The Secret Life of Bees
A reflective coming-of-age novel where family, love, and the natural world meet.
- Themes
- Healing through love, Racism in 1964 South Carolina, Divine female power
Honey and Healing
Come here for
- A South Carolina story with bees, honey, and a close-knit sisterhood
- A young girl's search for healing and connection
Expect
- A serious, immersive family story
- Themes of love, memory, and female power
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How strongly BookFrontier reads the book as belonging to each subject.
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Join the waitlistAbout this book
The multi-million bestselling novel about a young girl's journey towards healing and the transforming power of love, from the award-winning author of The Invention of Wings and The Book of Longings
Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed.
Continue reading
When Lily's fierce-hearted Black "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily decides to spring them both free. They escape to Tiburon, South Carolina—a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. Taken in by an eccentric trio of Black beekeeping sisters, Lily is introduced to their mesmerizing world of bees and honey, and the Black Madonna. This is a remarkable novel about divine female power, a story that women will share and pass on to their daughters for years to come.
Publisher details
Publisher categories
- Literary Fiction
- Coming-of-Age
- Family Life
- Authors
- Sue Monk Kidd
- Publisher
- Penguin Publishing Group
- Published
- January 28, 2003
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Reading lane
- Literary Fiction