The Bees - Laline Paull

Flora 717 is a worker bee born into the lowest caste of her totalitarian hive society. Though prepared to sacrifice everything for the Queen and work herself to death, she is a survivor who can escape internal massacres, religious purges, and even successfully confront a huge marauding wasp. With each act of bravery her status grows, revealing both the enemies within, and the sinister secrets that rule the hive. But when Flora’s devotion to a life of service is overwhelmed by fierce and forbidden maternal love, she must break the most sacred law of all, and embark on a collision course with everything she holds most dear.

PRAISE
‘[A] gripping Cinderella/Arthurian tale with lush Keatsian adjectives.’
MARGARET ATWOOD, via Twitter

‘This is, indeed, a beautifully written and unusual book, and is sure to attract a lot of attention, not least because its characters are all – yes, really – bees ... The bee’s-eye view can be captivating ... This is a brave and original story that highlights our modern environmental crimes, and offers a fascinating glimpse into the intricacies of bee world. Reading the last few pages in the garden, I found myself watching a real bee with a new mixture of awe, curiosity and pity ... Any book that changes the way we see our world surely deserves to be a success.’
LUCY ATKINS, Sunday Times

‘Ambitious and bold ... propulsive and addictive... When I finished the book, I wanted to thank each and every bee for its service. Few novels create such a singular reading experience. The buzz you will hear surrounding this book and its astonishing author is utterly deserved.’
EMMA STRAUB, New York Times

‘Paull’s accomplishments here are truly myriad and impressive ... She perfectly walks the line between alienness and humanity. Her bees are at once truly the creatures that they are, and yet also full of familiar human emotions and capabilities ... Her prose is a marvel of precision and grace and poetry as well, and above all, sensual ... The whole drama has a Shakespearean air about it ... Paull’s descriptions of nature are vivid and Thoreauvian ... What Laline Paull has accomplished here is multivalent: a rumination on nature; a portrait of the struggle between individual and the stifling matrix of society; and a depiction of how humanity might organize itself along different lines. I’d call it, in the end, science fiction at its best.’
PAUL DI FILIPPO, Locus

‘An ambitious undertaking ... Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale comes immediately to mind ... Paull’s prose envelops the senses just as the sounds and smells of the hive hypnotise the bees, drenching her readers with nectar and honey, then switching the pace to depict frenetic, spiralling flights.’
CATHERINE SCOTT, Telegraph

‘A carefully crafted parable that owes more to Orwell’s Animal Farm than a cute Disney anthropomorphic cartoon. The story is crammed with intimate knowledge of the bee kingdom but underpinned with serious socio- logical questions. A great read by a thoroughly original writer.’
CHRISTINA APPLEYARD, Daily Mail

‘The extraordinary facts packed into this fantasy novel are wonderfully realised ... The crisis The Bees invokes is genuine, frightening and getting worse.’
GWYNETH JONES, Guardian

‘The Bees is one wild ride. A sensual, visceral mini-epic about timeless rituals and modern environmental disaster. Paull’s heart-pounding novel does for bees and scent what Silverwing did for bats and echolocation: wrenches us into a new world.’
EMMA DONOGHUE, author of Room

‘This unusual and cunningly imagined thriller hurtles us through the very bizarre life and adventures of Flora 717 ... Strangely thought-provoking. A hive may be an implac- ably totalitarian society, but it is also a clever context for a writer creating a female action hero, for that, ultimately, is what Flora 717 is.’
ANGUS CLARKE, The Times

‘This is a rich, strange book, utterly convincing in its portrayal of the mindset of a bee and a hive. I finished it feeling I knew exactly how bees think and live. This is what sets us humans apart from other animals, that our imagination can allow us to create a complete, believable world so different from our own.’
TRACY CHEVALIER

‘The Bees is an extraordinary feat of imagination, conjuring the life of a beehive in gripping, passionate and brilliant detail. With every page I turned, I found myself drawn deeper into Flora’s plight and her immersive, mesmerizing world.’
MADELINE MILLER, author of The Song of Achilles

‘It is the best novel of its kind since Watership Down. All the tension of a palace intrigue and the heart of a small, undaunted hero. An astonishing achievement.’
MARTIN CRUZ SMITH, author of Gorky Park

‘A thriller set in a working hive ... As strange as it sounds, what is stranger is how well this novel works.’
VIOLET HENDERSON, Vogue

‘Intriguing ... Here’s everything you ever wanted to know about bees – and more. Next stop, Hollywood.’
SEBASTIAN SHAKESPEARE, Tatler

‘It’s rare to come across a book as mind-blowingly imaginative as Laline Paull’s The Bees. It’s even more rare for such works to be successful, well-written, gripping stories. Paull’s novel – a strange, poetic tale about a homely sanitation bee and her place in the Hive – is both unique and triumphant. The Bees is an utterly memorable wonder of a novel ... Do yourself a favour and read this book.’
THEA JAMES, Kirkus

‘Arrestingly strange ... Seen through so alien a conscious- ness, the world of these creatures is hauntingly odd and frequently creepy ... There is the possibility of being confronted by the unexpected.’
JONATHAN BARNES, Literary Review

‘Laline Paull’s transfixing first novel ... compels one to wonder about the extraordinary complexity and sophistication of these insects – and to care about their fate ... In its basic facts, the novel sticks closely to real-world apian biology and behaviour. That is fascinating enough, but Paull deftly wields this information to create an even more elaborately layered culture of beeness. It is beautiful ... religious ... sensual and passionate ... also vicious.’
SARA SKLAROFF, Washington Post

‘A challenging and rewarding novel ... Readers beware. After reading The Bees, a little buzzing may never be the same.’
BOB MINZESHEIMER, USA TODAY

‘Fascinating... engrossing... Paull’s clear fascination with her source material brings humanity and warmth to a depiction of the remarkable social world of bees, which is no small achievement.’
Huffington Post

‘Brilliantly imagined... Inside the striking cover art – a gilded swarm buzzing above enormous, bold black font – lives a sure-to-be classic book somewhere between Watership Down and A Handmaid’s Tale... Paull’s use of human language to describe this tiny, intricate world is classic storytelling at its finest... The Bees boasts a refreshingly feminist spin on fairy tale-style plots... A wildly creative book that resonates deeply for quite a long time. I’ll bet that upon finishing this book – one of my new favorites – you’ll think twice about spraying your yard, and maybe even take the time to stop and smell a nectar-laden flower.’
Austin Chronicle

‘I have never been a fan of bees. Ever. Until now. Laline Paull, in this incredibly impressive debut novel, has given them such humanity in this tale of Flora 717. She has told such a beautiful and gripping story of survival and endurance, and highlighted thoughtfully but honestly, the plight of bees in our ever-demising environment. (...) This is a beautiful book that illustrates and champions the potential of “the underdog.” It also reminds us of the value of bees, and their purpose. We are given such a vivid image of their day-to-day existence and their struggles, both physical and emotional. I dare you to put this book down without developing such a huge love and respect for these creatures. This is a must read for anyone who has ever felt as though they do not fit in.’
JAMEELA JAMIL, Female First / Daily Express