In addition to all the farms and kite-surfers, Oregon is the location for this seemingly gentle story which carries a strong message. Alice Holtzman lives on her hobby honeybee farm, next door to an orchard. A widow at the young end of her forties, she’s begun having panic attacks. THE MUSIC OF BEES soothes her worries and inspires her to feel stronger. I was slow to get into this story, in which we meet three disparate characters. However, once the story started to gel, I kept happily reading through to the end.
Young Jake is a recent high school graduate in Hood River County and has no plans for his life. He wanted to be a musician, but a stupid accident cost him the use of his legs. Now spending inordinate amounts of time on his hair while adapting to a wheelchair, he has better friends than he realizes but a ratty family atmosphere. An accidental collision with Alice on the road starts Jake on the path to a new career as beekeeper.
Harry has wandered here like he’s wandered through his twenty-something years of life, letting others walk over him and going nowhere fast. He answers a want-ad for part-time farm help and ends up not just putting impressive creative skills to work but challenging a pesticide company.
Alice is the caregiver for these two lonely insecure young men, the instigator of change, and by opening up, instead of shutting down, she changes herself. Her job is one she always intended to be temporary – for the County admin – but she is now trapped and counting pension credits. Her co-workers are less than supportive and take advantage. Some readers might look again at their own offices.
We learn so much about bees - queens and drones, nurse, worker, guard, and forager bees. Their hives, enemies, and their products of honey and wax. The queens have been found to hum a specific note, discernible by those with a musical ear, like Jake. Eileen Garvin has packed her first novel with information on many topics, drip-fed at a pace we can absorb, gaining our trust and admiration for the hives before showing us the dangers bees face. The strands tied up after the action ends, could have been woven more elegantly, is my only criticism; this will come with novel writing experience. Let THE MUSIC OF BEES into your life, to feel enriched and inspired to be a better self.
Forty-four-year-old Alice Holtzman is stuck in a dead-end job, bereft of family, and now reeling from the unexpected death of her husband. Alice has begun having panic attacks whenever she thinks about how her life hasn't turned out the way she dreamed. Even the beloved honeybees she raises in her spare time aren't helping her feel better these days.
In the grip of a panic attack, she nearly collides with Jake--a troubled, paraplegic teenager with the tallest mohawk in Hood River County--while carrying 120,000 honeybees in the back of her pickup truck. Charmed by Jake's sincere interest in her bees and seeking to rescue him from his toxic home life, Alice surprises herself by inviting Jake to her farm.
And then there's Harry, a twenty-four-year-old with debilitating social anxiety who is desperate for work. When he applies to Alice's ad for part-time farm help, he's shocked to find himself hired. As an unexpected friendship blossoms among Alice, Jake, and Harry, a nefarious pesticide company moves to town, threatening the local honeybee population and illuminating deep-seated corruption in the community. The unlikely trio must unite for the sake of the bees--and in the process, they just might forge a new future for themselves.
Beautifully moving, warm, and uplifting, The Music of Bees is about the power of friendship, compassion in the face of loss, and finding the courage to start over (at any age) when things don't turn out the way you expect.
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