Bumblebee Season: A Novel

From Eileen Garvin, nationally bestselling author of The Music of Bees and Crow Talk, a heartwarming new story that returns to the vibrant world of beekeeping in a small Oregon town

Beekeeper Jake Stevenson should be celebrating. His fledgling honey farm has been inundated with orders. Instead, Jake is worried. He can’t seem to hire anyone—with local teens more interested in jobs at Hood River’s hip waterfront—and there’s no way he can handle the approaching harvest all by himself, no matter how adept he’s become at maneuvering among the beehives in his wheelchair.

Meanwhile Flaco López, a young migrant from Mexico, is lost on Mount Hood when he stumbles upon Jake’s beehives in a high alpine meadow. As Flaco takes refuge on Jake’s farm, they begin to form a tentative friendship. And the two soon cross paths with Abigail Plue, a scientist more interested in insects than people, who’s on Mount Hood studying a threatened native bumblebee.

Then a local rabble rouser begins to rally support to build a commercial hunting camp that would destroy Mount Hood’s pristine wilderness—the home of Jake’s honeybees and Abigail’s beloved bumblebees. And Jake, Abigail, and Flaco must come together to protect everything they hold dear. Full of warmth, big-hearted characters, and a celebration of nature in all its complexity, Bumblebee Season reminds us that human connection might just be the most powerful force there is.