Telling the Bees, Paperback

THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER

A lifelong beekeeper, Albert Honig is deeply acquainted with the ways and workings of the hives. He knows that bees dislike wool clothing and foul language; that the sweetest honey is made from the blooms of eucalyptus; and that bees are at their gentlest in a swarm. But Albert is less versed in the ways of people, especially his beautiful, courageous, and secretive friend Claire.

A friend and neighbor since childhood, Claire was a hovering presence--and then a glaring absence--in Albert's life, a change that has never been reconciled. When she is killed in a seemingly senseless accident during a burglary gone wrong, Albert is haunted by the loss. In the aftermath of this tragedy, he is left to piece together the events of their lives to attempt to make sense of their shared past and the silence that persisted between them for a decade before her death. What Albert comes to learn is that Claire's secrets were far darker than anything he could have imagined...

Peggy Hesketh's writing has appeared in Calliope and Antietam Review; her short story "A Madness of Two" was selected by Elizabeth George for inclusion in the anthology Two of the Deadliest. A longtime journalist, Hesketh teaches writing and rhetoric at the University of California, Irvine. This is her first novel.