Isn’t it strange how difficult it is to really see or appreciate a situation when you’re right in the middle of it? You’re unable to truly appreciate how bad or significant it was until it is over and you are able to look aback from a new vantage point.
I’ve continued to read right through the pandemic and in fact 2020 was a record breaking year in terms of the number of books I read, but recently I realised I had been reading with everything closed – mind, heart and soul.
I know some people stop reading althogether when they feel down or depressed – i don’t think I could ever do that. I imagine, though they must feel the same as I did the first time, when they pick up a book and it reaches into their soul. “The Murmur of Bees” did that for me. I wouldn’t say its the greatest book I’ve ever read; it was the right book at the right time for me. I felt that joy and excitement you feel when a book sparks the imagination – you’re there with the characters as the events of the story unfold around them and you absolutely have to find out what happens next.
The Murmur of Bees by Sofia Segovia
The book is set around the time of the First World War and the Spanish Flu pandemic, so has particular relevance to what has been happening over the last couple of years. The story takes place in a poor farming community in Mexico and follows one family in particular.
Their lives are changed when they find an abandoned baby – protected by a swarm of bees. The baby has a cleft lip and palette and the operation to fix it is unavailable to them. As he grows up the bees remain with him and this, along with his unusual facial features, makes the other villages afraid of him. Some of them believe him to be of the devil because he knows things the bees tell him.
The story is narrated by the family’s youngest son, who returns to his childhood home as an old man.
There is so much in this book – so many sotry arcs that peak before the next one carries you away somewhere else. The author manages to hint at what happens and then holds you in suspence – where you have to read on, secretly hoping the terrible thing you know has happened hasn’t actually happened.
Pixie Chronicles 