Rating: 4.5 / 5
MAD HONEY by Jodi Picoult & Jennifer Finney Boylan follows two women. Olivia is a middle aged woman, a single mother to a teenaged son Asher. She is living back in her hometown and in the house she grew up in, inheriting her father’s beekeeping business. Lily and her mother are recent transplants to this small town and they’re set on making a new fresh start. Lily falls quickly for Asher and the feeling is mutual. They are planning futures together, but both teens are keeping secrets from each other.
When Olivia gets a call that Lily is dead, she can’t believe what has happened to her son’s girlfriend. Even worse, Asher is soon targeted as the chief suspect. Olivia must face her past with Asher’s father and the evidence against her son and make decisions on how far a mother will go to protect her son.
I didn’t know much about this book before receiving a copy in my Once Upon a Book Club box and I think going into this one as blind as possible is a good idea. I was instantly hooked and stayed that way throughout. The audio was really well done for this as well, giving us two narrators as we switched back and forth between Olivia’s starting from the time of Lily’s death and moving forward and Lily’s narrative starting before her death and working further back in time.
This book takes on a lot of serious topics like suicide and bullying and more, so I do suggest looking at a full list of trigger warnings if there are concerns. I do think the authors did a fantastic job of handling the difficult topics. I loved the inclusion of various bits of science and mythology around bees and general information about beekeeping scattered throughout the book as well.
This is a book I would definitely recommend (and be sure to read the author notes at the back as well). You even get some recipes to make from all the honey you’ll be craving in this book! I have enjoyed Jodi Picoult’s books in the past and will certainly be reading more, but will definitely be adding Jennifer Finney Boylan to my list of authors I want to read more from!
DG Reads 