Mad Honey

I thoroughly enjoyed Mad Honey by Katie Welch and highly recommend this romp through the lens and beautiful imagery of the natural world of bees and the complicated, intriguing love story between Melissa and Beck. Did he actually become bees or is he just another guy afraid of commitment? You'll have to read it to find out!

Katie Welch’s Mad Honey is a beautiful novel, a mystery and pastoral, cleverly and carefully written with a tangle of mysteries–like how one can metamorphose into a hive of bees–that satisfyingly and naturally unwind themselves. The characters are well-constructed and the reader develops an emotional attachment to the main protagonists, Melissa and Beck. It’s one of those novels that elevate you beyond the mundane. Very highly recommended.

An unusual, descriptive novel that brings the hive of honey bees to life, as the characters seek out answers to two secrets. One that has been a mystery for years and one that happens one summer to the disbelief of all. Once I'd learned that the author of Mad Honey lives in BC and the location of the novel takes place in Ontario, I knew I had to see what this one was about! Although the start was a bit hard to get into for me, my fascination with bees and honey had me wanting more, despite it being a tad confusing. The story takes off with Melissa, the main character frustrated that her boyfriend, Beck, has dissapeared for the summer, leaving her with one less person to help run the farm. When he returns he tells the oddest tale of having been "bees". Melissa is in disbelief and angered by the lack of help during her busy summer maintaining the farm. Melissa also wants to know where her father has disappeared to 12 years prior, and why. By the middle of the novel I was hooked! All I wanted to know was why Beck couldn't remember where he had been, why he is emanciated, with no strength. An odd, kooky elderly lady that lives close by ends up playing a large part in Beck's story. When she passes away, they discover that Beck had been her capture and drugged with a certain type of honey, called Mad Honey. She would lure him in with this honey and it would create hallucinations and leave him incapable of discerning reality or escaping. At first I thought this was a book of magical realism, based off of the first half of the novel so when I reached the ending and discovered the reasoning behind Beck's traumatic experience it made for a great ending.