Discover more Lowcountry magic

Beekeeper Holly McNee Kensen quietly lives in a world of her own on Sullivan’s Island, tending her hives and working at the local island library. Her mother, a devoted hypochondriac, might be unaware that she’s quite ill but that doesn’t stop her from tormenting Holly. Holly’s escape is to submerge herself in the lives of the two young boys next door and their widowed father, Archie.

Her world is upended when the more flamboyant sister Leslie returns and both sisters, polar opposites, fixate on what’s happening in their neighbor’s home. Their mother ups her game in an uproarious and theatrical downward spiral. Scandalized Holly is talking to her honey bees a mile a minute, as though they’ll give her a solution to all the chaos.

Review Quote

“If I could only read one writer from now until the end of my life, it would be Dorothea Benton Frank." —Elin Hildebrand, The New York Times bestselling author of Summer of ’69, The Perfect Couple, and The Identicals

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