A very different sort of book for me but enjoyable non the less! Thank you netgalley for letting me read this one!

Here is the Beehive is a poignant and captivating exploration of love, loss, and the complexities of human relationships. Crossan weaves a compelling tale that delves deep into the heart of grief and longing.

At its core, Here is the Beehive revolves around Ana, a married woman who embarks on an affair with Connor, a successful lawyer. When Connor unexpectedly dies, Ana is left grappling with the aftermath of their relationship and the secrets they shared.

Crossan' explores themes of identity, desire, and the search for redemption, painting a vivid and evocative portrait of a woman on the brink of self-discovery.

This book is told in verse as are a lot of this authors books
She manages to tackle difficult subjects so well
The characters in this book are unlikeable and I had no emotional connection to them
This altered my enjoyment of the book

Thoroughly interesting and beautifully written. I will look out other books by this aythor after reading. Thank you net galley

Crossan is an auto buy author, her style is unique and entrancing. Poetic and emotional , she never sets a foot wrong…

Wow, I'll never forget this book.

I found this book devastating, and heartbreaking and moving. Bleak too. Thanks for the chance to read this book.

I have loved a lot of Sarah Crossan's books, especially her books in verse so when I saw that she was releasing a book for adults, I jumped at the chance to review it. While there were parts of this book that I found enjoyable, Here Is The Beehive fell a little flat for me but I will still read any other books she releases.

First I'm going to start with the negatives so we can get to the stuff that I did like. Overall, I think that the book was always going to be something that I didn't like but I still wanted to support the author as I am not a massive fan of cheating, which is a massive part of the book. When it takes up so much space in the story it can distract from what good there is.

Sarah Crossan obviously knows how to write prose and poetry and this is still evident in the book but I still had some problems with it. Ana's voice is very distinctive which I can argue is a good thing because throughout I think she is a compelling character that the reader has to root for but I don't think that this happens throughout.

I found at times that Ana's voice came across as uninteresting and I didn't really want to follow her as a character in a story I didn't really care about. For me, characters are everything and when I can't connect to a character, I can't connect with the book.

This comes hand in hand with the writing which I did for the most part enjoy. Sarah Crossan knows how to craft words and verse and this is still evident throughout the book and was obviously part of why I carried on reading. It is also really short so that is also why I continued.

But I have been hooked on her writing before. I have stayed up way too late reading her books before. I know she can hook me as a reader but this just didn't do it which is so disappointing and it, in fact, took me a while to finish this one.

Maybe I just had too high expectations for this book but I know there are going to be people who love it. I just wasn't one of them.

I will of course still support Sarah Crossan in the future because I know I can love her books!

The Verdict:

Here Is The Beehive is a book that deals with cheating perfectly and should find its audience and those who love it.

I’m a huge Sarah Crossan fan. I adored all her other works and this was certainly no different. Written in Sarah’s typical style. Here is a beautiful, real, raw story that I just adore.
Thank you to both NetGalley and publishers for gifting me this book

The Here is the Beehive is an emotionally powerful story by Sarah Crossan, a gripping and thought-provoking examination of a clandestine love affair and its devastating consequences.

Ana's life is torn apart when her affair with Connor, a client at her law firm, is suddenly exposed when he passes away. His death raises many questions for Ana as she comes to terms with the immense guilt she has for engaging in the forbidden relationship and also has to face his grieving wife Rebecca. The book takes a deep and often uncomfortable look at the idea of "what if" - the anguish of wondering what could have been if their affair was out in the open, if it had had the chance to bloom and bear fruit.

The characters are full of life and all face the moral quandary of whether a secret, consensual relationship is truly a transgression or simply a longing to be loved. The writing style is fluid and affecting, drawing us into the emotional experience that Ana has gone through as her grief becomes real.

Here is the Beehive is a mesmerizing, powerful tale that invites the reader to confront their own feelings on such an important, if complicated, matter. The message is poignant and will stay with you long after you've finished the story.

I've struggled to write a review for this one because while it is a beautiful novel in terms of writing, I hated it. I loathe adultery, cheating, lying and all forms of deceit. I have never been able to muster even the slightest sympathy for those who engage in those types of practices and unfortunately that spilled over to here. I didn't like existing in Ana's headspace even in the fictional world. I felt like she deserved everything that she went through and found myself trying to zoom through the book as quickly as possible. The other cover that I have seen in shops does look very nice and I wish Sarah Crossan all the best as I have heard very positive things about her writing in other contexts. I am just the wrong person to read a novel about adultery - I should clarify here that I have never experienced this kind of betrayal myself, it has just always disgusted me.

Really liked this - similar to Sarah's Young Adult books which are also told in verse, but upgraded enough for an adult audience. I liked the premise a lot

I was surprisingly very absorbed in this read - with the unusual structure of almost verse and the format on page, this slightly shocking story of the grief of a mistress, (no word for that, not like widow, I realised), with the backstory of how affair developed from initial flirtation, had me reading on to see how this would develop. It almost read like a script with a lot of dialogue, with the onus on the reader to fill in the gaps with imagination of how said etc. I wasn't sure where it was going for a lot of it, as it was character driven, which is not my usual forte,
Also interesting was Ana's difficult relationship with parents and sister, as Ana is on outskirts a lot. I think dysfunctional relationships are perennially interesting to a reader.
Particularly towards the end I found grabbed my attention, as Ana starts to question over who is the bad guy in Connor's relationship and whether their relationship was as sold to Ana, how Connor seemed to have warped things to suit his narrative, placating her by making Rebecca the weak, incompetent needy wife draining his life away. I liked that it ends with Ana and the reader not quite sure, with Rebecca as not the stereotypical harridan wife. all in all, a surprising read.

The story depicts the aftermath of a 7 year long affair with a married client that ends when she finally demads him to choose. He couldn’t choose to walk away from his wife and 3 boys so Ana ends the affair and stops taking his calls. The narrative, which is written in verse form kept my attention and helped to punctuate and define thoughts and feelings. He panics at the abrupt end of their love affair and the thought of not seeing Ana again and in not wanting it to end this way, (unbeknown to Ana) he races his bike through the streets of London towards her but on the way he is knocked down and killed by a van.

Ana only learns of his death when his wife comes into her office to execute his will and Ana is floored. The main body of the book shows Ana looking for fragments of him, of them wherever she can; their conversations, their connection, their promises. She finds herself wanting to get closer to his wife to glean some validation of his love for her, any scrap of evidence of her existence in his home life, looking for any sign of unhappiness in his marriage.

I don’t personally condone marital affairs but, I did feel empathy for Ana. I really felt her pain being unable to fully grieve her loss. I saw the frustration and a full view of the emotions of the other woman,

Ana left an impression on me.

This is a quick read (& I could have finished in a day if life didn't keep getting in the way) - written in verse (of sorts). It feels like it is a monologue of Ana's thoughts and memories particularly in relation to her affair with a married man, Connor. At the start of the book Ana discovers that Connor has died, and what follows is a narrated rambling through the ins and outs of the affair; how it started, her thoughts on what it meant to each of them and how it affected her own marriage and family responsibilities. Ana is obsessed with Connor and sets out to connect with his wife, Rebecca, which seems to be an attempt to fuel her addiction to him in grief.

The verse layout helped give the book a rhythm that the author manipulated brilliantly to either speed up or slow down the pace of the story - although the nature of this also meant it regularly totally confused me - occasionally feeling disjointed, and often feeling like some of the parts were odd to have even been included - i.e. there is no introduction to what is happening in the snippet you are reading and you are left trying to piece it together and work out what on earth is going on - I'm looking at you 'chocolates for the caretaker whilst a car is stuck in snow blocking the school entrance'.

This was a bit of a slow-burner but it was a nice read in the end. Would recommend it. I don’t think would read it again though.

This story begins at the end of an affair – brought short by the sudden death of Connor. It follows Ana’s memories of the affair alongside the way she copes (or doesn’t) with the situation.

The story is told in verse form, which makes every word, every line, every scene compacted into what is really important. Rather than making things feel underdeveloped, the author’s skill means that you learn so much about each character, each situation, in a few well-chosen words and situations.

Ana isn’t very nice. She’s selfish, and self-absorbed. But she’s also deeply unhappy, and the narrative doesn’t try to excuse her, or her behaviour, it simply shows us what she is like, what she does, and how that affects those around her.

The narrative is packed full of emotion – love, hate, jealousy, guilt, but it never feels overdone, just realistic, considering the characters and the situation.

It’s a fairly short read, but no less a whole story – I read it in a couple of days which is unusual for me at the moment as I have so much else to do! So that’s a testament to how much I enjoyed it.

Engrossing and dark, I really enjoyed this. Lots of metaphors and subtext that have make this book re-readable. Thoroughly enjoyed.

It's got a short, snappy style but it certainly packed a punch.

Covering an important topic rarely discussed this is sure to resonate with a variety of people.

This was my first Crossan but it will not be my last.

I really don't get on with books written in prose so this was a struggle for me. Whilst I am super intrigued by the plot, I DNF'd at 35%.

This book was so unexpected in its form but also in the way it tells a story that’s as old as the hills, but seems to make it fresh and new. Ana is telling us about the affair she had with Connor, a client at the law firm where she works. We’re told in two separate timelines, the before and after. It was interesting to go from the difficulties in her marriage and the start of the affair, to the aftermath of a woman alone and suffocating under the weight of all that has happened. The form was free verse, something I believe is Crossan’s trademark. It takes a little while to drop into the rhythm but once you do it is so evocative. Poetry says things that prose can’t and its that licence that gives the book its unique, raw and emotional feel.