The Secret Life of Bees

The Secret Life of Bees--------------------------------------------------Lily has grown up believing she accidentally killed her mother whenshe was four. She not only has her own memory of holding the gun, buther father's account of the event. Now fourteen, she yearns for hermother, and for forgiveness. Living on a peach farm in South Carolinawith her father, she has only one friend: Rosaleen, a black servantwhose sharp exterior hides a tender heart. South Carolina in the sixtiesis a place where segregation is still considered a cause worth fightingfor. When racial tension explodes one summer afternoon, and Rosaleenis arrested and beaten, Lily is compelled to act. Fugitives from justiceand from Lily's harsh and unyielding father, they follow a trail leftby the woman who died ten years before. Finding sanctuary in the homeof three beekeeping sisters, Lily starts a journey as much about herunderstanding of the world, as about the mystery surrounding her mother.--------------------------------------------------Author Biography: Sue Monk Kidd is the author of two widely acclaimedmemoirs, THE DANCE OF THE DISSIDENT DAUGHTER and WHEN THE HEART WAITS.Her fiction has appeared in several literary journals. Her secondnovel, THE MERMAID CHAIR, is published by Review in March 2005. SueMonk Kidd lives beside a salt marsh in Charleston, South Carolina withher husband.