Thrilling, suspenseful and spectacularly imaginative, The Bees gives us a dazzling young heroine and will change forever the way you look at the world outside your window. Her deepest instincts to serve and sacrifice are now overshadowed by an even deeper desire, a fierce maternal love that will bring her into conflict with her conscience, her heart, her society-and lead her to unthinkable deeds.

She also finds her way into the Queen’s inner sanctum, where she discovers mysteries about the hive that are both profound and ominous.īut when Flora breaks the most sacred law of all-daring to challenge the Queen’s fertility-enemies abound, from the fearsome fertility police who enforce the strict social hierarchy to the high priestesses jealously wedded to power. While many readers will see value in its discussion of environmental issues or on the limits of religious society, those who approach it with disability in mind will find Flora 717's story an engaging one. She is allowed to feed the newborns in the royal nursery and then to become a forager, flying alone and free to collect pollen. Laline Paull's The Bees is an admirable first novel that succeeds in opening up a number of interesting and productive readings. With circumstances threatening the hive’s survival, her curiosity is regarded as a dangerous flaw but her courage and strength are an asset. The Handmaid’s Tale meets The Hunger Games in this brilliantly imagined debut set in an ancient culture where only the queen may breed and deformity means death.įlora 717 is a sanitation worker, a member of the lowest caste in her orchard hive where work and sacrifice are the highest virtues and worship of the beloved Queen the only religion.

The bees laline