By: Susan Wiggs
Genres: Romance | Women's Fiction
Posted: August 12, 2014
THE BEEKEEPER'S BALL by Susan Wiggs has a sweet charm to it. The setting of Bella Vista gives it a very homey feel that makes you want to grab a rocking chair and start reading on the porch. I love the small cooking element in it, as well as the brief historical side with Isabel's grandfather's story. His flashbacks are actually my favorite part of the story, and I love how much emotion is put behind his words.
However, while I like all the unique, individual problems going on with Isabel, Mac, and Isabel's grandfather, I felt left with a lot of unanswered questions by the end. The cook from Isabel's past seemed to be set up as a conflict in the story, but it felt like he just popped randomly in and out at some points. It ended up feeling the same with the grandfather's history and Mac's past marriage. Some excellent starter information is given on both, and some later good detail, but neither felt resolved or closed up. I also expected to see more actual cooking and work towards the cooking school on Isabel's part, but it was hard to gage how passionate she truly was about it until the interview with Mac towards the end.
Overall, THE BEEKEEPER'S BALL may not be my favorite, but I still enjoyed reading it. Fans of Susan Wiggs won't be disappointed with her unique and warm writing style.
Book Summary
#1 New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs returns to sun-drenched Bella Vista, where the land's bounty yields a rich harvest…and family secrets that have long been buried.
Isabel Johansen, a celebrated chef who grew up in the sleepy Sonoma town of Archangel, is transforming her childhood home into a destination cooking school—a unique place for other dreamers to come and learn the culinary arts. Bella Vista's rambling mission-style hacienda, with its working apple orchards, bountiful gardens and beehives, is the idyllic venue for Isabel's project…and the perfect place for her to forget the past.
But Isabel's carefully ordered plans begin to go awry when swaggering, war-torn journalist Cormac O'Neill arrives to dig up old history. He's always been better at exposing the lives of others than showing his own closely guarded heart, but the pleasures of small-town life and the searing sensuality of Isabel's kitchen coax him into revealing a few truths of his own.
The dreamy sweetness of summer is the perfect time of year for a grand family wedding and the enchanting Beekeeper's Ball, bringing emotions to a head in a story where the past and present collide to create an unexpected new future.
From "one of the best observers of stories of the heart" (Salem Statesman-Journal), The Beekeeper's Ball is an exquisite and richly imagined novel of the secrets that keep us from finding our way, the ties binding us to family and home, and the indelible imprint love can make on the human heart.
by: Susan Wiggs
Harlequin MIRA
July 1, 2014
On Sale: June 24, 2014
Featuring: Cormac O'Neill; Isabel Johansen
368 pages
ISBN: 0778314480
EAN: 9780778316992
Kindle: B01DSPOW4S
Hardcover / e-Book