The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Lily tells her remarkable tale of longing and love in an idiom and accent heard far south of the Mason-Dixon Line, but the lessons learned during her odyssey into the world of bees and their "secret life" are universal and everlasting. Fourteen-year-old Lily Owens lost her beloved mother when she was only four—under tragic circumstances clouded by time and secrecy. She later found a fiercely protective "stand-in," her abusive father's outspoken housekeeper, Rosaleen. Ignoring differences in age and color—and the fact that racial hatred seethed during the summer of 1964 in rural South Carolina—these two unlikely companions set off on a seemingly aimless pilgrimage that ends at the home of a trio of eccentric bee-keeping black sisters.

Bee Yourself

August said, “Listen to me now, Lily. I’m going to tell you something I want you always to remember, all right?” Her face had grown serious. Intent. Her eyes did not blink. “All right,” I said, and I felt something electric slide down my spine. “Our Lady is not some magical being out there somewhere, like a fairy godmother. She’s not the statue in the parlor. She’s something inside of you. Do you understand what I’m telling you?” “Our Lady is inside me,” I repeated, not sure I did. “You have to find a mother inside yourself. We all do. Even if we already have a mother, we still have to find this part of ourselves inside.” ~Sue Monk Kidd, from "The Secret Life of Bees"

Crazy Secret Bee Fans and the Things They Do!

A book club in Atlanta held a "Daughters of Mary" party the evening they discussed the book.  They showed up wearing grand and outrageous hats that would have made the "daughters" in the novel proud.

After reading the book a psychotherapist in Washington D.C. built a "wailing wall" on the property behind her office, so her clients, like the character May, could have a means to engage in private rituals of expressing their grief and suffering.

A reading group in South Carolina created jars of Black Madonna honey, complete with the Black Madonna label.

A Favorite Writers Quote

When studying the craft of fiction writing, I came across a quote by Leo Tolstoy that made a big impression on me. I copied it down, saved it. A few years later when I started The Secret Life of Bees, I pulled it out of my old notes and kept it on my desk throughout the writing: ~authors website

“The aim of an artist is not to solve a problem irrefutably, but to make people love life in all its countless, inexhaustible manifestations. If I were told that I could write a novel whereby I might irrefutably establish what seemed to me the correct point of view on all social problems, I would not even devote two hours to such a novel; but if I were to be told that what I should write would be read in twenty years’ time by those by who are now children and that they would laugh and cry over it, and love life, I would devote all my own life and all my energies to it.” ~Tolstoy

Plum Island by Nelson DeMille

Wounded in the line of duty, NYPD homicide cop John Corey is convalescing in rural eastern Long Island when an attractive young couple he knows is found shot to death on the family patio. The victims were biologists at Plum Island, a research site rumored to be an incubator for germ warfare. Suddenly, a local double murder takes on shattering global implications - and thrusts Corey and two extraordinary women into a dangerous search for the secret of PLUM ISLAND. . . ~authors website

Ebola Virus

Ebola hemorrhagic fever (Ebola HF) is a severe, often-fatal disease in humans and nonhuman primates (monkeys,

gorillas, and chimpanzees) that has appeared sporadically since its initial recognition in 1976.The exact origin, locations, and natural habitat (known as the "natural reservoir") of Ebola virus remain unknown. However, on the basis of available evidence and the nature of similar viruses, researchers believe that the virus is zoonotic (animal-borne) and is normally maintained in an animal host that is native to the African continent. A similar host is probably associated with Ebola-Reston which was isolated from infected cynomolgous monkeys that were imported to the United States and Italy from the Philippines. The virus is not known to be native to other continents, such as North America. ~questions and answers about ebola

Critical Praise

"CHILLING. . . . That rare breed of suspense novel that keeps you sitting on the edge of your beach chair even while you're laughing out loud.-Newsday

"FASCINATING. . .expertly melds medical mystery, police procedural, and nautical adventure. . . .Acquires its own storm force as it moves toward a catastrophic denouement. . . .A smooth job from an old pro."-Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"BITING WIT....A peach of a puzzle...with Detective John Corey, DeMille has created the kind of rambunctious hero that readers will want to see again."-Chicago Tribune

About the Author

Nelson DeMille is the author of: By the Rivers of Babylon, Cathedral, The Talbot Odyssey, Word of Honor, The Charm School, The Gold Coast, The General's Daughter, Spencerville, Plum Island, The Lion's Game, Up Country, Night Fall, and Wild Fire. He also co-authored Mayday with Thomas Block and has contributed short stories, book reviews, and articles to magazines and newspapers. 

House of Spirits by Isabelle Allende

The novel follows three generations of Trueba women—Clara, Blanca, and Alba—as they struggle to establish their independence from Esteban Trueba, the domineering family patriarch. The political backdrop to this family story is the growing conflict between forces of Left and Right, culminating in a military coup that leads to a stifling dictatorship. While the country is never specifically named as Chile, its political history reflects that of the author's homeland.

About the Author

Allende (pronounced "Ah-yen-day") was born August 2, 1942, in Lima, Peru, the daughter of Chilean diplomat Tomás Allende and his wife, Francisca Llona Barros. Her father was a first cousin of Salvador Allende, her godfather, who later became president of Chile. Allende's parents divorced when she was just two-years-old, and her mother took her to live with her grandparents. Allende's grandparents had a profound influence on her, and she has said they served as the models for the characters of Esteban and Clara Trueba in The House of the Spirits. 

The Binding Chair by Kathryn Harrison

"The Binding Chair" tells the intertwined stories of two women: May, the daughter in a well-to-do Chinese family growing up in the last decades of the 19th century, and Alice, an English girl born in the first decade of the 20th. When May is 5 years old, her grandmother "sits her on a red chair decorated with characters for obedience, prosperity and longevity" and binds her feet -- a literally bone-breaking and flesh-annihilating process that Harrison describes in loving detail. From this inauspicious beginning, May's situation worsens. Married to an abusive silk merchant at the age of 14, she runs away and supports herself in a Shanghai brothel, where she forswears everything Chinese and waits for a Western "benefactor." After seven years, he arrives in the person of a gentle, unemployable Englishman who belongs to a society dedicated to eradicating the custom of foot binding. He promptly becomes erotically obsessed with May's tiny feet, he marries her and brings her home to the Shanghai household he shares with his sister, his banker brother-in-law and his two nieces. The Chinese prostitute May thus becomes Mrs. Arthur Cohen, aunt to the strong-willed, rebellious Alice Benjamin. ~about the book

Foot Binding

In Chinese foot binding, young girls' feet were wrapped in tight bandages so that they could not grow and develop normally.  The process  made her

 completely incapable of any strenuous physical labour. If a girl's feet were bound in this manner, four toes on each foot would break within a year; th

e first ("big toe") remained intact. The arch had to be well-developed for the perfect "lotus foot" to be formed.

Bound feet were considered intensely erotic. Qing Dynasty sex manuals listed 48 different ways of playing with women's bound feet. Some men preferred never to see a woman's bound feet, so they were always concealed within tiny "lotus shoes".

Zhou Guizhen, who is 86-years-old, shows one of her bound feet where the bones in the four small toes were broken and forced underneath the foot over a period of time, at her home in Liuyi village in China's southern Yunnan Province, February 2007. Villages in China where women with bound feet survive are increasingly rare but the millennium-old practice nevertheless took almost four decades to eradicate after it was initially banned in 1911. ~feet binding

~More from Splendid Slippers