He Should Have Told the Bees

Title: He Should Have Told the Bees
Author: Amanda Cox
Major Themes: Hope, Forgiveness, Farm Life, Friendship
Synopsis: When Becket Walsh’s father dies suddenly, she finds out her farm—the only place she’s ever felt safe—is now half-owned by a stranger who wants to sell it.

Esther’s review:

I’ve been intrigued by Amanda Cox’s writing for several years now, and when I saw that He Should Have Told the Bees was going to be released soon, I knew I wanted to read it. Mom and I realized we were both reading the book at the same time when I started, and we decided to try to make it a buddy read. Unfortunately, our reading speeds and styles are vastly different. I read at about a fourth of her speed, and when a day is too full, I simply won’t get around to reading—whereas she’ll generally have time for at least a few chapters each day. I struggle to get into stories until I’m sometimes a quarter of the way through a book, whereas she gets hooked almost right away. The one thing we are similar in is that once we’re hooked, both of us have a hard time putting the book down. In the end, we buddy-read the first half of the story, and then I ended up finishing the rest one afternoon. It was fun to compare notes as we went, but since our reading styles are so different, I don’t know if we’ll ever try buddy reading again. We’ll see!

All Callie Peterson has known in her life is one upset after another. With a mother who has struggled with substance abuse all her life, all Callie has known is instability—until now, when she’s finally able to start getting her feet under her and has hopes of growing her dream business without her mother there to wreck everything. Until, that is, her mother shows up on her doorstep one day and asks for help…again…and promises that this time really is different. That she really does want to change. The only hiccough to the plan? She needs to foot her mother’s rehab bill, and with everything she’s invested in her business, she has nothing to fall back on.

Beckett Walsh’s world has been made up of the same farm for nearly her entire life. When her mother left when she was five, her world fell apart, and eventually, her father chose to give up a good job and go into full-time farming. While on Walsh Farm, Beck’s world is complete—but even the thought of leaving the property can be enough to give her a panic attack. Her world is rocked, however, when her father dies suddenly—and leaves the farm in a trust that declares a stranger half-owner of the only stability Beck has ever known. Can the two women find a way to work through their problems as they are thrust into a situation neither of them saw coming?

He Should Have Told the Bees is a powerful story. It took a bit for me to get sucked into the story, but once I was in, I couldn’t put the book down. Dealing with these two women’s pasts—and their struggles to work through past trauma toward a better future in the present—was hard, but somehow beautiful, at the same time. Then there was Fern, who brought the zest of life along with her crazy sock-alien ways. Even though she had her own things to work through, she was an absolute hoot to have in a story that could have otherwise come off as somewhat heavy.

As someone who was raised on a farm, I adored the way farm life and animals played a natural role in the story. The house chicken? All too relatable—and funny. Add to that a temperamental donkey and Sassy, the cat, not to mention the bees, and this book really shines. I loved all the bee wisdom that was dropped in these pages—not too much, but enough that it feels realistic that Beck was a beekeeper.

Despite the heavier parts of the story, mostly centering around Callie’s mother, the overall tone of the book was hopeful and encouraging. I loved how Callie’s faith, especially, came through, and I could relate to her struggles to learn to trust the Lord for the next step. This book had more romance in it than I remember seeing in The Secret Keepers of Old Depot Grocery, although in saying that, it was generally more friendship than taking-a-girl-out-on-dates kind of romance. He Should Have Told the Bees is a story of hope, faith, forgiveness, and friendship, and I’m grateful I had the chance to read it.

I was given a complimentary copy of this book, and this is my honest opinion of it.

Emma’s review:

I like Amanda Cox! He Should Have Told the Bees is my third book by her. I happened to start reading this book at the same time that my daughter also began it, so I slowed down my normal reading pace so that we could read it together. I think that made me enjoy it even more because I had time to think about what was happening. I really enjoyed the way little bits of the backstory were revealed a little at a time as Callie and Beck figured out who they were, where they had come from, and how they were connected. Both of them had so much to work through. I appreciated the lessons Callie and Beck learned about living in, walking in, believing, and speaking the truth. The importance of the truth is emphasized throughout this book as the women discover more and more lies. It’s not a heavy book, though, even though there is a lot of heaviness in it. There’s a lot of humor, too. I loved Fern, aka Katya, and the scene in which pancakes dropped from the ceiling was priceless. This book is a must-read, unless you have to have romance in your stories. If a romantic ending is a necessity for you, skip this one. (That made it appeal to me more.)

WARNING: Throughout the story, there are references to a woman who was an alcoholic and sometimes did drugs, who was occasionally used by men (not described further than this), and who dragged her daughter all over the US as the daughter grew up. There are also occasional mentions of things that had been stolen in the past, of lying from the past, of a woman who abandoned her child, and of the father who died before the story started. Cursed is used in the prologue and ch. 32; “thank goodness” is used in ch. 1, 4, and 40; “land sakes” is used in ch. 21; “for goodness’ sake” and swear are used in ch. 32; and swore is used in ch. 38. There is lying in ch. 11 and 24 (lying from earlier in the story discovered). A dog is found hurt in ch. 8. In ch. 25 and 32, characters talk about an unwed pregnancy. There are several references to a childhood nightmare in ch. 27 and 35. In ch. 38, someone tells how she was raped. In ch. 43, a character tells about their bipolar diagnosis. Unmarried characters hold hands or hug in ch. 12, 17, 22, 23, 24, 38, 39, 41, and 44.

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