Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan

Mad Honey was co-written by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan.

The story is told by two characters, Lily and Olivia. I was interested to learn that Picoult wrote one of the character’s chapters and Finney Boylan wrote the other. The character’s voices were distinct, but the quality of the writing was equally good and I could not tell who wrote which chapters.

Lily was a teenage girl in her last year of High School when she died. She had recently moved to a small town in New Hampshire where she joined the fencing team, played cello, made friends and fell in love with Asher, who was arrested soon after Lily’s death for her murder.

Olivia was Asher’s mother. She was a bee keeper who had raised Asher as a single parent, having left his abusive father when he was a small boy.

The chapters alternated between Lily and Olivia, and moved around in time. Some parts of the story were told by Olivia and Lily before Lily died, with Lily’s story being told backwards in time. Some were told after Lily’s death, by Olivia as she stood by Asher as he was jailed then put on trial, with the final chapters telling of the aftermath. Being a Picoult book, there were of course twists in the story that I hadn’t expected.

I very quickly came to care about Lily, Olivia and Asher and raced through this story. The suspense kept me reading until very late at night as I was desperate to know what had happened to Lily.

Jodi Picoult has always written novels using topical subjects and Mad Honey is no exception. I’m not going to name the theme of this story as other readers will get the full impact of the story if they come to it not knowing what to expect. I will say that I found this story educational, both the topical subject and equally unexpectedly, about bees and bee-keeping.

Obviously I’ll continue to read whatever else Jodi Picoult writes, but I will also look to find other books by Jennifer Finney Boylan.