The Cure for boredom on a winter's afternoon, 11 Dec 2004
I really enjoyed this book. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I bought this book because it had a quirky and appealing title, but it doesn't disappoint. It's a strange mixture of a coming of age type tale and a very reflective tale of a time gone by and the relationships between mothers and daughters. It's really well-written and sweeps you right along with it. It's written in a style that would be eye-catching if it was a painting - the closest I can get is "haunting". I have also read the even odder "A Rhinestone Button", which is great, but I prefer this book. The only potential downside is that it's really difficult to put down, so set aside some time to read it!

Haunting & Atmospheric, 04 Feb 2004
Although this tale takes place during the Second World War, the narrator of the book ~ a fifteen year old girl named Beth Weeks ~ manages to remain the focus of the story. It is beautifully written with lines that will stay in your head, sparking imagination every time you remember them. From beginning to end the reader is wrapped in a world that is exquisitely described ~ though sometimes dark and foreboding.
Throughout the book we are witness to Beth’s evolving maturity, and how she finds understanding towards her family and surrounding community in Turtle Valley. Every character is made real by the vivid descriptions given ~ yet Beth is always the central character, and all others are seen through her eyes. Because of this we, as the reader, are also privy to Beth’s most secret moments: her private thoughts, daydreams and nightmares.
Woven throughout the book are native, supernatural and cultural myths and legends. These add a dimension to the book that sits well with Beth's 'coming of age' and how family traditions cope with her impending adulthood.
The cure for death by lightning is listed in the book ~ as well as 97 other recipes ranging from a recipe for daffodil cake to ‘how to milk a cow’ (index at the back of the book).
A truly beautiful book that, once started, will not be put down until finished…and never forgotten afterwards.

Joanne Harris meets Peter Cary, 20 Dec 2002
I found this book slightly reminiscent of Joanne Harris' "five quarters of the orange" as there is a recipe book and a girl becoming a woman, but the heroine seems more believable and the general style more adult. Issues of poverty, child abuse and racism are also brought into the plot. This enjoyable book incorporates some of the style and sense of place that Peter Cary brought to "A True History of the Kelly Gang" but leavens it with a more hopeful attitude.

A stunning novel, 26 May 2000
A sign of a good book is when you don't want to get to the end. This was such a book. Sprinkled with eccentric characters and rich descriptive detail, the book dealt with the awakenings of first love/sexual feelings and dark family secrets. More than a rites-of-passage tale, the story also incorporated elements of the supernatural, native legends, and evoked the feeling that 'coyote' or a demon could lurk in every one of us. Thoroughly recommended.

a story of simplicity woven into recipes..., 14 Sep 1999
Being the first book I read in 1999, and only reviewing it now, six months later, it haunts me to return to the story. Although, a seemingly simple and sweet tale of a girl growing up on a farm in a strange community, there is a dark feeling of almost evil underneath the plot. The book is well written and I really enjoyed it. I would reccomend it to anyone who has time to ponder.

The Cure for boredom on a winter's afternoon, 11 Dec 2004
I really enjoyed this book. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I bought this book because it had a quirky and appealing title, but it doesn't disappoint. It's a strange mixture of a coming of age type tale and a very reflective tale of a time gone by and the relationships between mothers and daughters. It's really well-written and sweeps you right along with it. It's written in a style that would be eye-catching if it was a painting - the closest I can get is "haunting". I have also read the even odder "A Rhinestone Button", which is great, but I prefer this book. The only potential downside is that it's really difficult to put down, so set aside some time to read it!

Haunting & Atmospheric, 04 Feb 2004
Although this tale takes place during the Second World War, the narrator of the book ~ a fifteen year old girl named Beth Weeks ~ manages to remain the focus of the story. It is beautifully written with lines that will stay in your head, sparking imagination every time you remember them. From beginning to end the reader is wrapped in a world that is exquisitely described ~ though sometimes dark and foreboding.
Throughout the book we are witness to Beth’s evolving maturity, and how she finds understanding towards her family and surrounding community in Turtle Valley. Every character is made real by the vivid descriptions given ~ yet Beth is always the central character, and all others are seen through her eyes. Because of this we, as the reader, are also privy to Beth’s most secret moments: her private thoughts, daydreams and nightmares.
Woven throughout the book are native, supernatural and cultural myths and legends. These add a dimension to the book that sits well with Beth's 'coming of age' and how family traditions cope with her impending adulthood.
The cure for death by lightning is listed in the book ~ as well as 97 other recipes ranging from a recipe for daffodil cake to ‘how to milk a cow’ (index at the back of the book).
A truly beautiful book that, once started, will not be put down until finished…and never forgotten afterwards.

Joanne Harris meets Peter Cary, 20 Dec 2002
I found this book slightly reminiscent of Joanne Harris' "five quarters of the orange" as there is a recipe book and a girl becoming a woman, but the heroine seems more believable and the general style more adult. Issues of poverty, child abuse and racism are also brought into the plot. This enjoyable book incorporates some of the style and sense of place that Peter Cary brought to "A True History of the Kelly Gang" but leavens it with a more hopeful attitude.

A stunning novel, 26 May 2000
A sign of a good book is when you don't want to get to the end. This was such a book. Sprinkled with eccentric characters and rich descriptive detail, the book dealt with the awakenings of first love/sexual feelings and dark family secrets. More than a rites-of-passage tale, the story also incorporated elements of the supernatural, native legends, and evoked the feeling that 'coyote' or a demon could lurk in every one of us. Thoroughly recommended.

a story of simplicity woven into recipes..., 14 Sep 1999
Being the first book I read in 1999, and only reviewing it now, six months later, it haunts me to return to the story. Although, a seemingly simple and sweet tale of a girl growing up on a farm in a strange community, there is a dark feeling of almost evil underneath the plot. The book is well written and I really enjoyed it. I would reccomend it to anyone who has time to ponder.

a compelling read, 27 Apr 2004
i found this book a compelling read and was lost in a fascinating world ofrichly drawn characters, colours and evocative imagery that creates aworld even more real than reality. i loved it and plan on re-reading itagain and again.

Following the international success of The Cure for Death by Lightning, Gail Anderson-Dargatz has written an extraordinary and beguiling second novel. A "foray backwards in time", A Recipe for Bees is the telling of a woman's life: Augusta Olsen, a farmer's daughter, then a farmer's wife, living in the isolation-- desolation--of rural Canada. Conjuring that landscape and its time, the photos from Anderson-Dargatz's family album scattered throughout the book suggest that this is an obscurely personal narrative, a testimony to the many "strange tales" and the unique loves that lives lived so close to the land can solicit. Sometimes painful, often pitiless--the possibility of a slow death from loneliness and frustration on her husband's farm haunts the young Augusta--A Recipe for Bees is on the side of a visionary bid for life: the resistance and resource which drives Augusta to manufacture love as she manufactures honey, forging pleasure through friendship, family, narrative--and the strange world of bees. "Have I told you the drone's penis snaps off during intercourse with the queen bee?" The memorable opening line of a novel preoccupied by bees, the sensual language of bees, and the difficulty of making life out of death. --Vicky Lebeau

The Cure for boredom on a winter's afternoon, 11 Dec 2004
I really enjoyed this book. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I bought this book because it had a quirky and appealing title, but it doesn't disappoint. It's a strange mixture of a coming of age type tale and a very reflective tale of a time gone by and the relationships between mothers and daughters. It's really well-written and sweeps you right along with it. It's written in a style that would be eye-catching if it was a painting - the closest I can get is "haunting". I have also read the even odder "A Rhinestone Button", which is great, but I prefer this book. The only potential downside is that it's really difficult to put down, so set aside some time to read it!

Haunting & Atmospheric, 04 Feb 2004
Although this tale takes place during the Second World War, the narrator of the book ~ a fifteen year old girl named Beth Weeks ~ manages to remain the focus of the story. It is beautifully written with lines that will stay in your head, sparking imagination every time you remember them. From beginning to end the reader is wrapped in a world that is exquisitely described ~ though sometimes dark and foreboding.
Throughout the book we are witness to Beth’s evolving maturity, and how she finds understanding towards her family and surrounding community in Turtle Valley. Every character is made real by the vivid descriptions given ~ yet Beth is always the central character, and all others are seen through her eyes. Because of this we, as the reader, are also privy to Beth’s most secret moments: her private thoughts, daydreams and nightmares.
Woven throughout the book are native, supernatural and cultural myths and legends. These add a dimension to the book that sits well with Beth's 'coming of age' and how family traditions cope with her impending adulthood.
The cure for death by lightning is listed in the book ~ as well as 97 other recipes ranging from a recipe for daffodil cake to ‘how to milk a cow’ (index at the back of the book).
A truly beautiful book that, once started, will not be put down until finished…and never forgotten afterwards.

Joanne Harris meets Peter Cary, 20 Dec 2002
I found this book slightly reminiscent of Joanne Harris' "five quarters of the orange" as there is a recipe book and a girl becoming a woman, but the heroine seems more believable and the general style more adult. Issues of poverty, child abuse and racism are also brought into the plot. This enjoyable book incorporates some of the style and sense of place that Peter Cary brought to "A True History of the Kelly Gang" but leavens it with a more hopeful attitude.

A stunning novel, 26 May 2000
A sign of a good book is when you don't want to get to the end. This was such a book. Sprinkled with eccentric characters and rich descriptive detail, the book dealt with the awakenings of first love/sexual feelings and dark family secrets. More than a rites-of-passage tale, the story also incorporated elements of the supernatural, native legends, and evoked the feeling that 'coyote' or a demon could lurk in every one of us. Thoroughly recommended.

a story of simplicity woven into recipes..., 14 Sep 1999
Being the first book I read in 1999, and only reviewing it now, six months later, it haunts me to return to the story. Although, a seemingly simple and sweet tale of a girl growing up on a farm in a strange community, there is a dark feeling of almost evil underneath the plot. The book is well written and I really enjoyed it. I would reccomend it to anyone who has time to ponder.

a compelling read, 27 Apr 2004
i found this book a compelling read and was lost in a fascinating world ofrichly drawn characters, colours and evocative imagery that creates aworld even more real than reality. i loved it and plan on re-reading itagain and again.

I hate honey, but I loved this!, 02 Mar 2001
You really do fall into the book, the way of life, and the unfolding tale. Gail Anderson-Dargatz's writing is so accomplished that I never once considered anything but the story into which I was drawn. A perfect book for shutting out the world around you. Read it!

A recipe for a great novel, 17 Jul 2000
Another evocative novel from the author of 'The Cure for Death by Lightning'. This book looks back on the life, loves and struggles of an independently spirited woman in Canada's farmlands. The tale is both heartwarming and poignant, the descriptions rich and sensual. Thoroughly recommended. I eagerly await the author's next novel.

Absolutely Absorbing, 15 Mar 2000
Without doubt this is one of the most memorable books that I have read for a long time. The evocative language slips off the page like honey off a spoon. The writer lures you into the plot with strikingly provocative images, delicately unfolding a young girl's rites of passage into womanhood. Unmissable!

A plodding book, it took determination to finish reading it., 26 Jul 1999
This is the first of Anderson-Dargatz's book that I have read. As a bee-keeper it was the title that caught my eye. I found the story plodded along, never really demonstrating much energy. The characters mumbled and meandered through the tale, and I felt like I was engaged by elderly relatives recalling their past. An interesting enough story, you just wish it didn't take so long to tell. The bee-keeping sections are accurate, and the photo's added a homely feel. I wouldn't recommend it to an occaisional reader.

A honey of a novel, 22 May 1999
I must admit to surprise that I am the first person to review this book as it was one of those books which you feel like discussing as soon as you have finished it.

I enjoyed Gail Anderson-Dargatz' first effort (The Cure for Death by Lightning) immensely and was a little concerned that this book might be a bit too similar - an impression which was based on the similar cover and an equally "cutesy" name. However I was pleased to find that this book was quite different and a worthy second novel.

The language in this novel is beautiful, with an ability to evoke quite an emotional response from the reader. I particularly liked the descriptions of the landscape. The rhythms of farming life are described in vivid detail in a way that makes you linger over every word (rather than skipping over descriptive text to get to the story - something I am often guilty of doing). I could almost taste the honey eaten straight from the comb or the berries plucked straight from the bush (eaten while still warm from the sun).

The characters are introduced through the eyes of Augusta, who is the novel's protagonist. The reader tends to react to the other characters in the novel in much the same way as Augusta herself - when she describes her son-in-law, Gabe, as always having the smell of honey about him, you instantly warm to him and little else needs to be written to establish his character. Likewise, while Karl (Augusta's husband) has a small role in the novel in terms of dialogue, the reader feels like they know him well through Augusta's feelings for him. You forgive his early weaknesses because you feel Augusta's genuine love for him and the comfort which they find in each other's company. I must admit that I felt that some of the other characters in the novel may have been a little more one dimensional, particularly Joy, but that may just have been because Augusta herself often had difficulty in relating to her.

Overall I found this to be a honey of a novel and would happily recommend it to anyone who enjoyed the Cure for Death by Lightning.