Happy Release Day!
Congrats Julie
on the release today of
The Last Beekeeper!
The Last Beekeeper by Julie Carrick Dalton
Fiction, Dystopia, 384 pages
Published March 7, 2023 by Forge Books
Julie Carrick Dalton's The Last Beekeeper is a celebration of found family, an exploration of truth versus power, and the triumph of hope in the face of despair. It is a meditation on forgiveness and redemption and a reminder to cherish the beauty that still exists in this fragile world.
It’s been more than a decade since the world has come undone, and Sasha Severn has returned to her childhood home with one goal in mind—find the mythic research her father, the infamous Last Beekeeper, hid before he was incarcerated. There, Sasha is confronted with a group of squatters who have claimed the quiet, idyllic farm as their own. While she initially feels threatened, the group soon becomes her newfound family, offering what she hasn't felt since her father was imprisoned: security and hope. Maybe it's time to forget the family secrets buried on the farm and focus on her future.
But just as she settles into her new life, Sasha witnesses the impossible. She sees a honey bee, presumed extinct. People who claim to see bees are ridiculed and silenced for reasons Sasha doesn't understand, but she can't shake the feeling that this impossible bee is connected to her father's missing research. Fighting to uncover the truth could shatter Sasha's fragile security and threaten the lives of her newfound family—or it could save them all.
"Fans of Delia Owens will swoon to find their new favorite author.” (Hank Phillippi Ryan)
My thoughts about The Last Beekeeper ~~
(I love to note the first lines of the books I'm reading. First lines can really grab a reader's attention and I love seeing where the author takes the reader after their first line.)
First line—"My bees will survive, Sasha promised herself as she crouched in the dirt watching them die."
There is worldwide concern about the demise of the honey bee and what it would do to our food supply. The Last Beekeeper takes us into a future time where bees are in fact extinct and gives us a glimpse of what our world would be like.
Sasha's father, the last beekeeper, has been in jail for the last ten years. After she ages out of the foster system, Sasha travels back to her home, remembering all of her good memories of her childhood. Hoping to uncover her father's research journals, she instead finds a group of squatters who have taken over her family's home and land. Will they discover who she is? And will they turn her in or help her with her quest to find the bees?
This was an amazing story full of drama, caring people, love, and redemption. I admire the love and support that Sasha's new family had for each other and the will that they had to do the right thing. Bees have a special place in my heart so this is a story that I will remember for a long time and will go back and read again and again.
I highly recommend The Last Beekeeper.
I received a copy of The Last Beekeeper from SparkPoint and this is my honest opinion.
About the author
Julie Carrick Dalton is the Boston-based author of The Last Beekeeper and Waiting for the Night Song, named a Most Anticipated 2021 novel by CNN, Newsweek, USA Today, Parade, and others, and an Amazon Editor’s pick for Best Books of the Month. A Bread Loaf, Tin House, and GrubStreet Novel Incubator alum, Julie is a frequent speaker on the topic of Fiction in the Age of Climate Crisis at universities, conferences, libraries, and museums.
Her writing has appeared in Chicago Review of Books, Orion, Newsweek, The Boston Globe, Electric Literature, Lit Hub, and other publications. When she isn’t writing, you can usually find Julie digging in her garden, skiing, kayaking, or walking her dogs. ~ Author's website
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