Review for Of Bees and Mist by Erick Setiawan

From the back cover of the ARC:

Erick Setiawan's debut in an engrossing fable that chronicles three generations of women under one family tree- their galvanic love and passion, their shifting alliances, their cultural beliefs, their complex domestic politics- and places them in a mythical town where spirits and spells, witchcraft and demons, and ghosts and clairvoyance are everyday reality.

Meridia grows up in a loveless home until she falls in love and , at age sixteen ,marries Daniel- a caring and naive young man. Soon, they have a child of their own, and Meridia can finally escape to live with her husband's family-unaware that they harbor dark secrets of their own. There isa grave hidden in the garden, there are two sisters groomed from birth to despise each other, and there is Eva-The formidable matriach and the wickedest monster-in-law imaginable-- whose grievances swarm the air in an army of bees. As Meridia struggles to keep her young family together, she discovers long-kept secrets about her own past as well as the shocking truths about her new family.
My Review:

All I can say about this book is wow. This book sucked me in from the beginning. The characters were well-developed and real. I could relate to just about all of them. You saw behind their motives and you learned why they did the things they did. This book was far from predictable I was shocked to the end. For a debut author Mr. Setiawan wrote a very good novel. I have been advertising it to everyone. I even offered to let my husband who is a non- reader to read it. I am not usually a supernatural type person but this was not all this story was about it was about family and pain. It was the interweaving of relationships of two families. Its about women and men. I can't say enough about this book. You have to go read it. This will be my favorite of the year. Nothing I have read since has held my attention as much as this one. I look forward to more from this author.

I give it a 5/5