Unique, provocative, and powerful, this is also a painfully exquisite and beautifully written book. Focusing on her affair with Connor, the harrowing and damaging emotions of loss, grief, and obsession overflow within Ana’s mind. A novel, yes, but not as you know it. Told in verse, Sarah Crossan writes as you might think. Thoughts flow, yet are spliced, splintered, hesitant, fractured. This is the first novel for adults from award winning Sarah Crossan, who was Ireland’s Children’s Literature Laureate (Laureate na nOg) for 2018-2020 and it has huge impact. Ana’s mind is an uncomfortably intimate place to be, thoughts ebb, flow, blast, rage. Each new unexpected bite of information hit me with raw overwhelming precision. As Ana unravelled, so did my feelings, and I positively ached for all involved. Will some people find this a difficult read due to the raw dark content, yes quite possibly, yet for me that is the wonder of this book. Every slicing emotion peels away another layer until you reach the core. Here is the Beehive has been chosen as a LoveReading Star Book and Liz Robinson Pick of the Month as for me this is a must-read.
Ana and Connor have been having an affair for three years. In hotel rooms and coffee shops, swiftly deleted texts and briefly snatched weekends, they have built a world with none but the two of them in it.
But then the unimaginable happens, and Ana finds herself alone, trapped inside her secret.
How can we lose someone the world never knew was ours? How do we grieve for something no one else can ever find out? In her desperate bid for answers, Ana seeks out the shadowy figure who has always stood just beyond her reach - Connor's wife Rebecca.
Peeling away the layers of two overlapping marriages, Here is the Beehive is a devastating excavation of risk, obsession and loss.
Amazing ... I absolutely love the form, which breathes new life into a familiar story making it both more elegant and more brutal. I read it in one sitting, completely swept up in Ana's fragmented narrative -- Emma Healey
Excellent ... An eviscerating account of modern marriage - Independent
I absolutely gobbled it up: dark, riveting, powerful ... Delivers on a whole new level -- Elizabeth Day
A stunner - Good Housekeeping
Raw, emotional and wistful - Woman & Home
I read this stunning book standing up in two hours. An eviscerating take on marriage and adultery -- Erin Kelly
A beautifully crafted sucker punch of a read. Sarah Crossan has always had an exquisite way with words and in this she uses poetic prose to craft an honest and oftentimes gritty exploration of two intertwined marriages, slowly unravelling. Painfully believable, passionate and occasionally heartbreaking, Here is the Beehive provides further proof that Sarah Crossan is an infinitely gifted writer. We're lucky to have her -- Jan Carson
A searing portrait of addictive love and grief and the devastation human beings can wreak on each other ... It is an addictive read, painful, unsettling, full of uncomfortable truths, yet the work itself resounds with its own unique bleak beauty -- Lisa Harding
Devastatingly honest, heartbreaking and tender ... This is the most extraordinary novel I have read in years in form, ambition and scope - an incredible achievement and an instant classic. I will read it again and again -- Jane Casey
Here is the Beehive is an unflinching take on the destructive power of obsessive love. It is also a highly original study of the grief that dare not speak its name - the grief of the other woman -- Christine Dwyer Hickey
I couldn't put it down. I just loved it. The prose is clean yet rich, her dialogue ear-perfect -- Louise Kennedy
How does she get so much emotion into so few words? Sarah Crossan is a miracle worker ... Utterly meaningful, original and accomplished -- Sinead Crowley
Praise for Sarah Crossan;
'One of our most original writers. Sarah has almost created an entirely new form of writing in her novels that is hers and hers alone -- John Boyne
Compelling and beautifully wrought - Sunday Times
The princess of pacing ... Crossan always finds humour and humanity in the darkness; it's impossible not to read it in a single gulp - The Times
Truly remarkable - Irish Times
There are familiar flavours and notes and moments of powerful sweetness, but she complicates them with such power and subtlety, in a way that doesn't alienate the reader. The tang of fire is in there, always, leaving a unique aftertaste. You wouldn't mistake it for any other writer, and you won't soon forget it -- Deirdre Sullivan
Utterly sublime -- Cecelia Ahern
Author
About Sarah Crossan
Sarah Crossan has lived in Dublin, London and New York, and now lives in East Sussex. She graduated with a degree in Philosophy and Literature before training as an English and drama teacher at the University of Cambridge. The Weight of Water and Apple and Rain were both shortlisted for the CILIP Carnegie Medal. In 2016, Sarah won the CILIP Carnegie Medal as well as the YA Book Prize, the CBI Book of the Year award and the CLiPPA Poetry Award for her novel, One.
Sarah is the go-to writer of the free verse novel in the UK and Ireland, and is the current Laureate na nÓg (Ireland’s Children’s Literature Laureate). Her theme as Laureate is #WeAreThePoets, a two-year project inspiring young people to express themselves through poetry and verse.
