
In 1964 South Carolina, a girl flees racism with her Black caretaker, finding refuge with beekeeping sisters. This NYT bestseller explores motherhood, sisterhood, and divine feminine power - winning the 2004 Book Sense Award while captivating readers with its poetic symbolism.
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In the sweltering summer of 1964, fourteen-year-old Lily Owens lies in bed watching honeybees squeeze through the cracks of her bedroom wall. These mysterious visitors have hummed along her skin for years with their high-pitched zzzzzz-both frightening and fascinating her. Life on her father T. Ray's peach farm outside Sylvan, South Carolina, is lonely and harsh. She calls him T. Ray because "Daddy" never suited this man whose love died alongside his wife ten years ago. Lily's only companion is Rosaleen, the Black woman hired to care for her after her mother's death. Lily carries a devastating memory-on December 3, 1954, during an argument between her parents, a gun went off. "This is what I know about myself," Lily confesses. "She was all I wanted. And I took her away." When Rosaleen is beaten and jailed for attempting to register to vote, Lily makes a split-second decision. They'll escape to Tiburon, South Carolina-a town name written on the back of a Black Madonna picture among her mother's few possessions. Something tells Lily this journey might lead to answers about the mother she barely knew but desperately misses.