The Beekeeper’s Promise
Chateau Bellevue is initially a beautiful safe haven in rural France, where good news and celebration abound. It’s 1938, and the world is on the brink of a second world war. Abi Howes, who has been taking a yoga retreat after suffering an abusive marriage and a terrible car accident, decides to accept work at Chateau Bellevue. She’s a broken woman beginning to inch forward toward wholeness. Eliane Martin, who hires Abi, is part of the family which owns the chateau. Eliane raises bees on the chateau grounds and is an herbalist who supplies the town with healing concoctions. She’s also madly in love with Mathieu Dubosq. When the Germans finally invade France, they cut Germany into occupied zones, and Eliane is unable to contact Mathieu by any means. However, the family does what it can to assist the Resistance. This, then is the story of using one’s inner strength to help one’s family and country. Eliane participates in passing messages. Abi, hearing about the bland experiences that belie how frightening and brutal the reality was, draws strength and resilience of her own to grow more than she ever has before.
However, the character of Abi is not well-defined beyond the repetition of her having no sense of self. For the Martin family, the sense of shared suffering and strength, even in the face of collaborators’ envious attempts to have this unique family arrested, is depicted with depth. The Beekeeper’s Promise is not just another war story; it’s a tribute to humanity’s greatest assets and a patriotic bond of support in the face of a historical nightmare. Highly recommended historical fiction.
