Book Review and Giveaway: The Death of Bees by Lisa O'Donnell

If there is another book that I hope you get to read on this Holiday break, 

or in the upcoming new year, I hope it is this new book!

Synopsis: “Today is Christmas Eve.  Today is my birthday.  Today I am fifteen.  Today I buried my parents in the backyard.  Neither of them were beloved.”

Hazlehurst housing estate, Glasgow, Christmas Eve 2010. Fifteen-year-old Marnie and her little sister Nelly have just finished burying their parents in the back garden. Only Marnie and Nelly know how they got there. Lennie, the old guy next door, has taken a sudden interest in his two young neighbours and is keeping a close eye on them. He soon realises that the girls are all alone, and need his help - or does he need theirs?


As the year ends and another begins, the sisters' friends, their neighbours, and the authorities - not to mention the local drug dealer, who's been sniffing around for their father - gradually start to ask questions. And as one lie leads to another, darker secrets about Marnie's family come to light, making things even more complicated.

Review: I was warned I would be totally entranced with this book from chapter one, and it was not a lie! I read it in one sitting, as I wanted to see what would become of Marnie and Nelly! As is the case in our modern world, the children were the adults in their dysfunctional household, with absentee, neglectful, and selfish parents posing as the adults. Which explains why the teens are able to loose their parents with no true grief or loss of love. The girls have been through social services and know that Nelly will not be able to handle it again- she is sensitive, speaks oddly (like she is the Queen of England, per Marnie), which leads to lots of teasing, yet is a wiz at math and the violin.The lengths that they will go to, to stay together, makes the essence of the story ring true and gives it its life and humor.

It is also a story of misfits, who have found one another and are able to comfort and care for each other. Be it their next-door neighbor, Lennie, an old man with a sad past, or their friends, who all have family issues, or the local drug kingpin, who is not what he seems. Even their long-absent grandfather, newly sober, who shows up and claims the girls are his for the taking, has some MAJOR issues that will slowly be revealed. .

The story is told in alternating chapters by Marnie, Nelly, and Lennie.  Marnie is a brilliant, and typical 15 year old, who has lost her true self in a world of coping- drinking to survive family dysfunctionality, working for a drug dealer, to pay off a family debt and to keep her and Nelly away from Social Services, and is looking for someone to love the rear her. Nelly is her opposite- prim and proper, naive and trusting, she internalizes the pain, while being quick to accept friendships. the charmingly odd duck of the narrative.  Lennie provides what they both need- love and discipline, and a home life, that borders on the normal.His life is full of lonliness and sadness, since the loss of the love of his life, and his vacant wandering has found a purpose in protecting the girls.

The story if rife with humor, from all the characters, which will have you laughing and thinking about the girls, long after you finish the book! In fact, the grimness of the deaths of the parents, are pretty much overshadowed by the gallows humor of bodies that will not stay buried. You may find yourself coming up with your own ways they could 'deal with the problem', and wanting to share it with them. As by the time you are two thirds of the way through, you will be rooting for them to avoid Social Services. How it comes about in the end, should come as no surprise. But Lisa gives her readers one final surprise that ties the book up nicely and will leave you with a smile on your face. You will love this book and be talking about it for weeks after you read it!


About the Author: Lisa O’Donnell won the Orange Screenwriting Prize in 2000 for The Wedding Gift, and in the same year was nominated for the Dennis Potter New Screenwriters Award.  Originally from Scotland, she moved to Los Angeles in 2006, where she lives with her family and is now a full time novelist.   For more on Lisa O’Donnell, visit her website, on Facebook,  and Twitter. 



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Disclosure / Disclaimer: I was sent this book, free of charge, from Harper Collins Publishing for review purposes, on this blog. No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told what to say about it.