The Beekeeper's Son by Kelly Irvin: book review

The Beekeeper’s Son: The Amish Of Bee County – Part 1 (2014) is set in Tynan, south Texas, along the southern border of Bee County, in a small remote Amish community.

Abigail’s husband Timothy Lantz has died, leaving her with their five children: four daughters and a son. Her brother John Mast convinces her to move from Tennessee to Texas to begin a new life, and to marry her former boyfriend Stephen Stetler, who is now in Bee County. Her daughter, Deborah Lantz, is 19 years old and not happy about the move.

Mordecai King is a bachelor and good at telling funny stories. His wife died in an accident that also badly disfigured his son Phineas, the second of his five children.

Phineas doesn’t mind being on his own, tending the 300 hives, but his father wants him to marry. Phineas, disfigured and disillusioned, does not know the meaning of fun, and lives in his own world of beekeeping.

Life is not easy, for it is full of heartache and sadness, which tests everyone’s faith, especially that of Phineas King, the beekeeper’s son. This romance story is light and easy to read, but with a rushed and predictable ending.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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