can.

It takes me three trips, each a half mile across the fields, skidding on the dusting of snow. I have to haul out a new wooden base and an empty hive from a colony that failed last year, into which I will try to divert the bees; I have to grab my bee kit from the basement, where I’ve stored it for the winter—my smoker and hive tool, some wire and a bee brush, my hat and veil and gloves. I am sweating by the time I am finished, my hands shaking and sausage-fingered from the cold. Clumsily, I grab the few frames that can be salvaged from the bear’s attack and set them into the brood box. I sew some of the newly broken comb onto the frames with wire, hoping that the bees will be attracted back to the familiar. When the new box is set up, I walk toward the sugar maple.

The light is so low now, because dusk comes early. I see the motion of the bees more than their actual writhing outline. If Asher were here, I could have him hold the brood box directly below the branch while I scoop the bees into it, but I’m alone.

It takes several tries for me to light a curl of birch bark to ignite my smoker; there’s just enough wind to make it difficult. Finally, a red ember sparks, and I drop it into the little metal pot, onto a handful of wood shavings. Smoke pipes out of the narrow neck as I pump the bellows a few times. I give a few puffs near the bees; it dulls their senses and takes the aggressive edge off.

I pull on my hat and veil and lift the same handsaw I used on the evergreen boughs. The branch is about six inches too high for me to reach. Cursing, I lug the broken wooden base of the old frame underneath the tree and try to gingerly balance on what’s left of it. The odds are about equal that I will either manage to saw down the branch or break my ankle. I nearly sob with relief when the branch is free, and carry it slowly and gently to the new hive. I give it a sharp jerk, watching the bees rain down into the box. I do this again, praying that the queen is one of them.

If it were warmer, I’d know for sure. A few bees would gather on the landing board with their butts facing out, fanning their wings and nasonoving—spreading pheromones for strays to find their way home. That’s a sign that the hive is queenright. But it’s too cold, and so I pull out each frame, scanning the frenzy of bees. Celine, thank God, is a marked queen—I spy the green painted dot on her long narrow back and pluck her by the wings into a queen catcher, a little plastic contraption that looks like those butterfly clips for hair. The queen catcher will keep her safe for a couple of days while they all get used to the new home. But it also guarantees that the colony won’t abscond. Sometimes, bees just up and leave with their queen if they don’t like their circumstances. If the queen is locked up, they will not leave without her.

I let a puff of smoke roll over the top of the box, again hoping to calm the bees. I try to set the queen catcher between frames of comb, but my fingers are stiff with the cold and keep slipping. When my hand strikes the edge of the wooden box, one of the worker bees sinks her stinger into me.

“Mother fucker .” I gasp, dancing backward from the hive. A cluster of bees follow me, attracted by the scent of the attack. I cradle my palm, tears springing to my eyes.

I tear off my hat and veil, bury my face in my hands. I can take all the best precautions for this queen; I can feed the bees sugar syrup and insulate their new brood box; I can pray as hard as I want—but this colony does not have a chance of surviving the winter.They simply will not have enough time to build up the stores of honey that the bear has robbed.

And yet. I cannot just give up on them.

So I gently set the telescoping cover on the box and lift my bee kit with my good hand. In the other, I hold a snowball against the sting as a remedy. I trudge back to the farmhouse. Tomorrow, I’ll give them the kindness of extra food in a hive-top feeder and I’ll wrap the new box, but it’s hospice care. There are some trajectories you cannot change, no matter what you do.

Back home, I am so absorbed in icing my throbbing palm that I don’t notice it’s long past dinnertime, and Asher isn’t home.

THE FIRST TIME it happened, it was over a password.

I had only just signed up for FaceBook, mostly so that I could see pictures of my brother, Jordan, and his wife, Selena. Braden and I were living in a brownstone on Mass Ave while he did his Mass General fellowship in cardiac surgery. Most of our furniture had come from yard sales in the suburbs that we would drive to on weekends. One of our best finds came from an old lady who was moving to an assisted living community. She was selling an antique rolltop desk with claw-feet (I said it was a gryphon; Braden said eagle). It was clearly an antique, but someone had stripped it of its original finish, so it wasn’t worth much, and more to the point, we could afford it. It wasn’t until we got it home that we realized it had a secret compartment—a narrow little sliver between the wooden drawers that was intended to look decorative, but pulled loose to reveal a spot where documents and papers could be hidden. I was delighted, naturally, hoping for the combination to an old safe full of gold bullion or a torrid love letter, but the only thing we found inside was a paper clip. I had pretty much forgotten about its existence when I had to choose a password for FaceBook, and find a place to store it for when I inevitably forgot what I’d picked. What better place than in the secret compartment?

We had initially bought the antique desk so that Braden could study at it, but when we realized that his laptop was too deep for the space, it became decorative, tucked in an empty space at the bottom of the stairs. We kept our car keys there, and my purse, and an occasional plant I hadn’t yet murdered. Which is why I was so surprised to find Braden sitting in front of it one evening, fiddling with the hidden compartment.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

He reached inside and triumphantly pulled out the piece of paper. “Seeing what secrets you keep from me,” he said.

It was so ridiculous I laughed. “I’m an open book,” I told him, but I took the paper out of his hand.

His eyebrows raised. “What’s on there?” “My FaceBook password.”

“So what?”

“So,” I said, “it’s mine.”

Braden frowned. “If you had nothing to hide, you’d show it to me.”

“What do you think I’m doing on FaceBook?” I said, incredulous. “You tell me,” Braden replied.

I rolled my eyes. But before I could say anything, his hand shot

out for the paper.

PEPPER70. That’s what it said. The name of my first dog and my birth year. Blatantly uninspired; something he could have figured out on his own. But the principle of the whole stupid argument kicked in, and I yanked the page away before he could snatch it.

That’s when it changed—the tone, the atmosphere. The air went still between us, and his pupils dilated. He reached out, striking like a snake, and grabbed my wrist.

On instinct, I pulled back and darted up the stairs. Thunder, him running behind me. My name twisted on his lips. It was silly; it was stupid; it was a game. But it didn’t feel like one, not the way my heart was hammering.

As soon as I made it to our bedroom I slammed the door shut. Leaning my forehead against it, I tried to catch my breath.

Braden shouldered it open so hard that the frame splintered.

I didn’t realize what had happened until my vision went white and I felt a hammer between my eyes. I touched my nose and my fingers came away red with blood.

“Oh my God,” Braden murmured. “Oh my God, Liv. Jesus.” He disappeared for a moment and then he was holding a hand towel to my face, guiding me to sit on the bed, stroking my hair.

“I think it’s broken,” I choked out.

“Let me look,” he demanded. He gently peeled away the bloody cloth and with a surgeon’s tender hands touched the ridge of my brow, the bone beneath my eyes. “I don’t think so,” he said, his voice frayed.

Braden cleaned me up as if I were made of glass and then he brought me an ice pack. By then, the stabbing pain was gone. I ached, and my nose was stuffy. “My fingers are too cold,” I said, dropping the ice, and he picked it up and gently held it against me. I realized his hands were trembling and that he couldn’t look me in the eye.

Seeing him so shaken hurt even more than my injury.

So I covered his hand with mine, trying to comfort. “I shouldn’t have been standing so close to the door,” I murmured.

Finally, Braden looked at me, and nodded slowly. “No. You shouldn’t have.”

I HAVE SENT a half dozen texts to Asher, who hasn’t written back. Each one is a little angrier. For someone who seemingly has no trouble interrupting his life to text his girlfriend and Dirk, he has selective communication skills when he wants to. Most likely he was invited to eat dinner somewhere and didn’t bother to tell me.

I decide that as punishment, I will make him clean up the evergreens still strewn across the porch, since my bee-stung hand hurts too much for me to finish stringing the garland.

On the kitchen table is a small bundle of newspaper, which I carefully unwrap. It was placed in the decoration box by mistake, but it belongs in the one with our Christmas ornaments. It’s my favorite—a hand-blown glass bulb in swirls of blue and white, with a drippy curl of frozen glass at the top through which a wire has been threaded for hanging. Asher made it for me when he was six, after we left Braden behind in Boston, and I got a divorce. I had a booth at a county fair that fall, selling honey and beeswax products, and an artisanal glassblower befriended Asher and invited him to watch her in her workshop. Unbeknownst to me, she helped him make an ornament for me as a gift. I loved it, but what made it truly magical was that it was a time capsule. Frozen in that delicate globe was Asher’s childhood breath. No matter how old he was or how big he grew, I would always have that.

Just then my cellphone rings.

Asher. If he’s not texting, he knows he’s in trouble.

“You better have a good excuse,” I begin, but he cuts me off. “Mom, I need you,” Asher says. “I’m at the police station.” Words scramble up the ladder of my throat. “What? Are you all right?”

“I ...I’m ...no.”

I look down at the ornament in my hand, this piece of the past. “Mom,” Asher says, his voice breaking. “I think Lily’s dead.”

Review: Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan

Editorial note: I received a copy of Mad Honey in exchange for a review. All opinions are my own.

Mad Hone y by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan is an impactful and timely story that will stay with you.

Jodi Picoult does not shy away from covering relevant and to some, controversial topics. She has this masterful way of presenting a story that seems pretty clear cut on paper and then about midway, there is a twist that changes everything.

Mad Honey is the latest example of this.

The novel, co-written with Jennifer Finney Boylan, covers so much: identity, gender, abuse, love, toxic relationships and much more. It’s not an easy read and many times, it’s quite sad but it’s also important and I think will open many eyes to the struggles that people deal with on a daily basis.

What’s the Story About

The story is told from the perspectives of Olivia and Lily. Olivia is a beekeeper and a mother to a teenager son, Asher. She left behind an abusive marriage to start over in her hometown in New Hampshire.

Whereas Lily is a teenager girl who just moved to the area with her mother. She is also hoping for a fresh start from a painful past.

Asher and Lily eventually start to date and fall in love and for once, everything seems at peace. Until one day, Lily is found dead and Asher is the number one suspect.

While Olivia believes that her son is innocent, she starts to recognize similar traits that his father holds as well. She begins to question everything she knows.

Olivia and Lily

Jodi Picoult mainly wrote Olivia’s perspective while Jennifer Finney Boylan wrote Lily’s. The final work is rather seamless and cohesive and I thought their collaboration was quite strong. I was so engaged with both characters and their journey. I so wished for a better outcome for Lily as her story is so heartbreaking.

In many ways, Olivia and Lily are quite similar. They have suffered abuse and left toxic relationships. And they both love Asher.

Olivia’s story is told in present time while Lily’s is told backwards. I’m not sure why they made that choice—perhaps it was to keep the twist hidden longer. It didn’t bother me but I know some readers had a problem with that.

I hope readers approach this story with an open mind. I keep these spoiler free and I don’t want to reveal the twist. I think some will probably see it coming and others may not. I’ve read reviews that explain key plot points and sometimes it’s fine for the particular story but other times, you want to go into the novel fresh and not have that reveal in the back of your mind.

I believe the authors chose to present the story like that for a reason and I want to respect their process.

That said, speaking in somewhat vague terms, I feel like this was eye opening story covering a segment of the population that is underrepresented in the media—unless, they’re being vilified by politicians.

This story, while of course fiction, does give a face and voice to the journey that many people go through.

Mad Honey is an important and impactful read. It’s very well done and will make you think. And those are always the ideal book club selections.

I see why Good Morning America chose this for their October pick. It will for sure get a lot of people talking.

However, there is a melancholy feel to it though and it’s quite tragic. So something to keep in mind.

Check out my book club questions here .

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Poignant and Powerful: Read Our Review of Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan

A riveting novel about what we choose to keep from our past, and what we choose to leave behind, from Jodi Picoult, the New York Times bestselling author of Wish You Were Here and Jennifer Finney Boylan, the bestselling author of She’s Not There .

Olivia McAfee and Ava Campanello have each had a change of life forced upon them. Olivia never dreamed that after her messy divorce she would find herself back in her sleepy New Hampshire home town, living in the house she grew up in and taking over her father’s beekeeping business. Ava is also in search of a fresh start, moving to Adams with her daughter Lily, who is in her final year of high school.

For a short while these new beginnings are just what everyone hoped for. Olivia’s son Asher falls for the new girl at school, and Lily can’t help loving him in return. With Ash she feels happy for the first time, yet she wonders if she can trust him completely.

Then one day Olivia receives a phone call. Lily is dead and Ash is being questioned by the police. Olivia is adamant that her son is innocent, but she also recognises the flashes of his father’s dangerous temper in him. As the case unfolds, she realises Ash has hidden more than he’s shared with her.

What follows is a gripping novel of suspense, a poignant love story and a moving and powerful exploration of the secrets we keep and the risks we take. The novel is told from dual perspectives. Olivia’s perspective unfolds in the present and through flashbacks to her relationship with her abusive ex-husband. Lily’s perspective is also interspersed throughout, moving backwards from her murder. Both characters were richly imagined and nuanced, offering varying perspective on the events in question as the victim and mother of the accused. Fan favourite Jordan McAfee, previously in The Pact , Nineteen Minutes and Salem Falls , also returns in this novel as Ash’s lawyer and Olivia’s brother.

In many ways Mad Honey harks back to the Jodi Picoult stories of old, such as Nineteen Minutes , The Pact and Picture Perfect . These were all thought-provoking and morally grey stories that didn’t shy away from topical subject-matter. In Mad Honey , Picoult and co-author Boylan examine themes of gender, identity and domestic violence with authenticity and care, making for a thoughtful and incisive read.

Highly emotional and very compelling, Mad Honey is a standout read from two very talented authors at the top of their game.

Buy a copy of  Mad Honey  here.

Jennifer Finney Boylan

Jodi picoult.

Review | Extract

Compelling and Powerful: Read an Extract from Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan

Publisher details

• Apple Books

A riveting novel about what we choose to keep from our past, and what we choose to leave behind, from the  New York Times  bestselling author of  Wish You Were Here  and the bestselling author of  She's Not There .

Jennifer Finney Boylan is Professor of English at Colby College and the author of the bestseller  She's Not There , as well as the acclaimed novels  The Planets  and  Getting In . A three-time guest of  The Oprah Winfrey Show , she has also appeared on  Larry King Live, Today , and  48 Hours,  and has played herself on ABC's  All My Children . She lives in Belgrade Lakes, Maine.

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Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Sep 25, 2022 | RELAX: Other Relaxation | 0 comments

Mad Honey is a compulsively readable novel by two of my favorite authors, Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan . It’s about two single moms in small-town Adams, New Hampshire, and their high school-age kids. Olivia is a beekeeper and entrepreneur. Her son Asher is the school’s hockey team captain and an artist. Ava is a forest ranger researching lynx. Her daughter Lily is a cellist and fencer.

Being the new kid in town isn’t unique for Lily since she and Ava have moved a couple of times in the last few years. Lily and Asher meet through friends and soon start dating. It’s not a spoiler to say that Lily dies unexpectedly—it’s in the publisher blurb. The tale of Mad Honey is what happens when Asher is accused of killing her. Picoult and Finney Boylan spin a compelling yarn with well-formed characters and topics tied to real-life issues.

Finney Boylan and Picoult use two voices to tell the story, Olivia’s and Lily’s. Everything we learn about Asher and Ava is through their eyes. The authors also move the timeline back and forth, which pulls the curtain back slowly. The suspense is worth it. Their conclusion is a satisfying resolution of a complex situation.

My conclusions

A central theme of Mad Honey is reinvention. Olivia grew up as a small-town kid but married an accomplished Boston surgeon. She returns to her hometown to heal from unexpected troubles when the marriage goes sour. As Olivia copes with Asher’s situation, we learn more about her life and her fears for her son. Picoult also teaches readers about Olivia’s beekeeping career. Bee-related analogies abound here since hives are much like small towns and high schools.

While she is younger than Olivia, Lily’s no stranger to reinvention. She and Ava also flee a complicated marital situation. But her story is more profound than Olivia’s and just as dark. Her tragic end is heartbreaking, especially because she seems to find true love with Asher.

Picoult and Finney Boylan explore relationships and parenting styles along with identities. There’s plenty of food for thought woven through the suspenseful plot. They seamlessly blend their writing styles. I was so involved with the story that I rarely thought about who wrote what. Still, Lily’s story deserves Finney Boylan’s perspective and wisdom.

Overall, Mad Honey is just what I want in a novel. It delivers insights into relationships, personalities, and life experiences with a healthy dose of suspense. Brava to both authors!

Acknowledgments

Thanks to NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group, Ballantine Books, and the authors for a digital advanced reader’s copy in exchange for this honest review. The expected publication date for this book is Tuesday, October 4, 2022.

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Book review: 'Mad Honey'

By Greg Rienzi

Olivia McAfee, a beekeeper and single mom, has fled Boston and an abusive husband to give her son, Asher, a better life in small-town New Hampshire. All's well for the next 12 years until the now high school senior meets Lily Campanello, a new girl in town who, like Asher's mother, has fled a troubled past. Without giving away much, one day Asher finds Lily sprawled at the bottom of her stairs, unresponsive. Or did he find her that way? In Mad Honey , authors Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan, A&S '86 (MA), join forces for a book that's part sexual identity tale, part trial drama, and part manual on the intricacies of beekeeping. You'll come for the mystery but stay for the depictions of Olivia harvesting honey.

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• About the Book

A soul-stirring novel about what we choose to keep from our past and what we choose to leave behind, from the New York Times bestselling author of WISH YOU WERE HERE and the bestselling author of SHE'S NOT THERE.

Olivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over. Her picture-perfect life --- living in Boston, married to a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon, raising their beautiful son, Asher --- was upended when her husband revealed a darker side. She never imagined that she would end up back in her sleepy New Hampshire hometown, living in the house she grew up in and taking over her father’s beekeeping business.

Lily Campanello is familiar with do-overs, too. When she and her mom relocate to Adams, New Hampshire, for her final year of high school, they both hope it will be a fresh start. 

And for just a short while, these new beginnings are exactly what Olivia and Lily need. Their paths cross when Asher falls for the new girl in school, and Lily can’t help but fall for him, too. With Ash, she feels happy for the first time. Yet at times, she wonders if she can trust him completely.

Then one day, Olivia receives a phone call: Lily is dead, and Asher is being questioned by the police. Olivia is adamant that her son is innocent. But she would be lying if she didn’t acknowledge the flashes of his father’s temper in Ash, and as the case against him unfolds, she realizes he’s hidden more than he’s shared with her.

MAD HONEY is a riveting novel of suspense, an unforgettable love story, and a moving and powerful exploration of the secrets we keep and the risks we take in order to become ourselves.

Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan

• Publication Date: September 5, 2023
• Genres: Fiction , Women's Fiction
• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• ISBN-10: 1984818406
• ISBN-13: 9781984818409

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Mad Honey: A Novel Kindle Edition

• Print length 463 pages
• Language English
• Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe
• Publisher Ballantine Books
• Publication date October 4, 2022
• File size 5246 KB
• Page Flip Enabled
• Word Wise Enabled
• Enhanced typesetting Enabled
• See all details

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com review, about the author, excerpt. © reprinted by permission. all rights reserved., product details.

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B09Q7XH3N8
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ballantine Books (October 4, 2022)
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 4, 2022
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 5246 KB
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 463 pages
• #9 in Saga Fiction
• #15 in Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Literary Fiction
• #21 in Women's Literary Fiction

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About the authors

Jodi picoult.

Jodi Picoult is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of twenty-eight novels, including Wish You Were Here, The Book of Two Ways, A Spark of Light, Small Great Things, Leaving Time, and My Sister's Keeper, and, with daughter Samantha van Leer, two young adult novels, Between the Lines and Off the Page. Picoult lives in New Hampshire.

Her next novel, Mad Honey, co-written with Jennifer Finney Boylan, is available on October 11th.

Follow Jodi Picoult on Intagram, Twitter, and Facebook: @jodipicoult

Jennifer Finney Boylan

Jennifer Finney Boylan is the author of sixteen books, including GOOD BOY: My Life in Seven Dogs. Since 2008 she has been a contributing opinion writer for op/ed page of the New York Times; her column appears on alternate Wednesdays. A member of the board of trustees of PEN America, Jenny was also the chair of the board of GLAAD for many years. She is currently the Anna Quindlen Writer in Residence and Professor of English at Barnard College of Columbia University.

Jenny is a well known advocate for human rights. She has appeared five times on the Oprah Winfrey Show and has also been a guest or a commentator on Larry King Live, Good Morning America, and The Today Show. She is also a member of the faculty of the Breadloaf Writers' Conference of Middlebury College as well as Sirenland, in Positano, Italy.

She lives in Maine with her wife Deirdre. They have two children.

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