Featured Book: The Honeymaker's Daughter
​My new Featured Book is my latest novel, YA fantasy The Honeymaker’s Daughter. (Please note this book can be read and enjoyed by adults of all ages).
Amber Winterbourne is desperate to learn the secrets of her past but must also find the courage to face them. When Amber meets magician Merrillion Cloudhunter, everything changes in ways she had never imagined. An argument with an old enemy leads to a terrifying trial, and Amber is forced into a series of overwhelming choices. At the same time her father, the village honeymaker, is keeping secrets about the past and the mother Amber never knew. When Merrillion’s magic shows Amber the power of the bees she has hated all her life but which is hers by right, she must decide once and for all who she will become.
Amber: I wrote this novel as I wanted to give a powerful voice and sense of purpose to a young woman on the brink of some devastating and life-changing discoveries. Amber is the kind of woman I wished I’d been when I was young. Like me, she’s odd, doesn’t fit in with anyone around her and finds it hard to make friends. But, unlike me, she’s prepared to speak up for herself, ask questions and stand her ground when she needs to. The much younger me envies her that. Her only surviving family is her father. Because of this, Amber is desperate to learn more about her mother, but her father is a man of few words, and refuses to tell her anything. He has his reasons. As a result, the relationship Amber has with him is a challenging one. Indeed, she finds it hard to step outside the shadow of his influence, but she must do so in order to discover her true worth.
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Merrillion: The magician first encounters Amber at the start of the novel. A colourful and mysterious figure, he is someone she finds both fascinating and very difficult to deal with. This is partly due to his inherent strangeness, and partly due to the challenges he sets before her. Merrillion is a powerful practitioner of magic, but he carries his own secrets. Whilst he appears to be on the side of Amber and her father as they clash with the villagers, Amber remains uncertain if she can fully trust him or his unknown agendas. She is unsure if he is truly a friend or an enemy.
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The Bees: The bees and the art of honeymaking are an essential strand of my novel, and a key factor in how the story unfolds. I myself am very fond of both bees and honey, and it was a joy to include them in my book. At the beginning, Amber is terrified of the bees, in spite of her father’s honeymaking profession. She tries to ignore them as much as she can, instead taking refuge in the joy she receives from her beloved garden. But it’s an unavoidable fact that the bees are part of Amber’s journey into adulthood. She must come to terms with their magical powers if she is to have any hope of becoming who she truly is at all.​​​​​​
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Find out more about this magical and exciting book here!
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Meanwhile, counterintuitively,
here are 5 Reasons to HATE This Book!
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​​​​​​​Buy the ebook here
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