The Handmaid’s Tale meets The Hunger Games in this brilliantly imagined debut occur an ancient culture where only the queen may breed and deformity means death.

Flora 717 is a sanitation employee, a member of the cheapest caste in her orchard hive where work and sacrifice are the highest virtues and worship from the beloved Queen the only religious beliefs. But Flora isn’t like other bees. With circumstances threatening the hive’s survival, her curiosity is undoubtedly a dangerous flaw but her courage and about The Bees: A Novel strength are a secured asset. She is permitted to give food to the newborns in the royal nursery and to become a forager, flying only and free to gather pollen. She also discovers her way in to the Queen’s inner sanctum, where she discovers mysteries about the hive that are both serious and ominous.

But when Flora breaks one of the most sacred law of all-daring to problem the Queen’s fertility-enemies abound, from the fearsome fertility law enforcement who enforce the strict social hierarchy to the high priestesses jealously wedded to power. Her deepest intuition to serve and sacrifice are now overshadowed by an even deeper desire, a brutal maternal love that will bring her into turmoil with her conscience, her center, her society-and business lead her to unthinkable deeds.

Fascinating, suspenseful and spectacularly imaginative, The Bees provides us a amazing young heroine and can change forever how you go through the world outdoors your window.