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Dorset, 1932 and Massachusetts, 1973 – two women linked by a beekeeper and family secrets
The Beekeeper’s Daughter
What you need to know before your trail
1930s Dorset
Young Grace is leading a happy life in a lovely country idyll where her father is the local beekeeper. When he suddenly dies however, Grace is left to fend for herself and wonders where her future will lie.
1970s America
Grace is now married and living in America. They have a daughter Trixie who falls in love with ‘someone unsuitable’ in the eyes of her parents – Jasper is a singer in a new band – not the kind of unstable life her parents would have envisaged. But what happens next is not what Trixie or indeed her family would have expected.
For Grace understands more than most what it means to have a secret love and changing your own destiny rather than let others do it for you.
Travel Guide
Dorset
Santa Montefiore is the Queen of beautiful idyllic settings. Choosing Dorset has made me want to live there and not only that to keep bees. Up until reading this book I had always been a bit afraid of them but now I can honestly say that the whole business of keeping them and knowing what they do has been quite fascinating.
‘Mum what is is about bees that fascinates you so much?’ Trixie asked the third evening, after they had lifted the lids on the hives and Grace had explained all the tints a beekeeper has to look out for before putting them to be until spring’
Dorset really comes alive off the page and how you feel as you read, surrounded by the tall , willowy grass and flowers moving and making a sound! –
“One can hear the garden breathing in and out, in and out and its the most intriguing sound in the world. Truly? Can you really hear the garden breathing?”
The setting really lends itself well to the tale of how Grace grew up here and the attachment she had not only to her environment but also to her father. this is her world and she does not want to leave it.
The beauty and serenity of the garden are in direct contrast with the looming threat of war. Colours, smells and atmosphere are used to make the contrast all the more chilling –
“The light grew mellow and Grace wondered where this would be the last summer of life as she knew it. War was now certain.”
USA
The idyllic Massachussetts island Tekanesset was modelled on the island of Nantucket. In the book Santa mentions that she loves to invent a setting purely so she can play with it and what fun she has –
“Of all the weathered grey-shingled buildings on Tekanasset island, Crab Cove golf club is one of the prettiest. Built in the late nineteenth century by a couple of friends from Boston who shared the sentiment that an island without a golf course is an island deficient in the only thing that truly matters.. To the right a candy-cane red-and-white lighthouse stands on a grassy hill…”
…and to the left yellow beaches and grassy sand dunes undulate like waves….
Booktrailer Review
Susan:
There is a particular line I liked as I felt Santa must have been smiling as she wrote it
Famous writers, actors and musicians from al over America escape the frenetic, polluted cities to breathe the fresh sea air and find inspiration in the beauty of the landscape….
The landscape here is romantic and wild and mirrors what will take place there. It is the island of dreams and throwing caution to the wind.
The Beekeeper’s daughter is a novel of setting and atmosphere which acts as the perfect backdrop for a family saga which spans the years from 1933 to 1990. There are the themes of lost love, forbidden love and love that threatens to change everything. It is the story of one mother and daughter whose pasts are intrinsically linked in ways neither of them could have known.
Like the bee who provides for her family, who searches far and wide to protect her hive but always returns to look after them, Grace and Trixie must search for their own answers a lot closer to home.
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