Synopses & Reviews
Gail Anderson-Dargatz's evocative novel of one woman's simple but passionately lived life reminds of us of the pleasure to be found in human contact and simple, natural things.
Raised by her silent but companionable father and a mother who kept bees, headstrong Augusta marries shy, deferential Karl, twelve years her senior, and goes to live with him on his father's remote farm. Terrified that she will literally die from loneliness and isolation, she finds work in town, and for a short time, fulfillment with another man in a romance that will reverberate throughout her life. Not until many years later does she find her salvation in beekeeping, the practice she first learned from her mother. It is beekeeping that reconnects her to the world and at long last brings fire to her steadfast marriage.
Review
"There's nothing fancy in the telling of this plainspoken tale, but the language shimmers with longing and things left unsaid....Anderson-Dargatz's tenderness, particularly toward the indignities of age, is sparely rendered and almost unbearably moving." GraceAnne A. DeCandido, Booklist
Synopsis
Augusta has always been a woman with passions and desires almost too big for her confined life as a farm girl and then wife to sweet but passive Karl. Her dubious gift of second sight, inherited from her mother, does not warn her of a reckless affair and the trouble it will bring to her life.
About the Author
Gail Anderson-Dargatz is the author of the award-winning novel
The Cure for Death by Lightning. She lives on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
From the Trade Paperback edition.