The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows by Olivia Waite: Audiobook Review

The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows by Olivia Waite is a sweet romance set in 1820.

Agatha is a widower and the owner of a printing business and she is facing the day-to-day rise in costs, competition and the suppression of printers known for printing radical materials. Her son is an idealistic young man whose head is more in politics than in helping his mother with the business.

When Agatha finds a colony of bees in her warehouse it becomes just another thing on her plate.

But when Penelope Flood, the beekeeper, comes to take away the bees then a spark of something ignites between them.

Penelope is an unusual sort. Known for prancing about in her husband’s pants as she tends to her hives, keeping company with spinsters and not caring all that much for rules — like not killing the entire colony in order to collect the honey.

And when she meets Agatha a fast friendship forms. But there is something a little more intense than friendship there, simmering under the surface.

Wring and Story

This is a gentle story of two women from different circles finding one another. I enjoyed being immersed in the political landscape and day-to-day life in an entertaining and interesting way.

Narration

I recommend the audiobook. Narrated by Morag Sims, this was a well-paced story with clear and unique characters, making it easy to keep track of everyone.

Heads up

Penelope is married but it’s a marriage of convenience. Her husband is gay and in a relationship with her brother. They are both off at sea for most of the book.

The Conclusion

A lovely addition to the Feminine Pursuits series and a complete stand-alone so no need to read or listen to the other two in order to understand this one.

But if you are a fan of sweet romances set in a rich historical setting then Olivia Waite is a great author to pick up. Especially if you love to really dig into historical beekeeping or printing. The day-to-day details in this book were phenomenally done.

The audiobooks have excellent narration for any fans of reading with your ears.

Excerpt from The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows by Olivia Waite

The gold-and-black-velvet bodies of honeybees danced from blossom to blossom, bearing their harvest back to their home hives. Insect wings caught the morning sunlight, tiny flashes of film and filigree that dazzled the eye and gentled the spirit.

That gentleness was deceptive, however: in a month or so, summer’s bounty would make the bees as lazy and languorous as dowager duchesses, but in spring they were still sharp with winter’s hunger and liable to sting anyone threatening their growing stores of honey and comb.

The trick was to be respectful, but not fearful. Bees could smell panic. So Penelope ambled from one hive to the next, knocking softly on the straw coils to get the bees’ attention, then murmuring condolences on the passing of their mistress. Each knock set the hives buzzing softly, a small cloud of worker bees twirling up from the hive entrance to see who dared disturb their home in swarming season—but Penelope kept her movements slow and smooth and her voice low, and the bees soon settled again.

When she’d told the news to all six hives she stood by the fountain for a while, pulling the gloves off and tucking them in her pocket.

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