Peggy Hesketh

Albert Honig’s most constant companions have always been his bees. A never-married octogenarian, he makes a modest living as a beekeeper, as his father and his father’s father did before him. Deeply acquainted with the workings of his hives, Albert is less versed in the ways of people, especially his neighbour Claire, whose beauty and vivaciousness transformed his young life. Yet years passed by, feelings were repressed, and chances missed. Until one day Albert, led by a trail of bees, discovers Claire’s body. Through the quiet minutiae of life, he begins to examine the truths that lay hidden under the secrets and silence that hovered between them for so long. With echoes of The Remains of the Day, Telling the Bees is a haunting novel about lies of omission and commission, the persistence of regret, and the sweet anguish of re-opening wounds in order to finally heal them.

THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER A lifelong beekeeper, Albert Honig is deeply acquainted with the ways and workings of the hives. He knows that bees dislike wool clothing and foul language; that the sweetest honey is made from the blooms of eucalyptus; and that bees are at their gentlest in a swarm. But Albert is less versed in the ways of people, especially his beautiful, courageous, and secretive friend Claire. A friend and neighbor since childhood, Claire was a hovering presence--and then a glaring absence--in Albert's life, a change that has never been reconciled. When she is killed in a seemingly senseless accident during a burglary gone wrong, Albert is haunted by the loss. In the aftermath of this tragedy, he is left to piece together the events of their lives to attempt to make sense of their shared past and the silence that persisted between them for a decade before her death. What Albert comes to learn is that Claire's secrets were far darker than anything he could have imagined...