The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

"At night I would lie in bed and watch the show, how bees squeezed through the cracks of my bedroom wall and flew circles around the room (...)The way those bees flew, not even looking for a flower, just flying for the feel of the wind, split my heart down it seem. The bees came the summer of 1964, the summer I turned fourteen and my life went spinning off into a whole new orbit, and I mean whole new orbit. Looking back on it now, I want to say the bees were sent to me."

(The Secret Life of Bees, Chapter 1)

The Secret Life of Bees draws on Kidd's personal experience as a child growing up in the segregated South and on American history. Even though slavery was outlawed in the USA in 1865, several laws known as the Jim Crow Laws were enacted to limit the civil liberties of the newly blacks in the American South. These laws ensured that blacks were treated as second-class citizens. Under Jim Crow, blacks and white were forced to attend separate schools, were not allowed to get married, were not able to use the same library books, etc.

It is a truly charming book, wonderfully written, and heart-moving. The main character is Lily, a motherless teenager who has been brought up by her bitter and angry father, T. Ray. Lily's journey to find something or someone, to answer the questions and fill the gap that her mother'death has left within her takes her to a mesmerizing place in the American South (Tiburon).

The descriptions and beautiful, you could even smell the honey, hear the bees and feel the heat. The characters are full and August Boatwright is one I wish I knew in real life. Lily's thoughts and her anguish are written so well I was reading through tears. It is a moving story, uplifting, full of heart and inspiration. The casual references to racial attitudes in South Carolina in 1964 are shocking and the unique beekeeping sisters she finishes up with, stay with you and haunt you long after you finish the book.