Dancing with Bees by Australian author Anna Maynard is a beautifully romantic work of fiction with plenty of emotional sensitivity, realism, and sweet moments.
Thirty-three-year-old Sunny Moritz feels a strong urge to change her life, she has a hunger for happiness and satisfaction. She is tired of soulless romances and disappointing her parents, who feel like she is floating through life without any clear plan or goals. With an interest to keep bees in her backyard she seeks help.
Alan is determined to go back to the Antarctic to further his career. In the meantime, he assists people in beekeeping. When he receives a message from Sunny to help her get started in beekeeping, he is more than happy to share his vast knowledge.
Though starting over feels difficult for Sunny, she is lucky to have a new challenge in beekeeping, especially when it takes an interesting turn when she finds herself developing feelings for the handsome scientist. Is she ready to give life and love another chance?
The storytelling is a thorough blend of steamy romance, humour, and unpredictability. The writing style is simple, and the dialogue flows freely. With an engaging plot that has depth, it held me spellbound until the end.
Maynard has written some incredibly clever, likeable, and interesting characters who more than endeared themselves to me. Each brought something new to the story, they are well-developed with flaws and questionable decisions that make them human and relatable.
Sunny is a woman that I could not help but like, even though her life is lacking direction, she acknowledges and has the insight to make necessary changes. I found myself rooting for her many times. I loved the profound exploration of her interest in beekeeping and taking steps to change her life and reconnect with her parents.
Alan is delivered with just as much compassion and realism as Sunny and given his own standing in the story, rather than just being an accessory to it. He is strong, determined, successful, and has so much patience with Sunny. I enjoyed the development in their relationship.
I also liked the beekeeping element. It is a fascinating process to plan, organise, control, coordinate and operate apiaries, whether done as a hobby or professionally. It must be such a rewarding job to produce honey and other products and to care for such beautiful insects. The Tasmanian landscape was perfect for the setting.
The cover is well executed with a gorgeous design, colour palette and large font. It is bold in its quietness and suits the subject perfectly. It is a definite stand out on the shelf to pique a reader’s interest.
Dancing with Bees is a very well-written story that will thrill readers to the last page. It is funny, sassy, and energetic story. Anna Maynard is a skilled, exceptional writer who fans of romance books will be happy to discover. I will be looking for more books by this wonderful author. I highly recommend.
Thank you, Beauty and Lace and Echo Publishing, for the opportunity to read and review.
A selection of our Beauty and Lace Club members are reading Dancing With Bees by Anna Maynard. You can read their comments below, or add your own review.
My love of books started at a very young age. My mum has always been a reader and encouraged me to read, buying me endless book from classic fairy tales advancing to the world of Enid Blyton, CS Lewis, Louisa May Alcott, Kathryn Kenny, Carolyn Keene, Francine Pascal. In my adult years the list of authors is endless and every room in my house is filled with books.
One of my favourite novels is Narnia which has always has a special place in my heart. I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes in 1978 and when I was given this book to read it let me escape to another world where I felt like I was in the book with all the characters, it wasfun and exciting to escape from reality and eased the ups and downs of the disease at such a young age.
In books nothing is impossible and there is endless potential and hundreds of places to explore or being taken to places that are only made up from the authors’ great minds, the past and future to navigate, characters lives you step into taking you on an emotional rollercoaster ride or being scared out of your wits. I can experience things that I can’t in real life because they’re not possible or real. It challenges my perspective and mindset expanding my worldview.
I find joy, comfort and peace with books, many people may not get it, but I know bookworms like me truly understand. Reading makes my heart happy.
Dancing with Bees by Anna Maynard (Echo Publishing) is a thoroughly delightful, easy to read story that is loaded with charm, humour and disarmingly insightful pearls of wisdom!
The main character Sunny, is a funny, chaotic single woman who has slowly come to realise that at the age of 33 she needs something more in her life. She decides to start beekeeping and enlists the help of Al, someone she assumes is a typical retired old beekeeper. When Al turns out to be a young gorgeous but eccentric scientist, things get very interesting!
Effortlessly exploring themes like family ties, friendship, teenage rebelliousness, and parenthood as well as the joys of beekeeping, this book is both amusingly entertaining whilst imparting some very worldly wisdom.
More than just a romance, and like the honey bee this story sips from life’s sweet moments to show Sunny what’s meant to bee!
Thank you to Beauty and Lace, Echo Publishing and Anna Maynard for the opportunity to read Dancing with Bees.
This is a story about Sunny, a woman who dabbles in a lot of different things while she tries to find her true passion in life. She decides to get bees and through a spur of the moment decision, she embraces educating herself and seeking guidance from Al who helps set up her hives.
Sunny starts to critically evaluate her life and throughout the story, she is able to explore her life, what is important to her and whether her relationship behaviours with family, friends and lovers are serving her well and what she needs to do to improve these things.
The story explores all facets of emotions in a gentle manner while staying true to the characters and events that help shape them. Highly recommended.
Dancing with Bees is a sweet as honey, slow burn romance that is as fun as it funny.
It’s a light read but it doesn’t stop it from being meaningful with some strong topics being covered. Empathy, understanding and gentleness was seen throughout the pages.
The characters were great to read and I loved how the use of nicknames made them more real. Their interactions and connections were fun and touching, building a great story.
The bees added another element to the story, their presence helping drive the plot, and even adding an educational element. I now know that bees are prolific dancers.
This was a great read and one I wholeheartedly recommend to anyone seeking a story that will leave them smiling.
Dancing with Bees was a book that to start with I thought was going to be just another romance story but this book was so much more. There were parts where I found myself laughing out loud and other parts where I had tears streaming down my face because when Sunny was dealing with her Mum dying of Cancer it brought back so many memories for me even though my relationship with my Mum was as on edge as Sunny’s was with her Mum.
I dont keep bees like Sunny but my neighbour does. Sadly for her the beeman she has is perhaps the model for Al’s website.
This book seeed to work so much into the pages and I really foubnd that I loved this story and even read parts out to my partner and we both had a chuckle.
This would be a wonderful Easter Gift book for those that dont like the calories of chocolate.