Utah was nicknamed The Beehive State in 1959, but we adopted it long before then. Utahans have been compared to busy bees since the late 1800s. The comparison highlights Utahans’ dedication to working together and supporting one another just as bees would in a hive. The beehive is the symbol of perseverance and collaboration — attributes that many Utahans aspire to. Although we may not have more honeybees than other states, our home is plenty sweet. Check out this librarian list of books that are sweet like honey. Pick one up today from the Orem Library and enjoy reading it here in the beautiful beehive state!
Honey & Spice
By Bolu Babalola
Adult Fiction
Sharp-tongued (and secretly soft-hearted) Kiki Banjo has just made a huge mistake. As an expert in relationship-evasion and the host of the popular student radio show Brown Sugar, she’s made it her mission to make sure the women of the African-Caribbean Society at Whitewell University do not fall into the mess of “situationships”, players, and heartbreak. But when the Queen of the Unbothered kisses Malakai Korede, the guy she just publicly denounced as “The Wastemen of Whitewell,” in front of every Blackwellian on campus, she finds her show on the brink. They’re soon embroiled in a fake relationship to try and salvage their reputations and save their futures.
The Honey Thief
By Elizabeth Graver
Adult Fiction
The summer that eleven-year-old Eva is caught shoplifting (for the fourth time), her mother, Miriam, decides the only solution is to move out of the city to a quiet town in upstate New York. There, she hopes, they can have the normal life she longs for. But Miriam is bound by a past she is trying to forget, and tensions escalate. It is only when Eva meets a reclusive beekeeper that she-and her mother-can find their way back to each other, and can begin life with renewed promise. A haunting novel of memory and desire, The Honey Thief reveals the healing power of friendship and the ineradicable bonds of mother and child.
The Honey-Don’t List
By Christina Lauren
Adult Fiction
Carey Douglas has worked for home remodeling and design gurus Melissa and Rusty Tripp for nearly a decade. A country girl at heart, Carey started in their first store at sixteen, and – more than anyone would suspect – has helped them build an empire. With a new show and a book about to launch, the Tripps are on the verge of superstardom. There’s only one problem: America’s favorite couple can’t stand each other.
James McCann, MIT graduate and engineering genius, was originally hired as a structural engineer, but the job isn’t all he thought it’d be. The last straw? Both he and Carey must go on book tour with the Tripps and keep the wheels from falling off the proverbial bus. Unfortunately, neither of them is in any position to quit. Carey needs health insurance, and James has been promised the role of a lifetime if he can just keep the couple on track for a few more weeks.
Queen Bee
By Dorothea Benton Frank
Adult Fiction
Beekeeper Holly McNee Kensen lives quietly on Sullivan’s Island, tending her hives and working at the local island library. Her mother, whom Holly calls The Queen Bee, is a demanding hulk of a woman and a devoted hypochondriac. Holly’s sister Leslie married and moved away, wanting little to do with island life. Submerging herself in the lives of the two young boys next door and their widowed father, Archie, Holly’s world is upended when Leslie returns and fixates on Archie. As her life spirals downward, Holly is talking to her honey bees a mile a minute, as though they’ll give her a solution to all the chaos.
Death Bee Comes Her
By Nancy Coco
Adult Fiction
With her Let It Bee honey boutique buzzing along nicely, life is as sweet as nectar for Wren Johnson–until she takes a morning walk along the Pacific beach with her Havana Brown cat, Everett, and stumbles upon the body of Agnes Snow, the cranky queen of the local craft fairs, stiff as driftwood. More unfortunate? Clutched in the victim’s fist is a label from Wren’s homemade beeswax-and-honey lip balm. Which makes Officer Jim Hampton focus his dreamy-blue Paul Newman eyes on Wren as suspect number one. With fabulous feline support from Everett, Wren must comb the town for clues and clear her name before someone else gets stung.
Go Tell the Bees That I am Gone
By Diana Gabaldon
Adult Fiction
It is 1779 and Claire and Jamie are at last reunited with their daughter, Brianna, her husband, Roger, and their children on Fraser’s Ridge. Having the family together is a dream the Frasers had thought impossible. Yet even in the North Carolina backcountry, the effects of war are being felt. Tensions in the Colonies are great and local feelings run hot enough to boil Hell’s teakettle. Jamie knows loyalties among his tenants are split and it won’t be long until the war is on his doorstep.
Telling the Bees
By Peggy Hesketh
Adult Fiction
A third-generation beekeeper who relates better to the constant companions in his hives than most people must come to terms with the loss of his long-time friend, Claire, who was killed during a burglary gone awry.
Bee Season
By Myla Goldberg
Adult Fiction
Eliza Naumann, a seemingly unremarkable nine-year-old, expects never to fit into her gifted family. But when Eliza sweeps her school and district spelling bees in quick succession, her father takes it as a sign that she is destined for greatness.
