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
A beautifully written debut novel that weaves together magic and reality, about a girl's relationship with her mentally ill grandfather.This powerful debut novel delicately blurs the line between truth and fiction as Carol unravels the fantastical stories of her mentally ill grandfather. When she and her family move to his deserted ranch in order to transfer him to a care home, Carol struggles to cope with the suffocating heat and the effects of her grandfather's dementia. Bees seem to be following her around, but the drought means this is impossible. She must be imagining things. Yet when her grandfather chooses her as the subject for his stories - tales of a magical healing tree, a lake, and the grandmother she never knew - Carol sees glimmers of something special in what her parents dismiss as Serge's madness. As she rethinks her roots and what she thought she knew about her family, Carol comes to the realization that Serge's past is quickly catching up with her present. A stunning coming-of-age story.
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.
