15. Grace’s and Trixie’s pasts collide in a surprising twist. What drives Trixie to uncover her mother’s past? How does Trixie confront her own past in the process?
16. Love is a major theme in the novel: romantic love, familial love, first love, lost love. Is it possible to be in love with two people at the same time? Do you think the characters in the book find the love they want?
Enhance Your Book Club
1. In The Beekeeper’s Daughter, we meet various ranks of British nobility: a marquess and marchioness, an earl and lady. Were you familiar with hierarchy of the titles? Do a little research on British peers. Visit http://www.edwardianpromenade.com/resources/titles-and-orders-of-precedence/.
2. Have a honey tasting at you book club meeting. You can find some recipes at http://www.marthastewart.com/275155/sweet-and-savory-honey-recipes. Visit www.honey.com to learn more about honey, find local honey in your area, and more.
3. Grace writes to Freddie and Rufus while they are away during the Second World War. Visit WWII Letters: Actual Letters Written During WWII (www.WWIIletters.blogspot.com) or learn more about letter writing during the war at Smithsonian National Postal Museum (www.postalmuseum.si.edu/victorymail/letter).
A Conversation with Santa Montefiore
Bees play a major role in the story. How did you get interested in bees? What research did you do?
The book was inspired by a swarm of bees that settled on the side of my cottage in Hampshire a few summers ago. I thought The Beekeeper’s Cottage sounded like a good title, so I began to weave a story around them. My daughter, when she was little, used to put bumblebees on her arm and let them walk up it—she never got stung, but it used to make me very nervous. I did a lot of research on bees. I was given a lovely book about them and used the Internet. I also bumped into a woman at my son’s football match, who happened to have been a beekeeper’s daughter during World War II. Quite a coincidence (or not! I like to think the universe was helping me out there!).
You open the novel with a poem about bees. Were you familiar with this poem before you wrote The Beekeeper’s Daughter?
No, this poem was in a bee book I was given. I thought it was very sweet so I put it at the front of the book. I think the bees in my novel would have been fascinated by all the goings-on!
Secrets seem to be a theme you like to explore in your novels. What draws you write about secrets?
Secrets are fascinating. It’s human nature to love mysteries. If there were no secrets, there’d be no novels!—and life would be very dull!
Flowers often make appearances in your books. In The Beekeeper’s Daughter, Grace is an acclaimed gardener. Are you? Do you enjoy gardens?
I am passionate about nature. I am at my happiest in beautiful places like forests, woods, beaches, and mountains. I think we all are. That still, silent, eternal part of nature resonates with the still, silent eternal part of us and connects us to our true natures beyond ego. When I’m in nature, all the petty worries I have dissolve and I ponder the big questions. I use nature a lot in my novels to help my characters evolve on a spiritual level. Writing about nature from my office in London makes me feel good. It’s like a meditation. If I can’t be in it, I’ll imagine that I am! I hope it uplifts or touches my readers, too.
This is your first novel set in America. What drew you to set this one in New England?
I love America, although sadly I don’t know it well. I wanted that part of the novel to be based there, but was limited to where in America I could base it. I had to choose somewhere I knew well enough to write about with authenticity. Hence Nantucket because I have been there and adored it. I renamed it Tekanasset because I wanted to make it my own—you’d be surprised how many people write in telling me I’m wrong about things if I write about real places. This way I can invent everything and have total freedom. I bought a beautiful coffee-table book about Nantucket to inspire me. If I could buy a house anywhere, I think I’d buy a beach house there!
Part of the story takes place during World War II. Did you learn anything new about that time that you were compelled to include in the novel?
Research always teaches me new things. However, I think we all know so much about that period, thanks to movies and television, that I didn’t learn anything extraordinary. I do think that era is wonderful for romance—the fact that communication was so hard and people’s sense of duty to their families, religion, and class were very strong. It gives me a lot to work with.
Grace and Trixie are very independent women and they love so fiercely. Was it important to you to create two strong women as the main characters?
Absolutely. It’s fun writing about women with character; after all, character is what drives my books. Characters have to be interesting, entertaining, and complex. The reader has to believe in them and they have to evolve throughout the story. Grace and Trixie gave me such pleasure.
Grace and Rufus’s affair doesn’t have a resolution. If Rufus could have one more chance to see Grace, what do you think he would say to her?
I think he’d tell her that he loved her and that he never stopped loving her.
Poor Rufus. Each character seems to get a happy ending but him. He dies from a broken heart. Do you think this is something that is truly possible?
I know it’s possible. Don’t we read all the time of couples who die so quickly one after the other. Life was unbearable for Rufus without Grace and I think he just pined. I couldn’t give everyone happy endings. Life isn’t like that—and I wanted Freddie to come out of the shadows. I wanted his love to be the light that shone out at the end of the book. When I was thinking of my plot I consulted with my uncle, who was in the army and knows a lot about military history. He told me one thing which changed the whole course of the book and that is why I dedicated it to him. He said; Freddie comes good. Freddie wasn’t going to come good. But after he said that, I thought about how I might make that happen. It changed the whole emphasis for me and I think, made the story more compelling.
What do you hope readers will take away from The Beekeeper’s Daughter?
I only ever wish two things for my readers: to feel warm in their hearts and to love and accept love wholeheartedly.
You’ve written several novels. Where do you find your inspiration? Where will you take us next?
I’m now writing my sixteenth novel. (My first four have yet to be published in the United States.) The next one is the first of a trilogy following three women in southern Ireland who are all born in 1910. Set around a castle, it’s much more dramatic than anything I have ever written before because it takes my characters through the First World War and the War of Independence. It also has a strong spiritual thread. I’m very excited about it. I’m already on Part II.
About the Author
Photograph by Elaine Fattal
Santa Montefiore is the #1 internationally bestselling author of more than a dozen novels. Her books have been translated into twenty languages and have sold more than two million copies worldwide. She studied Spanish and Italian at Exeter University. She lives in London with her husband, bestselling historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, and their two children.
If you would like Santa Montefiore to talk to your book club, you can e-mail her at [email protected].
SimonandSchuster.com
authors.simonandschuster.com/Santa-Montefiore
Also by Santa Montefiore
Secrets of the Lighthouse
The Summer House (previously published as
The Woman from Paris)
The Affair (previously published as The Perfect Happiness)
The French Gardener
The House by the Sea (previously published as
The Mermaid Garden)
Sea of Lost Love
The Gypsy Madonna
Last Voyage of the Valentina
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ding this Simon & Schuster eBook.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Santa Montefiore
Originally published in 2014 in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition April 2015
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Jacket photographs: House and Boardwalk © Raymond; Forbes/Masterfile; Flowers © Shutterstock
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Montefiore, Santa, 1970–
The beekeeper’s daughter : a novel / Santa Montefiore.—First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition.
pages ; cm
I. Title.
PR6113.O544B44 2015
823'.92—dc23
2014021457
ISBN 978-1-4767-3541-2
ISBN 978-1-4767-3546-7 (ebook)
The Beekeeper's Daughter Page 35