The Wedding Bees: A Novel of Honey, Love, and Manners

Loved it. There's a crew of lovable, quirky characters and a magical element.
The bees definitely seem magical to me. They convinced Sugar Wallace not to make a bad decision 16 years ago and now they're trying to pull her towards the man she is supposed to fall in love with.
It made me tear up like three times, but only happy tears.
Very, very super heart warming book. My kind of story. ( )

Urgh I'm not sure what drew me to the book, but I felt compelled to read a "change of pace" text after 'The Library at Mount Char.' That was a lot darker than I had expected it to be and I needed something lighter. I had been drawn to this book a couple of years ago and while I don't like chick-lit, I managed to get this as a bargain.
 
Sugar Wallace is a beekeeper who has just moved to the Big Apple. New York City is her next destination, and she's here to get to know her neighbors, the city and basically run away from her past. There is of course a sad story about why she left South Carolina, why she lets her bees decide where she will go next, and of course caring for and raising the bees.
 
Her neighbors are a bunch of stereotypical, one-dimensional cardboard cut-outs. There's the chef being abused by his boss. The cranky neighbors who hate each other. The girl who thinks she will never find love and may have an eating disorder. So on and so forth. At first I thought this was like 'Chocolat', where Sugar was going to somehow fix everything with her honey and bees. But it turns out the story is a romance for Sugar instead, with the neighbors as the peanut gallery.
 
Maybe it was me, but the book dragged and dragged and dragged. I could not stick with it. I thought maybe it was me and my reading, but I think it's just not a very good book. I wouldn't recommend it, unless say you're on a flight somewhere and need something to occupy your time because there's no internet/entertainment available. If I had no other distractions it might have been a good read simply to occupy the time but as it is I can't really recommend it. ( )

Sweet fast read. ( )

This book had very silly and sometimes ridiculous plot points. It also had, in my opinion, things thrown in for no particular reason. That all being said, it is a wonderful story of Sugar and all the misfits she seems to gather wherever she goes. Very enjoyable. ( )

I found this charming and delightful. It was everything I expected and more. Sugar Wallace is a beekeeper who moves every year and helps the people she meets along the way. Her move to Alphabet City in New York is no different. This time, however, the people she helps rally around her to help her along with Queen Elizabeth the Sixth, the queen of her hive. I loved all the characters as well as the chapters that included the bees. Theo was the best with his steadfastness, determination and ineptitude. I loved the descriptions of Charleston. And the kilt was just the icing on the cake. A lovely piece of fluff that put a smile on my face the whole time I read it. ( )