I was prepared to not like The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, biased as I was by the phenomenal buzz (sorry!) it generated. But no worries. Secret Life is well worth the buzz. Lily is a 14-year-old white girl in 1964 South Carolina. The most powerful influences in her life are her African-American nanny and the loving mother she accidentally shot and killed as a toddler. When the nanny is jailed and beaten, Lily breaks her out, and they run away to a trio of beekeeping sisters who worship a black Madonna (formerly a ship's figurehead). On a personal note, last summer we rented a cabin on the Puget Sound. It was a lovely place: right on the ocean where we dug clams and picked oysters every day, and drifted up and down the beach on the tide. The house was simple but soul-nurturing, with wooden floors throughout, and sofas to curl up in and read. And bookcases, three of them, filled with a collection as eclectic as ours. My husband and I both read The Secret Life of Bees while we were there, and we left it for the owners. We mentioned that we’d left a book, but we didn’t say which one. We got a note from them a month later. They’d spent a week in the cabin, and both of them had read Secret Life and enjoyed it as much as we did. Wildly original and deeply moving, Secret Life has rich characters, a historically important setting, and a plot to carry the reader through. All the characters are flawed; all the characters are redeemed. Horrible tragedies occur; individuals are raised to glory. This book is perfectly crafted, and we'll be talking about it for decades.