Keeper of the Bees by Meg Kassel

Title: Keeper of the Bees
Author: Meg Kassel
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Publication date: September 4, 2018
Pages: 304
Source/format: Hardcover//Publisher

Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Synopsis (from goodreads.com):

KEEPER OF THE BEES is a tale of two teens who are both beautiful and beastly, and whose pasts are entangled in surprising and heartbreaking ways.

Dresden is cursed. His chest houses a hive of bees that he can’t stop from stinging people with psychosis-inducing venom. His face is a shifting montage of all the people who have died because of those stings. And he has been this way for centuries—since he was eighteen and magic flowed through his homeland, corrupting its people.

He follows harbingers of death, so at least his curse only affects those about to die anyway. But when he arrives in a Midwest town marked for death, he encounters Essie, a seventeen-year-old girl who suffers from debilitating delusions and hallucinations. His bees want to sting her on sight. But Essie doesn’t see a monster when she looks at Dresden.

Essie is fascinated and delighted by his changing features. Risking his own life, he holds back his bees and spares her. What starts out as a simple act of mercy ends up unraveling Dresden’s solitary life and Essie’s tormented one. Their impossible romance might even be powerful enough to unravel a centuries-old curse.

M Y  T H O U G H T S

Keeper of the Bees is a companion novel to Black Birds of the Gallows. Dresden is cursed harboring bees inside of his body with the sole purpose of following harbingers of death and assisting them in an arrangement by targeting those who are vulnerable and are at the brink of death with a deadly bee sting. However, in Concordia, Missouri he meets Essie Roane, a girl who is not afraid of him and can see the face others can't see. Essie hallucinates and sees delusions for most of her life. When she meets Dresden, she views him like poetry, beautiful in every way as the montage of faces of those who die flicker and change within him. She describes how he smells like honey and she is no afraid of the guy that claims that he wants to kill her.

Meg Kassel has a way of writing which sweeps you off your feet wanting more. Diving into this paranormal romance novel is a treat! The novel is very atmospheric full of detailed descriptions of the surroundings and touching the five senses. Dresden and Essie are not your average couple. They both have unusual traits that are not deemed normal by society. But they both see pass each other's flaws and embrace each other's individuality.

Keeper of the Bees is a loose retelling of Beauty of the Beast. We have Dresden who physically is not appealing but most people do not see his real face; they see a generic face. And then we have Essie who is deemed odd because of her hallucinations. Essie's family is actually has a long history of mental illness. Those in the Wickerton line that are too much to handle are often sent to the Stanton House. Essie's father wants her committed but Essie is trying to avoid the Stanton House at all costs. Her Aunt Bel is doing all she can do avoid committing Essie. However, Dresden finds out some haunting information of how the Wickerton curse started.

Kassel introduces us to another type of species in the novel. A Strawman works in a different arrangement than how a Beekeeper and a Harbinger work together. The Strawman tells Dresden that he is there to make sure Dresden rights a wrong. Dresden has no clue what this means until the end of the book. Unlike in Black Birds of the Gallows, Dresden the Beekeeper and Michael the Harbinger are friends.

The novel alternates between chapters with Dresden's and Essie's POVs. Although there is instalove in this novel, the attraction is more about showcasing the love of a person as a whole and not focusing on typical traits. Those who read Black Birds of the Gallows will notice some familiar faces in Keeper of the Bees. Because of the nature of the novel, there are some instances of death, sexual assault and verbal abuse.

Keeper of the Bees is a dark paranormal romance for readers who are looking for a book beyond the average witch, vampire or werewolf novel. It's a hypnotizing romance where the reader is rooting for Dresden's and Essie's happy ending.