Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan

Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan – 464 pages

ARC from Ballantine Books and Netgalley for an honest review 

Book Blurb:

Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan: Olivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over. Her picture-perfect life—living in Boston, married to a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon, raising a beautiful son, Asher—was upended when her husband revealed a darker side. She never imagined she would end up back in her sleepy New Hampshire hometown, living in the house she grew up in, and taking over her father’s beekeeping business. Lily Campanello is familiar with do-overs, too. When she and her mom relocate to Adams, New Hampshire, for her final year of high school, they both hope it will be a fresh start. And for just a short while, these new beginnings are exactly what Olivia and Lily need. Their paths cross when Asher falls for the new girl in school, and Lily can’t help but fall for him, too. With Ash, she feels happy for the first time. Yet at times, she wonders if she can she trust him completely. Then one day, Olivia receives a phone call: Lily is dead, and Asher is being questioned by the police. Olivia is adamant that her son is innocent. But she would be lying if she didn’t acknowledge the flashes of his father’s temper in him, and as the case against him unfolds, she realizes he’s hidden more than he’s shared with her.

My Review: 4.5 stars

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Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan was a triumph in co-authoring a book that had me rapt by the mystery, invested in the characters and pleased with the seamless writing style. I’ve been a fan of Jodi Picoult for many years and as some of you know, I had to break up with her books as they became too commercial/formulaic. Suddenly, however, she was back with her competent writing skills, where the plotlines vary, and no formula can be detected. 

Because I’ve read so many of her books, I’ve noticed a cadence to her writing. There’s a beat to her prose that continually tells me, this is a Jodi book. Writing as a duo didn’t change that; I immediately knew that Jodi wrote Olivia – a mother and beekeeper and Jennifer wrote Lily –  an eighteen-year – old girl student. Both of these main characters were both making a fresh start. The heart of this book is a mystery, but there are so many talking points are woven in the novel. 

LBGTQA+, marriage, abuse, motherhood, secrets, art, cello, deadbeat dads, second chances and the metaphor of bee keeping which mirrors much of the plot as it moves forward are all themes in the book. I found it interesting that Lily’s chapters go back in time as the novel progresses while Olivia’s chapters go forward. That had to be a quite a challenge for the authors. 

This book makes for a fast and enjoyable read! Highly recommend. 

Quotes I liked:

How similar does someone have to be to you before you remember to see them, first, as human?”

“All of us have something in our hearts like a flower that cannot bloom because it is held in secret.”

“In the absence of knowledge, the mind is an amazing Tilt-A-Whirl of worst-case scenarios.”

“Being gay or straight,” says Elizabeth, “is about who you want to go to
bed with. Being trans—or cis—is about who you want to go to bed as.”