Review & Blog Tour. Keeper of the Bees

 

Welcome to Keeper of the Bees Blog Tour. I still can't believe I'm part of it (I really thought I had no chances of being chosen). I also still can't believe that I received an early copy of this beautifully eerie story that reminded me so much of Beauty and the Beast (Pintip Dunn was right). Scroll down to read my review and don't forget to join the Giveaway (it's US only, sorry guys).

Title: Keeper of the Bees

Author: Meg Kassel

Published: September 4th 2018
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Genre: YA Paranormal

KEEPER OF THE BEES is a tale of two teens who are both beautiful and beastly, and whose pasts are entangled in surprising and heartbreaking ways.

Dresden is cursed. His chest houses a hive of bees that he can’t stop from stinging people with psychosis-inducing venom. His face is a shifting montage of all the people who have died because of those stings. And he has been this way for centuries—since he was eighteen and magic flowed through his homeland, corrupting its people.

He follows harbingers of death, so at least his curse only affects those about to die anyway. But when he arrives in a Midwest town marked for death, he encounters Essie, a seventeen-year-old girl who suffers from debilitating delusions and hallucinations. His bees want to sting her on sight. But Essie doesn’t see a monster when she looks at Dresden.

Essie is fascinated and delighted by his changing features. Risking his own life, he holds back his bees and spares her. What starts out as a simple act of mercy ends up unraveling Dresden’s solitary life and Essie’s tormented one. Their impossible romance might even be powerful enough to unravel a centuries-old curse.

 Goodreads / Book Depository / Entangled Publishing

Keeper of the Bees is a hauntingly beautiful story in which two cursed souls find each other before death tarnishes their world.

Writing: Meg Kassel's writing is simply enticing. It's heartfelt and breaks you heart in thousand pieces. The fast-paced and intriguing plot is eerie and bewitchingly nightmarish.

She had no inkling of the wound she's sliced open. Of the beasts awakening inside me that howl and gnaw at my mind with maddening ferocity. And she mustn't know. The depth of my feelings at this moment is monstrous.

The narrative switches between two plots: Dresden, a faceless beekeeper who has a beehive in is chest, and Essie, a seventeen-year old girl who struggles to figure out with what is real and what is not. I loved the two different perspectives - especially the perspective of Essie's twisted world. Even though the story mentions magic and curses, through Essie, Keeper of the Bees discusses mental illness. She is deemed mad and has to deal with a lot of prejudice from people who don't understand her disease.

Characters: The blurb for this novel mentioned a likeness to Beauty and the Beast, one of my favourite fairytales, and I saw some of the traits of the Beast and Belle in both Dresden and Essie. Dresden is the beast. Cursed to follow the harbingers of death and feeding of the anger and hate from those his bees stung (these people ended up committing despicable acts). And Essie is Belle, the town's odd girl who sees things that aren't actually there due to the insanity that runs in her family's blood.

I was not fond of the insta-love between Dresden and Essie. However, they could see each other, through the masks and craziness they bore, so it's easily understandable how they were attracted and fell in love for each other so fast.

Worldbuiling: First, I've a confession to make: I haven't read Black Bird in the Gallows yet (*hides in a corner in shame*). The book has been on my TBR pile for a really long time. Luckily, Keeper of the Bees is a companion novel, though it does spoiler the end of Black Bird the Gallows. Nevertheless, I'll still plunge into this perfectly macabre world of harbingers, beekeeper and strawmen once again even though I know how it ends. The world set in a contemporary society. However, the author mixes it with curses, magic and deadly beings that follow and provoke chaos, weaving an enthralling and fascinating dark world.

Thank you to YA Bound Book Tours and the publisher for providing me with a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

About the Author

Meg Kassel is an author of fantasy and speculative books for young adults. A graduate of Parson's School of Design, she’s been creating stories, whether with visuals or words, since childhood. Meg is a New Jersey native who lives in a log house in the Maine woods with her husband and daughter. As a fan of ’80s cartoons, Netflix series, and ancient mythology, she has always been fascinated and inspired by the fantastic, the creepy, and the futuristic. She is the 2016 RWA Golden Heart® winner in YA and a double 2018 RITA® finalist for her debut novel, Black Bird of the Gallows.

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