by Meg Kassel
♦publisher: Entangled Teen
♦release date: Septemeber 4th, 2018
♦hardcover, 304 pages
♦intended audience: Young adult
♦series: companion to Black Bird of the Gallows
♦source: from publisher for review consideration
KEEPER OF THE BEES is a tale of two teens who are both beautiful and beastly, and whose pasts are entangled in surprising and heartbreaking ways.
Dresden is cursed. His chest houses a hive of bees that he can’t stop from stinging people with psychosis-inducing venom. His face is a shifting montage of all the people who have died because of those stings. And he has been this way for centuries—since he was eighteen and magic flowed through his homeland, corrupting its people.
He follows harbingers of death, so at least his curse only affects those about to die anyway. But when he arrives in a Midwest town marked for death, he encounters Essie, a seventeen-year-old girl who suffers from debilitating delusions and hallucinations. His bees want to sting her on sight. But Essie doesn’t see a monster when she looks at Dresden.
Essie is fascinated and delighted by his changing features. Risking his own life, he holds back his bees and spares her. What starts out as a simple act of mercy ends up unraveling Dresden’s solitary life and Essie’s tormented one. Their impossible romance might even be powerful enough to unravel a centuries-old curse.
Dresden is cursed. His chest houses a hive of bees that he can’t stop from stinging people with psychosis-inducing venom. His face is a shifting montage of all the people who have died because of those stings. And he has been this way for centuries—since he was eighteen and magic flowed through his homeland, corrupting its people.
He follows harbingers of death, so at least his curse only affects those about to die anyway. But when he arrives in a Midwest town marked for death, he encounters Essie, a seventeen-year-old girl who suffers from debilitating delusions and hallucinations. His bees want to sting her on sight. But Essie doesn’t see a monster when she looks at Dresden.
Essie is fascinated and delighted by his changing features. Risking his own life, he holds back his bees and spares her. What starts out as a simple act of mercy ends up unraveling Dresden’s solitary life and Essie’s tormented one. Their impossible romance might even be powerful enough to unravel a centuries-old curse.
{Becky's Thoughts}
I could not have been more enthralled by this book!
This second story by author Meg Kassel plunges us back in to the world she first introduced in Black Bird of the Gallows. It's a spin off that takes us deeper into the lives of the ominous beekeepers and harbinger crows that follow disaster from town to town, feeding off human fear and death. And while I really enjoyed Black Bird of the Gallows, I loved Keeper of the Bees so much. A rich Beauty and the Beast type story, where the true spin is that both of our main characters have beauty and beastliness in them. Both of them will face down their curses and find each other waiting at the end of the battle.
Who knew I could ever be enchanted by a character who shoots bees from his mouth?? 😄Dresden is a beekeeper, the bees inside him sting a person and turn them dark and violent. His face morphs between the faces of all his victims, but Dresden remembers who he once was, and there is kindness and compassion and humanity in him that makes him hate what he is. It's that compassion that lets him see into the gentle soul of a girl who struggles with the delusions and hallucinations. Essie is shunned in her town because of her family's "curse"--- a mental illness that seems to have been passed down through generations. She doesn't know what to make of Dresden with his changing faces and bees---it intrigues her more than anything else. Both of them seem fascinated that the other can see past what others see and assume of them, so they find themselves drawn together. There was such a sweetness to this love story. I love how the mental illness was handled--Essie knows how sick she is, but aside from sometimes being scared by her hallucinations, she doesn't fear it or feel shame or spite. It is what is it is and she owns it with grace.
There is one truly terrifying new addition to the supernatural world in this story. The Strawman sent shivers down my spine at his every appearance, but even this chill-inducing creature is written with such great complexity. And there is one other that absolutely had my skin crawling---but you'll have to read to find out more!
There is so much heart to this story. Both Essie and Dresden have such challenges to face on their own, but they strengthen each other so much in coming together. And I have to say, Meg Kassel knows how to write a crazy twist ending that will leave her readers breathless. Pick this one up asap---it's perfect for Halloween (or anytime!).
Meg Kassel is an author of fantasy and speculative books for young adults. A graduate of Parson's School of Design, she’s been creating stories, whether with visuals or words, since childhood. Meg is a New Jersey native who lives in a log house in the Maine woods with her husband and daughter. As a fan of ’80s cartoons, Netflix series, and ancient mythology, she has always been fascinated and inspired by the fantastic, the creepy, and the futuristic. She is the 2016 RWA Golden Heart® winner in YA and a double 2018 RITA® finalist for her debut novel, Black Bird of the Gallows.
• About the Author •
Meg Kassel is an author of fantasy and speculative books for young adults. A graduate of Parson's School of Design, she’s been creating stories, whether with visuals or words, since childhood. Meg is a New Jersey native who lives in a log house in the Maine woods with her husband and daughter. As a fan of ’80s cartoons, Netflix series, and ancient mythology, she has always been fascinated and inspired by the fantastic, the creepy, and the futuristic. She is the 2016 RWA Golden Heart® winner in YA and a double 2018 RITA® finalist for her debut novel, Black Bird of the Gallows.
