One of our Books of the Year 2016 | March 2016 Julia Eccleshare's Debut of the Month Twelve year old Carol’s emotional journey of discovery about her past makes a powerful story that will touch many readers. Carol’s summer is spent with her family on her grandfather’s ranch in the baking hot Mexican desert. The visit is not exactly a social one; Carol has hardly ever met her grandfather before. Her parents have brought her to help tidy the place up and to prepare her grandfather for a move to a home as he is suffering from dementia. But Carol is deeply drawn to Grandpa Serge and the dried out ranch that has always been his life. From him she learns of the importance of roots – in land and in families – and, through his magical tales, she learns something of her grandmother and the hidden truth behind her father’s long-ago quarrel with him. ~ Julia Eccleshare
Julia Eccleshare's Picks of the Month for March 2016
"Eagar seamlessly blends a twelve-year-old girl's summer of change with a hefty dose of magical realism in this accomplished debut."- Publishers Weekly (starred review)
While her friends are spending their summers having pool parties and sleepovers, twelve-year-old Carolina - Carol - is spending hers in the New Mexico desert, helping her parents move her grandfather into a home for people with dementia. At first, Carol avoids prickly Grandpa Serge. But as the summer wears on, Carol finds herself drawn to him, fascinated by the crazy stories he tells her about a healing tree, a green-glass lake, and the bees that will bring back the rain and end a hundred years of drought. As the line between magic and reality starts to blur, Carol must decide for herself what is possible - and what it means to be true to her roots.
Hour of the Bees is Lindsay Eager's first novel. A classically trained pianist and un-classically trained rock guitarist, Lindsay lives in Utah with her young daughter.
