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Published May 2018
336 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Lily King meets Patricia Highsmith in this slyly seductive debut set on an eerily beautiful farm teeming with secrets.
The drought has discontented the bees. Soil dries into sand; honeycomb stiffens into wax. But Cynthia knows how to breathe life back into her farm: offer it as an artists' colony with free room, board, and "life experience" in exchange for backbreaking labor. Silvia, a wide-eyed graduate and would-be poet, and Ibrahim, a painter distracted by constant inspiration, are drawn to Cynthia's offer, and soon, to each other.
But something lies beneath the surface. The Edenic farm is plagued by events that strike Silvia as ominous: taps run red, scalps itch with lice, frogs swarm the pond. One by one, the other residents leave. As summer tenses into autumn, Cynthia's shadowed past is revealed and Silvia becomes increasingly paralyzed by doubt. Building to a shocking conclusion, The Honey Farm announces the arrival of a bold new voice and offers a thrilling portrait of creation and possession in the natural world.
"An aura of mystery, faintly tinged with menace, permeates Canadian author Lye's sensuous debut novel...An achingly lyrical excursion into a lost Eden." - Publishers Weekly
"Lush, poetic...A honey-mouthed debut ruminating on creation, possession, and faith." - Kirkus
"Brooding and suspenseful, this first novel works best as a literary horror story. Although the characters seem distant and their motivations largely unexamined, the bee motif is strong throughout, and the biblical references, while obvious, are ominous." - Library Journal
"Mysterious, suspenseful, and unnerving, The Honey Farm offers a thrilling narrative that examines the distorted realities and conflicting perceptions that often exist in the quietest places." - Iain Reid, bestselling author of I'm Thinking of Ending Things
"The Honey Farm delves into the intimate mysteries of art, madness, religion, and love through a story built with beautiful language and lush sensory detail. Gothic and subtly menacing, it's a book as rich as the sweet substance at its core." - Grace O'Connell, author of Magnified World
"The secret world of bees and the sensuous natural order in all its peril and glory come alive in this mesmerizing, suspenseful novel. Harriet Alida Lye is a writer of prodigious talent and The Honey Farm a thrilling, chills-inducing debut. Brava!" - Carol Bruneau, award-winning author of Glass Voices and These Good Hands
"I loved this book. The way Harriet Alida Lye captures and registers moments of encounter with gentleness and specificity, like bees bumping against flowers - there's magic afoot here." - Lauren Elkin, author of Flaneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London
"Harriet Alida Lye has created a modern-day Eden, shot through with innocence and foreboding. The landscape of this gripping debut is alive with tension and temptation, and I found myself seduced alongside Lye's unforgettable characters. Laying bare faith, identity, and love, this book presents a world where nothing is quite as it seems." - Adrienne Celt, author of The Daughters
"In this sensuous debut, the honey is golden and enchanting, with an unexpected taste. Relatable as they are, Lye's characters are true artists - it was impossible to fathom what they'd do next (and with whom!). Impetuous and passionate and utterly unpredictable, you'll want to spend your entire summer on The Honey Farm." - Courtney Maum, author of Touch
"Beguiled by the promise of a writers' retreat, Silvia leaves her staunchly Catholic family home for the uncertain territory of a honey farm in Northern Ontario. The Honey Farm offers readers an accomplished meditation on love, creativity and the wonder of the natural world, and a gripping exploration of a community that is perhaps not as it seems." - Cathy Marie Buchanan, New York Times bestselling author of The Painted Girls
This information about The Honey Farm was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Harriet Alida Lye lives in Toronto with her dog Fox. Her essays have been published in VICE, Hazlitt, the Happy Reader, the National Post, and more, and she was a writer-in-residence at Shakespeare & Company in Paris. The Honey Farm is her first novel.
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